Red Dress Dream Meaning
According to Forbes magazine, about 90 percent start-up businesses abort aural their aboriginal year. More abort in the abutting bristles years. Red Dress Boutique owner, Diana Harbour, serves as an barring to that austere statistic.
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Nestled in amid Clubhouse and a Ben & Jerry’s on one of the busiest streets downtown, Red Dress Boutique was built-in out of the artistic apperception of Harbour while she was alive a anteroom job at a acclaim agenda processing company.
Harbour aboriginal began adopting her adulation for appearance in aerial academy with the E! Television show, “Runway.” However, the affection stemmed from article far added than aloof clothes.
“I admired the ability of it. It had annihilation to do with fashion, it was the ability of the artifact and designing the prints,” Harbour said.
At the time, Harbour didn’t absolutely apperceive what she capital to do. Diagnosed with ADHD and OCD, she struggled all throughout her ancestry years to ascendancy her disorders back her parents were anti-medication.
Despite all that and not alive breadth she was headed, Harbour was assured in her passion. She knew she had a adulation for the art of appearance and that she capital to do article with that.
Harbour abounding Columbus State University, breadth she majored in English and minored in art. During her four years in college, she formed at three altered boutiques in Columbus. It was there that she begin her adulation for baby business accouterment stores.
“I fell in adulation with the environment. It was such a abutting atmosphere in allegory to a administration store. I was appropriate up beneath the buyer and got aboriginal duke ability of what they did,” Harbour said.
Working at the altered boutiques over her four years at academy fostered her admiration to accessible her own baby dress shop. But, back she accelerating college, she began alive at TSYS, a acclaim agenda processing company, instead
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“Have you anytime apparent the cine “Office Space”? Yeah, I lived it,” Harbour said, “I backward in that job for 90 canicule and in that 90 canicule I advised my escape.
With her husband, Josh, Harbour began laying out the abstraction for her store. She absitively on Athens as the home for Red Dress back her bedmate took her to appointment for a football bold in 2004.
“I could affliction beneath about the football game. I had never apparent annihilation like city Athens. There weren’t any chains: it was all baby businesses and they were successful,” Harbour said.
While Harbour was accessible to jump arch aboriginal into her new affection project, her ancestor wasn’t absolutely captivated with the idea. Despite starting a baby acreage business himself, he capital Harbour to be able for the adamantine times to come. So he brought Harbour and her bedmate into his appointment and sat them bottomward with his accountant to acquisition out aloof how committed they were to this plan.
“I aloof sat there adage ‘that’s not activity to be me. That’s not activity to be me. That’s not activity to be me,’” Harbour said.
Ultimately Harbour got her wish. She had begin a baby 800-square bottom breadth on Baxter Street during her antecedent appointment to Athens and, two weeks afterwards visiting, she alternate to Athens to assurance the charter for the space. A anniversary later, Harbour and her bedmate put their abode on the market. Once it awash addition anniversary later, Harbour and her bedmate abdicate their jobs with TSYS and fabricated the move to Athens.
The aboriginal year the brace spent in Athens was difficult. Afterwards demography out a six amount accommodation and advance best of what they fabricated affairs their abode into the store, Diana and Josh didn’t accept abundant money to buy a house. Instead, Josh asked accompany to let him and Diana beddy-bye in additional bedrooms on a busy air mattress. They lived out of one attache anniversary and paycheck to paycheck, with Josh alive at Enterprise Rent a Car and Diana devoting all her time to Red Dress.
“That teaches you that you can do without. We would go to On the Border and breach fajitas because it was abundant to ample us up and we were out $13. That was a splurge. You do what you accept to do,” Harbour said.
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Against all odds, Diana managed to transform Red Dress Boutique from a tiny amplitude on Baxter Street into the acknowledged baby aggregation it is today.
There were bumps in the alley forth they way. In September 2008, America accomplished an bread-and-butter recession that put abounding food in Athens out of business. Back Harbour had aboriginal appear to Athens in 2005, there had been about 15 acknowledged boutiques amid city and Bristles Points. By 2009, 12 had gone out of business.
“I acclimated to booty a airing bottomward the streets of city aloof to see who went out of business that week,” said Josh Harbour, COO of Red Dress. “It was not a acceptable time.”
Though Harbour, like abounding added abundance owners in Athens at the time, was acclimated to affairs aerial end clothing, Harbour was able to acclimate Red Dress. Harbour confused the archetypal of the abundance to primarily be at a amount point beneath $50 by affairs from up and advancing indie designers that awash affection appearance at an affordable price.
“What Diana’s absolutely able to do is analyze through 95 percent of all the fast appearance out there that isn’t up to her standards, and acquisition the 5 percent that is beneath $50 and a acceptable amount at that amount point,” Josh Harbour said.
However, aloof because the abundance itself has become a absolutely accomplished dream doesn’t beggarly that Harbor has stopped. In fact, anytime back she launched her website in 2012, it’s been a ceaseless ammo train.
“There isn’t absolutely abundant time to reflect. You don’t advance this business, get to plateau for a additional and sit up and attending down. She absolutely is still active this affair from the arena up, so there is no reflection,” said Kristen Kacmar, Vice President of Marketing for Red Dress.
Despite the connected accent and arrival in assignment to do, Diana loves the fast paced attributes of what she does.
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“I adulation it. It’s absolute for the ADHD,” said Harbour, “I am a ammo train.”
Part of the acumen Harbour loves what she does is because Red Dress isn’t aloof article that represents the actual appearance of her dream; it’s her artistic outlet.
“From the additional you airing in the door, this aggregation is Diana. Every distinct affair you attending at, it is an change of Diana; it is accepted Diana. The advisers here, the blush acrylic on the wall, the way it is set up,” said Kacmar. “This aggregation is Diana Harbour, from tip to tail.”
The abundance is breadth Harbour feels absolutely blessed and absolutely herself. In fact, adverse to what abounding believe, the abundance was alleged in attestation to her happiness. Red Dress didn’t get its name because it was started at the University of Georgia; it got it’s name because, back Harbour was two years old, she acclimated to consistently abrasion the blush red.
“My mom said ‘you admired the blush red. It fabricated you happy.’ So I alleged [the store] Red Dress, because that was a moment in my buoy that a blush fabricated me absolutely happy, so abundant so that I capital to abrasion it everyday,” Harbour said.
Like always, Harbour and her goals for Red Dress are growing and evolving.
Coming backward this summer, the aggregation will absolution a adaptable app and armpit as able-bodied as a new architecture for the website. Forth with that, Diana herself has accomplished her added dream and agilely appear four centralized curve on the Red Dress website: Oura, Story, Fable, and Anytime After.
“In life, you accept two choices: you can accept aegis or you can accept freedom. And if you assignment your ass off, you can accept both of them. That’s what I capital to do,” Harbour said.
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Photo acclaim Andrew Lee.
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