Pop music filled the air as the line for the fitting rooms wrapped around the store at the grand opening of fab’rik, a women's clothing boutique, Thursday night.
The spirit of the crowd and downtown Auburn were familiar sights for Allison Melson, COO of fab’rik and a 2002 graduate of Auburn University.
Melson has been pushing to open a fab’rik in Auburn since she joined the company, but she wanted to wait for a location in downtown Auburn.
“It’s just really cool to see your work collide with your school,” Melson said. “I’ve been a part of us opening almost every store in this company and to be able to come back here, open a store and just see your work come to life. I can’t even come up with the right words to describe it, but I love it.”
The grand opening, from 5-7 p.m., was filled with Auburn students and community members. Fab’rik CEO Dana Spinola was among the guests Thursday night.
“I cannot wait for this community to get to know what fab’rik’s really about,” Spinola said. “Fab’rik’s mission statement is ‘High Style with Heart.’ It’s obvious to see the high style piece, but when you get to know ‘heart’ and what we do for communities. I think you’ll find the heartbeat of this company is so beautiful.”
Members of fab’rik’s corporate team weren’t the only ones excited to attend the grand opening. The Auburn community packed the store throughout the evening, some forming a line outside of the store 30 minutes before the event began.
“I know I’ve seen the store in Birmingham before, so I was like 'I know I like the store,'" said Emily O'Mary, senior in early childhood education, as she browsed through the racks during the grand-opening event. "I think it’s really cool. I think it’s nice to have another good store downtown.”
Tanya Fuller, Auburn's fab’rik owner, and her daughter Kelsey Fuller, fab’rik manager and senior in apparel merchandising, have been searching for the perfect spot to open their franchise. That search took two years but the mother-daughter pair could not be happier with the location.
“I love downtown,” Tanya said. “Downtown is my favorite thing. My dream was always to have a boutique look out on College [Street] and enjoy the atmosphere of it. It’s a great atmosphere.”
The Fullers didn’t want to open just any boutique, they wanted a boutique that would help them give back to the community they love.
“It’s [fab’rik] very community based, in every community that it’s in,” Tanya said. “That’s the most important thing to me, was to give back to the community. Bring all of the ladies in and make them feel beautiful in an affordable way.”
The store isn’t just providing the mother-daughter team with a bonding experience, it’s giving Kelsey the retail job she has been looking for to practice the skills she learned in her apparel merchandising classes.
“For all of the mannequins we put up in our store, I used all of the things I learned in my visual merchandising class,” Kelsey said. “Just being able to get that hands-on experience is what is so important whenever you’re an apparel merchandising student because you can know everything from the books, and you can take tests, but until you actually practice it in real life, it doesn’t really come naturally.”
Fab’rik Auburn is now open at 140 N. College St. Suite 102 Monday to Saturday 10 a.m.-7 p.m. and Sunday 1-5 p.m.
Do you like this story? The Plainsman doesn't accept money from tuition or student fees, and we don't charge a subscription fee. But you can donate to support The Plainsman.
