To Market, We Go!
We are just home from a great trip to Atlanta Market to stock up on the most adorable baby footies and blankets, Easter dresses, patriotic prints, and playsets for next spring and summer!
I've always been so intrigued with the concept of Market and would love to hear and see anything I could from local store owners' visits. I always had FOMO, it looked like so much fun, and I wanted to be a part of it. It seemed like an endless shopping spree. Now I have a much different perspective after three days of back-to-back appointments and a million choices and size selections that make your brain mush, but it's so thrilling to pick our favorite pieces and plan how they will be worn. I absolutely love it. The days are very intense but so exciting.
We do our buys in Atlanta because our smocked, southern, classic clothing brands all set up shop at "the Mart." America's Mart is the World's largest collection of wholesale gift, decor, and apparel showrooms. Four enormous buildings with numerous floors filled with thousands of vendors. Floor 13 of Building 3 is dedicated solely to Children's lines, and that's where we park ourselves. It's *almost* as exciting as the wholesale diamond floor.
Our trip started with a 4am wake-up call for me and Tiffani (my invaluable sidekick and brilliant store manager) to catch our 6am flight to Atlanta to make our three-hour appointment with our best-selling, cult favorite, The Beaufort Bonnet Company. Every year their line gets cuter and cuter, and their darling Spring arrivals will start coming our way in December; brace yourself, they are amazing (Fall is arriving now and flying off the racks). We immediately scoot to our other best-seller brand, Little English, right after for super cute classic pieces that have always been adored by customers. Running late, we rush to another three-hour appointment to design my favorite Luigi pieces - adorable play clothes where we get to customize shirts and short colors, embroidery, and appliques. I'm in heaven designing (cute!) truck shirts, dino shorts, rainbow dresses, and shamrock sweaters -- coming in adult sizes this year!! I always remind my Luigi rep that they are one of the reasons I wanted a children's store. I was having a hard time finding their clothes
for my boys and if we had to wear construction trucks on every outfit, I needed them to be adorable. Luigi is an incredible line: really cute, well priced and great quality. It's a feeding frenzy when their shipments are delivered to the store. We finished the day hangry, cross-eyed, and exhausted but so, so happy with Viva La Fete, who always makes sweet, smocked shirts and dresses that we can't keep in stock.
After inhaling a cheeseburger in my pjs at the hotel, I was asleep at nine and ready to repeat the day two more times.
We stocked up on unicorns, excavators, rainbows, American flags, jon jons, sailboats, hydrangea and tulip prints, tennis dresses, every fruit you can think of, amazing bathing suits and rash guards, the greatest Easter dresses (and bonnets!), fishies, baby bubbles, golf carts, donut prints, new toys, sweet bags, and PJ...always, always, always... lots of PJs!! We were very conscious of trying to buy more for girls in sizes 8-12 because we are slowly but surely bringing more options for girls in what can be a tricky size range. Luckily for me, when buying for children, we don't really have to worry about trends (classic never goes out of style); we just pick the things that spark joy and will bring a big smile to our customers' faces. Hopefully, we have succeeded.
Now comes the hours and hours of number crunching, budgeting, cutting, rethinking and editing the buy, and then praying that it sells. I'm grateful every minute to have Tiffani's organized, methodical mind. She actually remembers what we bought in the appointment before and keeps my chaos to a minimum. I couldn't and can't do it without her.
And let's be honest, I would be remiss not to mention one of the greatest perks of Market... as a crazed and sleep-deprived mom… having two glorious nights in a quiet hotel room to myself cannot be beat.
We can't wait for you to see what we picked! Here are a few snapshots:
