DALLAS — “It’s like a grown-up store,” said Charles Teichman, surveying his recently moved Ylang-Ylang jewelry boutique at the Galleria here. “After 18 years, we’ve reached adulthood.”
The sleek new store, located in a prime spot between Cartier and Louis Vuitton, is a dramatic improvement over Ylang-Ylang’s former home, in a turquoise and pink kiosk nestled under an escalator in the same mall.
With its blond sycamore wood cases and soft pink Venetian plaster accents, the sophisticated decor is a more suitable backdrop for Ylang-Ylang’s designer jewelry business, which brought in nearly $3 million in sales last year — in the kiosk’s 480-square-foot selling space.
“I expect it to keep going up,” said Teichman’s wife, Joanne, who holds the title of chief merchant. “Our December was up 33 percent over a record month in 2002.”
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Sales are trending up since the new store, which opened in January, is luring additional customers who previously passed by the little kiosk. Charles Teichman recalled a female client who came to the new boutique saying how happy she was to find Cathy Waterman jewelry at the mall.
“I said [to her], ‘We’ve been here 18 years and carried Waterman for six years,’ and she said, ‘No you were not,’” he said. “People come in and think it’s a new store to the mall. It’s the packaging. You spend half a million dollars and you look better and proper.”
The Teichmans have not tinkered with the merchandise mix in the new location. Waterman, who was a surprise guest at the opening party and will make a rare personal appearance on May 6, is the largest resource. Other key collections are Devon Page McCleary, Me & Ro, Ten Thousand Things and Dana Kellin. The store picked up Ileana Makri and will continue with Barry Kronen, Gurhan, Jeanine Payer, Renee Garvey and Shaesby.
The new store may have an extra 80 square feet of selling space, but it actually displays less jewelry.
“Our average inventory is the same, but we will work more from back stock and drawers,” Joanne Teichman explained. “In the old store, I filled every space with a case, and we won’t do that here. We’ll keep it clean.”