Right now, in the fall, they’re already purchasing for spring and summer. The way the national chains usually buy is by season. Q: Is it difficult competing with chain stores?Ī: I like to think of what we can provide our clientele that the national chains can’t. She was like, “OK, this is going to test how much you really want to make this happen.” So I started the online store instead of a brick-and-mortar. Then I called my business adviser, and she helped me change the mindset of it. I couldn’t enjoy my weekend because I knew I was going to have to come in on Monday and tell you that we couldn’t give you money to fund your business idea.”Īfter pouring my life into the business plan for three months, I didn’t know what to do, so I let myself ugly-cry for a little bit. I remember distinctly meeting with the gentleman on a Monday, and he told me to my face, “I have been dreading this meeting all weekend. Then I had a meeting with the funding that she set up. I doubt we’re going to have problems getting funding.” Q: Tell me how you started your business.Ī: I thought it was going to be easy! I had gotten a business adviser at the (University of Texas at San Antonio) Small Business Development Center, and she was like, “Go ahead, your business plan is amazing. So I miss downtown, but I don’t regret my decision. To be around that atmosphere for a good six weeks, it makes you feel warm and fuzzy inside, because it reminds you of being younger. I’ll miss being downtown during the holidays, because that’s my favorite time of year in San Antonio, so beautiful. Although I don’t have the walk-through that I did when I was around the corner from the River Walk, the location itself hasn’t been a deterrent. Q: Do you find that your customers who live on the North Side mind coming over here?Ī:I think they prefer parking here as opposed to parking downtown. When we see each other in the parking lot, we’re like, “Oh, how was your pop-up?” We’re able to encourage each other.
#Eye candy clothing skin
And my friend Lika from In The Weeds Natural Skin Care. Chocolatier, who sets up at the Pearl Farmers Market and has her chocolates at Hotel Emma, she’s in the next part of the building. Q: How do you like being on the West Side?Ī: I find it to be invigorating because I have a lot of customers that will come to the showroom and be like, “Oh, my grandma lives around the corner,” or, “We used to come visit my aunt all the time here.”Īlso, the community that I’m in here - there are businesses in the next 11 units, so we have a good neighborhood here.
The following has been edited for brevity and clarity. 3 at the Winter Wonderland celebration at Incarnate Word High School, her alma mater.įernandez recently sat for an interview to discuss her decision to move to the West Side and how she has coped with supply-chain disruptions, among other challenges. She is now preparing to open her first pop-up shop in nearly two years, on Dec. “At that point, I was like, ‘Well, why am I going to work for a company when I can work for myself three times as hard?’” “I realized that 10 years had gone by, and I always had this want to have my own business and I never really pursued it,” she said. She opened Eye Candy after working as a store manager and a stint in the insurance industry.
She and her friends had been having trouble finding clothing in that area and wrote up a business plan for a plus-size store as an assignment for an entrepreneurship class.Īfter graduating with a degree in fashion, she went on to earn a master’s in fashion merchandising from the University of North Texas.
Fernandez, who grew up in San Antonio, came up with the idea for Eye Candy Boutique while an undergraduate at Texas State University.
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