On Monday, I closed my final retail store.
Yesterday, I was driving my son somewhere when it hit me:
This was my first Saturday without a store.
For nearly 20 years, Saturdays have meant one thing to me: retail.
Saturday is the day.
It’s your busiest day of the week. The day you schedule the most staff. The day you hope for good weather—but not too good. The day you’re checking sales, answering texts, solving problems, watching the numbers and wondering what’s happening on the floor.
Even if I wasn’t physically at the store, part of my brain was always there.
And yesterday, for the first time—other than during COVID—there was no store to worry about.
It was strange.
There was relief. There was sadness. There was a little bit of what am I supposed to be doing right now?
Because I’ve been doing this for almost 20 years.
I opened my first store in 2007, and somewhere along the way, being a retailer became a huge part of who I was. I loved the buying. I loved finding the thing before everyone else found it. I loved putting together a floor and figuring out what women would actually want to wear.
And while I’m ready to leave some parts of retail behind, I realized I’m not ready to stop doing that part.
Which is how I ended up here.
Dear Lucy Edits is my next version of the store.
There’s no lease. No stockroom. No Saturday schedule. No boxes piled up waiting to be unpacked.
But I still get to shop.
I still get to buy—just without actually buying the inventory.
I still get to tell you which pair of Frye boots I would have ordered, which jeans would have made the floor, what I think is worth your money and what I’d skip.
Twenty years of being a buyer doesn't disappear because the store is gone.
Apparently, it just looks a little different now.
Welcome to Dear Lucy Edits. 🤎
The store is gone. The buyer isn’t.
By Melissa Desautels, Founder of Dear Lucy Edits