Aries Boutique sign front (Image: submitted)
Prince William Street’s newest clothing store, Aries Boutique, is the culmination of new business owner Jessica Gavin’s dream to give Saint John locals an affordable boutique shopping experience.
“I just honestly feel like everyone deserves to have that boutique experience, it’s totally different than just going to your regular mall, says Gavin. “It’s generally very expensive when you go to a boutique, so the main goal was to have it so there was enough affordability there, that everybody could experience that boutique shopping feeling.”
Her original plan was to open a wedding boutique, but the COVID-19 pandemic led her to pivot and pursue providing women of all ages an uptown clothing option. She says all of Aries Boutique’s stock are from smaller local clothing companies, half of which are Canadian.
Gavin learned about a vacant space on Prince William Street through an acquaintance and took her time researching and planning her business, asking people for their opinions about a potential clothing store.
Aries Boutique interior (Image: submitted)
“It’s all anybody wants around here is these little boutiques to go to because there’s nothing much around, especially in the mall, especially over COVID,” she said.
Both women and men are eager for clothing stores to open uptown. Aries Boutique currently only sells women’s clothing, having opened at the beginning of July, but Gavin says she has lost count of how many men who have asked her if she is going to carry men’s clothing.
Gavin could have opened her boutique elsewhere in the city, but the increasing number of businesses opening uptown is what led her to choose her address at 106 Prince William Street.
“The more traffic there is, the more I think everybody around us succeeds because if you’re going to go uptown, you’re going to go into more than one store,” she said.
Gavin hopes more stores and boutiques will open in the future, especially with so many vacant storefronts and buildings uptown.
“Prince William is pretty vibrant most days, but it would be nice to see some of the other streets busy,” she said. “There’s a lot of vacant places that I just don’t feel should be at this point.”
This story was originally published on Huddle.Today – an Acadia Broadcasting Limited content partner.
