Willow & Bright opens in downtown Fairfield

FAIRFIELD — Shelbee Richards and Claire Reid made a decision last year to set their previous careers aside and embark on a new business venture together.

The two friends founded the women’s clothing boutique Willow & Bright in January 2022. They operated it out of Richards’ basement for the first part of the year until June 1 when they moved into their current home in downtown Fairfield at 111 N. Main St. Their inventory includes dresses, skirts, jumpsuits and rompers, just to name a few.

“We feel there’s something for everyone,” Reid said. “We cater to the 35-55 aged woman who is working outside the home, has kids and who is busy. She might need to grab something for a work event, or just wants something cute to go out in.”

Richards said one recent customer was there shopping for outfits for her senior class pictures.

In addition to clothes, the business carries candles, jewelry and accessories.

“I feel like we have a good variety, so if you’re going to a wedding, you can find something here,” Reid said. “One customer came here because she had a job interview later today, and wasn’t satisfied with what she had in her closet.”

Richards said the business has a number of name-brand jeans such as Kancan, Judy Blue Jeans and Flying Monkey Jeans.

“Our ladies love coming to shop for denim,” Reid said.

Both Richards and Reid have spent the bulk of their lives in Southeast Iowa. Richards is from Douds, and graduated from Van Buren County High School. Reid spent her early childhood in Hannibal, Missouri, before moving to Fairfield at age 7, where she graduated from Fairfield High School.

Richards worked in elementary education for 10 years, first in the Mt. Pleasant Community School District for a couple years before joining the Fairfield Community School District, where she spent eight years.

Reid went to nursing school and became a nurse in 2001, a field she spent the next 21 years in. She worked at the Jefferson County Hospital as a discharge planner, she worked in home health, and most recently at Jefferson County Health Center’s Clinic.

Richards and Reid got to know each other 12 years ago because both of their husbands, Trevor Richards and Brian Reid, work at Cambridge Investment Research. In 2020, after the Fairfield school district announced it would have a hybrid schedule of some in-person and some online instruction in response to the pandemic, Richards resigned her elementary teaching job to stay home with her children. The experience made her rethink her career ambitions, and she began pondering opening her own business.

Richards returned to teaching the following school year, but pitched the idea of opening a clothing boutique to Reid. Reid had just left nursing, opting to stay home with their youngest child, and having second thoughts about her career, too. The stress of nursing had become too much to bear, so she was intrigued at this idea from her friend to open a clothing store.

“I was not expecting that at all,” Reid said. “We hadn’t discussed that before, but I thought about it for a minute and I was like, ‘Yeah!’”

The two families were going to see each other that evening for dinner. They couldn’t wait to meet and start hashing out the details for their new business.

“I told Shelbee, ‘I am so into this,’” Reid said.

Richards said she is a last-minute shopper, and didn’t like having to drive out of town to get an outfit. Reid added that the pandemic had hurt a lot of local merchants.

“We were both sick of buying things online all the time,” Reid said. “I want to shop, and a lot of our friends felt the same way.”

Richards was still teaching at the time, so the pair had to wait a bit before they could dive head-first into the new business. They started small with online sales while stocking clothing in Richards’ basement. It felt good to open their store in June, to give the public a place to browse clothes and try them on. The two ladies do everything at the store, including modeling clothes on their website and Facebook page. They felt that being in business together would give them flexible hours and more free time, since they could trade off staffing the store during the week. However, there’s so much work to do behind the scenes that they’re working just as much as before.

The store is open Tuesday through Saturday. They each work two days during the week, and alternate Saturdays. Reid said it might seem like they have four days off, but they’re working even when the store is closed. For instance, Monday is spent cleaning, ordering clothes, and doing photos. Even when they’re home, they have to talk to vendors and work on the business’s social media presence.

One of the most frequent questions they get is where the name of the store came from, since it’s not their own names. Actually, the store’s name is a nod to their names. They looked up the original meaning of their names Shelbee and Claire. They found that Shelbee is a name of Norse origin meaning “willow,” and that Claire comes from a French word meaning “bright,” hence the name Willow & Bright.

Call Andy Hallman at 641-575-0135 or email him at andy.hallman@southeastiowaunion.com