Mannequins are not Barbie Dolls....

The longer that I own Why Not Boutique, the more I realize that, no matter how many "Running your own Retail Shop" or "Specialty Shops for Dummies" books you read, there are just certain things that people fail to mention.

For example...I always assumed that dressing a mannequin would be a lot like dressing a Barbie Doll...and coming from someone who played with Barbies well into the 5th grade, I just figured I would be a pro-manniquin dresser, no questions asked. Well there are several things that I failed to notice and no one thought to mention to me...

First....Barbie clothes are tailored specifically to fit a Barbie Doll. Lucky bitch...if only we all were so fortunate to have thousands of little Chinese children making clothes to our exact measurements. Putting clothes on my mannequins is much like me trying clothes on in a dressing room...should I try a small or a medium? Well the small is too small but the medium is too big so now what do I do? All of these problems point to the reason that I just stopped trying clothes on altogether. No such luck with Sammy the Mannequin though...girls gotta have clothes on....

Second....the makers of Barbie were brilliant in that they figured there was going to be millions of clumsy little girls dressing and undressing this doll, so they made her hinge at the waist...so, not only can she sit and flirt with Ken, but it's also easier to get a tight little mini dress on her because you can bend and twist her to suit your needs. Not so with a mannequin. The best you can do with her is pull her off her stand in order to make pulling a skirt on her marginally easier...at least easier than trying to get it to fit over her shoulders and boobs.

Finally...and this is a big one...Barbie has legs. Yes, I know...they make mannequins with legs, but they're just freakish looking and I'm convinced that having them in my store long term would cause nightmares. So I stuck with the classy, dress form mannequins, but what I failed to take into account is that the ones that I bought have a pole sticking straight up their butt and because of that, there is absoultly no way to put a pair of pants on this girl. Shorts are even difficult. And honestly...because she has no defined butt, pants and shorts just look ridiculous on her anyway....so what would have been nice to know was that if I was planning on carrying pants or shorts...either a mannequin with legs or with an offset pole probably would have been the way to go...

I think I'm going to write a book of practical advice for retail shop owners...anyone else have any other suggestions of things they wish someone had told them before they opened?

Good...but not great

I've been in an odd sort of funk lately. Well ok...maybe just like the past 3 hours for this particular funk, but it seems like it's been a lot longer than that. I've been thinking and I'm seriously worried though, all joking aside, that I've officially done what I always dreaded I would do - I've woken up one day and realized that I do a lot of things, but I don't do anything well nor do I do anything I'm particularly passionate about. Not to be morbid, but I sometimes think that if I died tomorrow, would I be able to look back at my life as I stand at the pearly gates of heaven (stop laughing, I will go to heaven) and say that I lived a full, passionate, exhilerating life? Right now, I don't necessarly feel that way, but sometimes I think I expect too much.

Most people are just happy to wake up each morning, be able to pay their bills, maybe go out to lunch, have a good weekend doing something fun, and then start each week over again. And that's perfectly wonderful. But I don't want to be that person. I want to be good at something, and I want to be good at something I'm passionate about. Don't get me wrong, I have a great, fortunate, full, and dare I say, blessed life. I love my business, I have a great family, some wonderful friends, but, like I said, I do a lot of things but I don't do anything well. I don't have a purpose, a passion, a calling....I mean for God's sake...I can barely get my dog to sit on command...the one thing, after two rounds of puppy school that I SHOULD be good at!

So this is my quest for 2010. Find something I'm both good at AND passionate about. Something besides a chocolate cake and ice cream eating contest because we all know that fat kid over here would be fierce at that! 

Painting with a Twist (of lime and vodka)

I've always secretly wished that I had the talent to be a starving artist. Of course, that's obviously not what most people dream of being - artist, yes - starving artist, no. But really, I would be more than happy to forego making my millions if I had even one iota of artistic talent, but alas I have absolutly none. I can't write in a straight line, let alone draw a straight line. I'm completely tone deaf and my dancing looks more like an animal dying than Swan Lake.  And yet, even with all the odds stacked up against me, I'm on a personal quest to find something artistic that I just might be good at.

Last weekend a girlfriend and I took a trip to St. Pete's Painting with a Twist where an instructor teaches an entire class one painting step by step. Frankly the only way you could possibly mess up one of these painting was if you were completely wasted (BYOB is greatly encouraged by the staff there - I think they feel it might keep people from having a nervous breakdown). The entire point is artistic license, in that you can paint your particular painting as differently as you want (different colors, different spacing, etc), but at the end of the night, you will probably walk away with a perfectly acceptable looking painting. Heeeellllloooo I've found my heaven. I mean, seriously, you might as well have just handed me a gallon of paint, a paint brush, and the broad side of a barn and told me to go to town, because with this nifty little method that Painting with a Twist has developed, YOU CAN'T FAIL. It's amazing. I'll admit, it was a lot of work, Diana and I thought, by picking a somewhat abstract looking painting, that it would be easy when in reality we picked one of the most detailed projects that PWAT offers, but I think it's pretty safe to say that, for $46, we both left there feeling pretty darn good about our mythical artistic abilities.

So what did we paint you ask? This one was a knock off of Picasso's "Girl Before the Mirror" and while it's more abstract that I usually enjoy, it's very colorful and fun.

Here is Picasso's actual painting:

Here's PWAT's interpretation:

And here's mine:

Yes, I know....absolutly brilliant right? I'm sure MOMA will be calling me any day now requesting permission to display my wonderful work of art. But until they do, I'll just sit back and admire my brilliance....