Little Boutiques

StartupJournal: On a recent trip to the local mall, Suzy Lee ran her usual errands, shopping for her two children at Gymboree and buying makeup and a few basics at Neiman Marcus.
But before leaving, she made a slight detour to Talulah G, a boutique with a name most shoppers wouldn’t recognize. The independently-owned shop, which opened at the Las Vegas Fashion Mall in 2002, sells designer clothes by Valentino, Theory, Balenciaga and Chloé, as well as by hot young designers such as Pegah Anvarian and Ella Moss by Pamella Protzel.
“A department store might carry the same lines, but Talulah G will have a quirkier take on it. It’s not so mainstream,” says Ms. Lee, 38-years-old, who bought herself a white Michael Kors summer suit and a pair of Citizens of Humanity jeans. She says she stops in at the store a few times a month, whenever she has other things to do at the mall.
America’s megamalls, built in the 1970s to showcase big department stores and national specialty chains, have begun to embrace the little guys, a new crop of quirky independent fashion boutiques. As sales at their department-store anchors continue to sag, malls seeking to diversify and increase traffic have been courting these trendy start-ups, which offer intimate service and carefully edited collections from a variety of high-end designers. Some properties even offer leasing and marketing incentives to lure boutiques and the style-savvy clientele that follows them.
As Malls Think Small, Boutiques Get A Chance [StartupJournal]