This is a First Look: It's the first time any news outlet or blog has covered this startup. You can read more First Looks here. (We do this a lot.)
Walking into retail stores can be overwhelming - and that’s without tossing the current holiday chaos into the mix. With most places now offering floors upon floors of inventory, shopping can feel more like a high-stakes scavenger hunt than a pleasant experience. At the same time, online shopping - albeit more efficient - is as impersonal as you can get.
Combating these drawbacks is Vala Collection - an iLab startup dedicated to discovery retail. What does that mean? It’s offering pop-up, carefully curated micro-boutiques in cities throughout the U.S.
By speaking with the venture’s founder, Megan Berry, a sense of hope has been restored: Vala is bringing back intimate shopping experiences, all while introducing consumers to the newest and coolest products coming into the market.
From school project to retail startup
Originally, the design for these miniature boutiques came from a thesis project Berry was doing for her Master’s in Architecture at Washington University in St. Louis. And when it came time for her to test her tiny shop, she pinned down emerging designers from across the country and set up in the city’s Central West End - in front of AG Jeans and Lululemon.
Shockingly, it did well.
“We featured a leatherware brand from Cleveland, Ohio, a knitware company from St. Louis and a silkware brand from Portland, Oregon,” Berry told me.
“People were really excited to see what this little box was,” she continued. “They were curious to walk through and they were happy to see 10 to 15 selected pieces for one particular category.”
That was this past summer, and now that the holiday season is upon us, Vala Collection is at it again. Only this time, they’ve set up shop in Los Angeles.
“With this holiday pop-tique it's focused on smaller items, gifting items,” Berry explained. “We’re right in front of Tory Burch, Jimmy Choo and David Yurman, which is amazing.”
This L.A. iteration of Vala Collection’s cozy pop-up includes goods from LOLI Beauty - a New York-based, DIY beauty product company - and Somerville’s own Thorn & Bloom, which makes small-batch perfumes only out of essential oils. It’s also featuring a mom-and-daughter jewelry brand from Minnesota that just launched.
Where next?
Moving forward, the startup is focusing on scaling so it can bring more curated items to new cities. Vala Collection will be showing up in New York next summer, but it also might make a possible appearance in Boston around Valentine’s Day - although Berry emphasized that the latter of the two locations isn’t set in stone.
However, you can bank on one thing: No matter where Vala shows up next, there will be an entirely new selection of unique goods specifically picked for the local area. And the compact construction that makes up its traveling boutique will be a key part of carrying out this mission.
“The smaller format of our boutique lets us go to more locations,” Berry began. “So people can stumble upon us on sidewalks, in boutique hotels, at airports or other shopping venues.”
“It also allows us to be more flexible,” she went on. “It gives us the ability to constantly change our look and create a unique customer experience every time we pop up.”
So while the venture doesn't have all of its upcoming stops on the docket just yet, Berry knows it will in due time. And, eventually, it will be changing how people will want to shop.
“We want to be the leader in discovery retail,” Berry summed it all up. “We want to put unexpected products in unexpected places.”
