The days of pushing your way through droves of people, that lingering food court stench permeating your noise, and meeting up with your friends to shop Mallrats style are over.
The days of pushing your way through droves of people, that lingering food court stench permeating your noise, and meeting up with your friends to shop Mallrats style are over.
Online shopping has certainly made are lives easier, but you forgo the personal experience of one on one help and it’s always a gamble with what you buy. But what if there was a better way that combined shopping with convenience?
One local husband and wife are hoping to do just that with their new business, Textures Trend Company, an online and mobile fashion retailer bringing the latest trends to the women and men of Richmond and the surrounding areas.
“We have everything that you would find in a store basically,” said Harneet Kalra, co-owner of the company. “We’re taking the convenience to people instead of them going to stores and having to make the trip.”
Launched near the end of last month, Kalra, and her husband Chris Suarez have packed a colorful truck with their clothes, a fitting room and 105 square feet of space and plan to take it around Richmond, parking at several local businesses to bring the shopping experience to those on the go.
Selling men and women’s attire and accessories, Textures Trend Company carries a collection that is modern, bold and colorful, and mostly intricate prints, patterns and designs.
They currently park their truck outside Whole Foods in Short Pump every Friday from 3 pm to 7 pm, but Suarez said they hope to take it to music festivals, food truck courts, breweries and other events around town.
“Just to give people something else to do,” he said. “When you’re bored on the weekends and just want to hang out I feel like going to a store gives you that experience and good vibe, it’s something we wanted to bring to people.”
Pieces from Textures Trend company range from around $7 for accessories up to $60 for a wrap dress and Kalra said most of the collection is meant to transition from day to night.
“We have dresses you can where to work and if you’re going out after you can keep the same outfit,” she said. “The most important thing for me is quality. I want to have pieces that are not just trendy, but will last you throughout the year.”
She added they aren’t targeting one particular audience either.
“We have something for everyone. Our age group is from a 13-year-old to 45 years old.”
Suarez added they are trying to appeal to all styles and fashions.
“From the preppy to the more artsy we’re trying to get a gauge and feel of pieces that we think will do well.”
For now, the duo has partnered with wholesale designers on the West Coast for their collection, but Suarez has bigger plans for the near future.
“We’ve got some Brazilian designers with us, but other than that we definitely want to expand to have our own label pretty soon,” he said.
Kalra said for inspiration for her collection, she tries out different looks, and takes cues from celebrities to keep up with the current trends.
“I love colors, everything that we have in our truck is colorful, but I like to dress up and I myself will try different looks,” she said. “It changes every day and for me that’s very important especially picking out pieces, I don’t want to have the same pieces, I want different looks.”
Kalra said they plan to have an inspiration wall in their truck where she will try on the clothes and take pictures of all her looks for shoppers to get some ideas.
The VCU graduates started kicking around the idea last April. With Kalra’s flair for style, and their combined background in retail, it was the perfect combination for a startup.
“It was one way to start something for us we had this idea, it came from the west coast,” Suarez said. “It came down to she loves fashion, I did marketing at VCU, our roots are here…”
Not having the funds for a brick and mortar, the two opted for a cheaper, but more creative approach.
“We wanted to go around where everybody wanted to be,” he said. “We’re trying to do things differently. “If food trucks can do it, why can’t we?”
The two partnered with local muralist Mickael Broth for the artwork on the side of their truck in April.
“My brother skateboards too and that was kind of the link up,” said Suarez. “We talked with him and he had a lot of fractal patterns and for us since Textures our name, we didn’t want to put a static pattern or wrap we wanted something different. “I told him let’s keep it minimalistic.”
Beyond local venues, the couple plans to bring their mobile fashion concept to other states.
“We can go to DC, to VA Beach, just anywhere really,” Suarez said. “Really the sky is the limit honestly, I feel like, bring it to people and we’ll go from there. I want to do music festivals I want to do Lockn’, FIrefly up in Maryland, why can’t we be anywhere, if people can eat people can shop too.”
The couple and business partners plan to start selling children’s clothes next year and eventually have a brick and mortar store.
You can find Textures Clothing Company at the Filipino Festival Aug. 12 and 13th at Our Lady of Lourdes in Henrico and the Carytown Watermelon Festival Sunday, August 14th.
