On April 28 Katie’s Kloset celebrates one-year anniversary in Sunbury

Katie Cautela (Photo by Lenny C. Lepola)

One-year anniver­saries are an impor­tant busi­ness mile­stone. They mean you’ve sur­vived, you’re still open for busi­ness, you’ve earned cus­tomer loy­alty and you’re pay­ing the bills with enough left over to live on.

That’s what Katie Cautela is cel­e­brat­ing on April 28, the one-year anniver­sary of Katie’s Kloset on the Square in Sunbury.

When Katie’s Kloset, a con­sign­ment bou­tique for women, opened last year at 21–1/2 East Granville Street, Cautela stocked the shop with many items from her own col­lec­tion of finds. Today she has 77 con­sign­ers; a num­ber that she said rep­re­sents sig­nif­i­cant growth for the first year in the con­sign­ment shop trade.

When she opened last year Cautela, who describes her­self as a treasure-hunter, said she has always shopped for slightly used, well cared for second-hand cloth­ing items.

Cautela said a lot has hap­pened in the last year. Katie’s Kloset now has a rela­tion­ship with a con­signee who brings in estate jew­elry from around the state, the shop is sell­ing new corsets by spe­cial order and there will soon be sewing classes.

“Katie’s Kloset is still basi­cally a con­sign­ment shop, but through the years I’ve worked as a self-employed pro­fes­sional seam­stress,” Cautela said. “I’ve made friends with Gail next door at Vil­lage Antiques. She has a degree in fash­ion design. In addi­tion to sewing classes, we’re going to be mak­ing our own line of up-cycled clothing.”

Katie’s Kloset will hold an Open House and One-year Birth­day Party at the shop from 11 a.m. until 3:30 p.m., on Sat­ur­day, April 28.

“We’ll have spe­cials four our one-year anniver­sary, prizes, draw­ings, a birth­day cake and soft bev­er­ages,” Cautela said. “It will be my way of thank­ing the peo­ple in the Big Wal­nut com­mu­nity for sup­port­ing Katie’s Kloset dur­ing the past year.

“I really want peo­ple to know how good this town has been to me,” Cautela con­tin­ued. “Helen at Coffee’s Antiques, Joe at Doo­dle Dips … they’ve been so good to me. Chase Bank – they’re out­stand­ing; they’ve helped me with any­thing I’ve needed busi­ness­wise. Every­body on the whole square has been very wel­com­ing dur­ing my first year in business.”

Can’t make it to the open house? Cautela said to stop in any­time, Tues­day through Sat­ur­day. Katie’s Kloset is open Tues­day through Fri­day from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., and Sat­ur­day from 11 a.m. until 3:30 p.m.; and in true con­sign­ment shop fash­ion, Cautela said, browsers are always welcome.

Katie’s Kloset fea­tures gently-used women’s cloth­ing, hats, jew­elry, shoes, hand­bags and acces­sories appro­pri­ate for almost any age woman, and corsets on spe­cial order. When you find some­thing you like, there’s a chang­ing room to try it on, and plenty of mir­rors to see what it looks like.

Cautela said poten­tial con­signees could stop by the shop or call ahead for addi­tional information.

Cautela said it’s easy for area res­i­dents to sell women’s cloth­ing through Katie’s Kloset. Every item is tagged when it comes in, and the tag is scanned at point of sale, with a 50 per­cent credit going into the seller’s account.

“If it’s some­thing valu­able I keep in touch with the con­signer,” Cautela said. “If the item doesn’t sell I’ll return it or donate it, depend­ing on the con­signees pref­er­ence. I’ll even sell for cus­tomers on eBay if they wish.

“I would like to invite every­one to stop by and intro­duce them­selves and see what we’re all about,” Cautela added. “We’re look­ing for­ward to serv­ing the Big Wal­nut community’s con­sign­ment needs dur­ing the year ahead.”

Katie’s Kloset is located at 21–1/2 East Granville Street in Sunbury

For addi­tional infor­ma­tion phone 614–935-2594, or email Cautela at < kathleencautela@yahoo.com >.

Katie Cautela also has a Katie’s Kloset Blog at < http://katiesklosetonthesquare.blogspot.com/ >, and can be found on Face­book. While on Face­book, Cautela said to check out the Sun­bury Small Busi­ness Asso­ci­a­tion Face­book page.

Posted by Gary Henery on Mar 28 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.