Garbolino Boutique: Bringing You Fashion From Around The World

Garbolino Boutique is a unique business in how Monique, the owner/founder, strives to bring beautiful clothes from around the world to both her boutique in Providence, Rhode Island and her online boutique. The clothes that fill her boutique represent slow fashion and are ethically produced. This is just one of the things I love about Garbolino Boutique. The others are Monique’s passion and mission, and the clothes, both of which you can read about and see below.

Monique, what is your background and how did you learn the techniques/skills to design and sew clothes?

 I am a Rhode Island School of Design alumni. I learned the art of patternmaking working with an expert head seamstress who trained and worked with Oscar De La Renta in the Dominican Republic. She taught me everything necessary to create patterns for a high end line of handcrafted silk clothing and she worked for our brand ‘Garbolino’ for 10 years. My design ethos came from my upbringing: growing up in LA, with a Mom who worked as manager of an upscale department store in downtown LA & was dressed to kill every day of my childhood. I basically grew up inside a high end department store in the fashion capital of Los Angeles.

Do you still have your own line?

No, I currently focus on sharing the creative expertise and design of smaller-known brands who I believe deserve greater recognition. With my background of fit, fabric, fashion & expert personal styling on many many women I can choose brands that are the absolute best fabrics, styles & cuts that are flattering on women’s bodies.I also have the ability to forecast fashion trends for my business & customers.

What made you decide to open a boutique?  

Check out our About Us page for more info!

How do you decide which designers to carry? 

Intuition! I curate & forecast our selection based on several factors, one of them being what is currently trending in Europe. European fashion is usually 2 years ahead of what’s available in America, so I take a lot of inspiration and influence from there. I also choose to work with designers who carry the same fashion integrity as Garbolino; well tailored clothing, luxurious all natural fibers; always enhancing a woman’s beauty with simplicity, elegance & style. We also heavily focus on highlighting brands that have developed sustainability initiatives and have made their production processes more ethical. And Fashion is Art so we are always seeking contemporary creative clothing brands that you can’t find in the US.

What is a day like for you?

My day typically starts with opening up the boutique and catching up on any work I didn’t get around to the day before. This can range from answering emails, replying to customer questions, etc. Depending on the day, I’ll have virtual check-in meetings with my business advisor and others on my digital team. Throughout the day I’ll work with customers via in-person at the boutique or fulfilling and packing orders with care. I’ll also spend a lot of time planning the next-steps for my business which can range anywhere from creating content for our social media sales channels, forecasting & buying future inventory I’d like to bring to the boutique, styling photoshoots, working with my web designer on website improvements & finding inspiration for my creative direction etc. As you can see, a lot of my time is poured into my business!

What is your favorite part of owning and running your boutique? The hardest part?

One of my favorite parts is getting to share life-transforming moments with customers when I style them. There’s no greater feeling than knowing you helped bring confidence and power into a woman’s life by making them feel & look beautiful through fashion. I also love my global connections with amazing designers & finding emerging talent to represent at Garbolino. 

The hardest part? I would say the hardest part is managing all aspects of the business on my own. I primarily run Garbolino on my own – I cover all of the finances/expenses, inventory, creative direction, business operations, customer service, and everything in between. Although I love my business and what I do, it is definitely challenging at times running it on my own. Since launching the website during Covid it has been such a huge financial & creative undertaking – I constantly have to address my own burnout.

What is the meaning of your name Garbolino?

It’s my family name!

And a question I always ask–If I had a boutique I’d want to keep everything I sell. Are you like that? If you are, how do you keep from doing so?

I definitely agree with that! Everything I sell through Garbolino is something I envision myself having – I would never share anything I don’t resonate with. In fact, you can find many of the pieces I carry at Garbolino in my closet because I truly love the designs. To keep myself from owning everything I sell, I always think back to my mission: to bring the best quality fashion garments to our customers all over the world. My goal is to share my passion for style and design with others so that they too can feel confident and beautiful in their everyday lives. This means that my focus is completely on the customer and making their experience with Garbolino a memorable one.

After reading this and seeing the clothes I’m sure you can understand why I think Garbolino Boutique is so special. Take a peek and let me know what you think! I’m know you’ll be happy you did! Oh, and don’t forget to use the code boredhousewife10 for 10% off your order!