Ro*man*ti*cize:
The art of adding something romantic to your outfit such as ruffles, lace, corsets, etc. to take it from ordinary to dreamy.
...........................................the beautiful city.
Location: 33 Rayborn Crescent (just off Riel Drive)
Hours: Wed to Sat 11 am to 3 pm or by appointment
We will do our best to accommodate most requests for appointments to shop in our store but we also need to have days off to design and refresh...we hope you understand.
More on that subject...
The shop hours are governed by my own belief that to be open every day doesn't do justice to anyone, especially me. I need time to work on my designs and to just have some down time...maybe relax a little and have a few catnaps with my cats.
This point of view is inspired by how Europeans govern themselves when it comes to work and play. They do not live to work....they work to live. A well rounded life filled with friends and good food is of paramount imortance to them and work, while necessary, is not their first priority for a life well-lived.
I love what I do. Love clothing, designing, displaying and spending time with my customers. BUT I also love quiet restful time at home and every now and then visiting with friends for coffee or dinner.
THAT is how I choose to live. My shop and customers are very important to me but so is having a life.
And that is why my store hours are so short: Wed to Sat 11 am to 3 pm (or by appointment)
"A life less busy can be good for the soul"
Enjoy your Sunday♥
This most recent move has been, by far, the longest, most stressful, difficult and challenging one yet. Partly due to my age, because, let's face it.....moving when you are young is much easier than when you are not so young. Another thing is this time 'round, there was no male partner/husband OR staff to help with the packing, heavy lifting, renovations, carrying boxes and fixtures, etc.
Back in February of this year, when I finally committed to moving my shop, I signed a lease (in St. Albert) for what I felt was the perfect space for my store. It felt right and I loved the location...an unexpected little spot in Riel Business Park in St. Albert. The icing on the cake was that I would be less than 10 minutes (driving) from home, as compared to 30 minutes plus. I was so relieved to not have to look at potential store spaces with my very patient, sweet leasing agent....that was tedious in of itself. The looking, not the agent.
BUT 4 days before I was to get the keys and take possession of the new space, the owner of the building called to tell me her building had been sold and she had to cancel my lease because the buyers wanted to occupy the whole first level of the building! Talk about having the carpet pulled out from under you...I was devastated! Could I have insisted/fought to have her honour my lease? Probably, but I knew that this was her chance to sell the building and finally retire. Who was I to take that away from this very sweet lady?
So, I called my leasing agent and we started looking....again. The problem was, none of the spaces for lease compared to the one I had signed for...not in "feel", location or anything else. I am sure that my leasing agent was growing weary of my rejections of potential locations for my shop.
During all of this, I continued to operate my store as usual, but growing more and more disillusioned and disappointed that I would never find the right spot for my new location. I did not want to stay where my shop had been for the past 12 years...for many reasons, it was time to move on.
Then one Sunday (April 16) I received a text from the new owners, asking if I was possibly still interested in the same space for which my lease had been cancelled. WHAT!?!? Of course I said that I was....and the rest is history. I couldn't believe that I had that space for my shop! Upon signing the lease, a full five months before my old lease would expire, I began planning.
Serious renovations did not start until June/July. First order of business was having a company remove the carpeting/glue so that I could have a concrete floor, like my other location. Over the course of the months that followed, my store in Edmonton kept me rather busy and I even found time to design some new clothing for the shop. I began to arrange for various things to be done at the new location while I slowly began to pack up the more obscure things. I couldn't pack too much because my store was still open for business. It wasn't until August, when the chandeliers and consequently much of my lighting source were removed, that serious packing began.
Offers to help were made by many of my longtime customers who had become my friends. However, my desire to "do everything myself" overshadowed all but the little bit of help that I accepted from a few of my friends. I am eternally grateful for their help and for the offers of help but truly, I also wanted to keep the element of surprise for when they did finally visit the new store.
Any other work that was done, carpentry, electrical, the big move, had to be paid for. I tried my best and even pushed myself to do do as much as I could myself....and that included painting the walls in the new place. It would have been so much easier to leave the walls white and for a while, I was going to. BUT the voices in the back of my brain kept whispering to me "you can't just leave the walls unpainted...you will never be happy with that". So, in the late stages of the transition, I gave in and decided to paint after all. But that meant I had to do the painting myself because no one I could hire would be able to paint the vision I saw in my head.
I also moved a ton of unpacked items to the new location in my Jeep to save from having to pack them and to perhaps save a bit of money on the big move by the movers....at least 20 loads! That meant a whole lot of loading and unloading, which made me work muscles I had forgotten were there. I hate taking pills but there were more than a few times that Tylenol was my friend. My big move was planned for August 21st....and then bam!
I was informed that my new store space had to have the ceiling redone for safety reasons. So I had to change the date of the big move to September 5th. I thought I had very carefully planned the dates for the move to coincide with the quiet time of the late summer but that was pushed ahead by a few weeks. It wasn't what I wanted, but it did give me a chance to get some special things done to make the new store look even more special, that I wouldn't otherwise have had time for. Plus, the space is now even safer and it looks even better! So it is all good.
Oh yeah...there was also a phot shoot recently with a beautiful young lady. You can see some of the images/vidoes on our Instagram page:
So, here we are, 4 days before the re-opening of the shop in St. Albert. It has been a very long move...five months in the making. Exhaustion has been my constant companion in the last few weeks, as I have been working every day to set up the new space.....every single day!
As I left yesterday, with my new sign having been installed, I experienced such a feeling of accomplishment and excitement, I was giddy with joy. This is going to be my new shop, less than a ten minute drive from home, and it is my favourite incarnation of Tattered Rose yet.
I cannot wait to see my customers and friends and make new customers and friends. Thank you to all who helped me get here....even if it was just moral support...it is so very much appreciated.
Four more sleeps.......♥
Our updated move will happen on September 5th. It will take us a while to get set up so we may have a soft opening the following week, even though we won't be 100% ready. Most of the items will be in place.
Please stay tuned for the opening date in our new location (33 Rayborn Crescent, St. Albert)....we promise, it will be worth the wait and our new Fall arrivals will be in full bloom!
The movers are coming to our Edmonton store on August 21st to take everything to our new place in St. Albert. We are hoping to be ready to re-open by mid September, just in time for our beautiful season of Fall!
On that note, we leave you with this image of this plaid dress...just one of our plaid offerings for Fall.
New items are arriving as we speak....and by the time we re-open, our store will be amazing! We love Fall.
♥
Yikes...it has been a while since we posted anything on our blog.
In our defense, we have been super busy getting the new store location ready and making all the plans necessary for the move.
We will be closed on July 1st (Canada Day) but open our regular hours before and after.
Enjoy your holiday weekend.
♥
After all this time and looking at countless potential store spaces, none of which we liked as much as the one we lost, we can happily report that things have come full circle.
This means that we WILL be moving to Riel Park in St. Albert after all...in the very same space we (almost) had!! The new owners of the building contacted me to see if I was still interested. Long story short: we got it again!
I know our Edmonton customers will not be too happy but it is strongly felt in my heart that it is time to move on from our space in Edmonton that we have occupied for the past 12 years....the longest Tattered Rose has ever been in one place! It has served us well but things are changing in the downtown area and parking is not easy to find so it is time for a new adventure.
We will be located in Riel Park at 33 Rayborn Crescent. We got the keys yesterday and are looking forward to creating a new store that we hope you will love. It will be different from our current space but we will do our best to make it a cozy, pretty place to shop for the unique clothing and home decor that we have to offer.
Please stay tuned for the exact date of the move. We will be in our current space for a few months yet so if you can make time, we hope you will be able to visit us soon, before we dismantle things.
Exciting AND scary but sometimes changes for the new and better ARE that way.
Do we think that you would wear these outfits on a daily basis, over here in Canada? No. But every now and then, an event comes up, like a wedding, a night at the opera, or a dress up evening with friends...and those would be the times you might wear black lace, or organza or velvet.
Tattered Rose has such outfits and we are always here to help you pick out pieces from the shop that will work for you.
Parisian Chic....an idea that is not new but one that we have always loved and offered our customers.
♥
Then I asked her if she would be willing to be in our next photo shoot....to which she replied "yes". She was a bit shy here but we think we can get her to relax a bit next time!
We often have so many ideas that not all of them come to fruition but we are truly hoping this photo shoot happens!
Please stay tuned.....
If THIS news disapoints you, imagine how we (I) must feel.
That new space we had leased in St. Albert fell through. The owner cancelled my lease two days before I was to take possession of the space to get it ready for Tattered Rose. She sold the building and the new owners apparently want to occupy the whole main floor, which is where our store would have been. Even though it was a legal contract, and we probably could have forced the issue, we chose not to.
This means that we are still looking for the perfect location for Tattered Rose. This also means that we may end up staying where we are if we do not find the right sdpace. Right now, things are up in the air.
This whole situation has been so stressful and heart breaking but "it will be OK in the end. And if it is not OK, then it is not the end." (to quote a line from the movie "The Best Marigold Hotel)
One thing we know for sure: we are not gong to disappear. One way or another, Tattered Rose is here to stay and we still have so much to bring our customers, it is mind-boggling!
♥
For the last few years, we have been hinting at some big changes coming to Tattered Rose. We tried really hard to continue to make things work in our current space in Edmonton but...
Well, we can finally tell you the BIG NEWS because it has finally come to fruition. After much soul searching and mind-bending consideration, we have decided that the only thing we can do is move the store. We won't go into detail since that would serve no purpose except to litter our blog with negativity. Suffice it to say, we need to go where we are treated with respect, fairness and honesty, as far as landlords go. Period. (Our regular customers know the inside scoop here)
Anyway, we are looking at this move as an exciting adventure! Our new space will be welcoming and enchanting in a hometown, old world shabby romantic way. We will not have the walk by foot traffic of our current downtown Edmonton location but we are hoping that our customers will follow us. to St. Albert, where we hope to be located as of late summer this year.
Please stay tuned for updates.
For now, we will maintain our hours of Wed through Saturday, 11 am to 3 pm. We might expand these hours closer to Spring....we'll see how things go.
Looking forward to Spring and Spring clothing!!
Bye for now....hope to see you soon.
Carol
a.k.a. Tattered Rose
It is not easy to see almost 3/4 of your store pushed aside and moved to make room for the work that is being done. It is also not easy to not be available for our customers during this part of the winter, when a little bit of retail therapy and/or a social visit would help so much.
BUT, that being said, we are so looking forward to re-opening next week (if all goes well with the job) and starting our Spring displays in the store.
We have a new line coming soon...Les Ours from France. It is a very romantic and beautfully made with an artisan aesthetic that fits so perfectly with Tattered Rose and the other lines we carry, including Magnolia Pearl and Carol Simon (our exclusive designs hand made in Alberta)
We are looking forward to seeing our customers again, putting the store back together, longer days, and new clothing!
Please stay tuned...
