Kimberly Pedrick was living in Boston when she saw a small boutique in New Haven, Connecticut, listed for sale online. The previous owner was stepping away after 25 years, leaving a loyal customer base and an inventory stocked with women’s apparel, artisan jewelry and accessories.
“I came to New Haven to visit the shop and instantly fell in love with the entire area,” Pedrick says of the shop’s location on historic Chapel Street, across from Yale University. “It was very turnkey; it had all the components I was looking to purchase, so I took a plunge and didn’t look back.”
After purchasing the store in November 2005, Pedrick continued operating it for a year before renaming it idiom “with a decidedly lowercase i.” It means “a style or artistic expression characteristic of an individual,” she describes. By adding her distinctive sense of style to the store, Pedrick keeps customers coming back, while drawing in a new generation of shoppers.
Pedrick’s retail footprint in the Chapel Street Historic District doubled when she added another store, dwell New Haven, just two doors down from her first shop. This retail location is a lifestyle boutique featuring home decor, gifts, and more. As the community continues to grow and evolve, Pedrick leverages both stores to enhance New Haven’s vibrant retail appeal.
Retail experience
After graduating from the University of Maryland with a psychology degree, Pedrick interviewed for an entry-level customer service position at a financial institution in Boston.
Blues and whites draw the customer in to these displays at dwell.
Photos: Karissa Van Tassel
“It would have been a nice position, but it didn’t enthuse me,” she says. After the interview, she walked into Lord & Taylor, America’s oldest department store, and asked if they offered a management training program.
“That’s how my start in retail began,” she says. “Right out of college, I had a staff of about 25. It was a great experience managing people. I got a lot of exposure to the behind-the-scenes operations, and really immersed myself in it.”
After eight years at Lord & Taylor, where she served as area sales manager, Pedrick moved to Neiman Marcus and managed sales and customer service for another four years. “Throughout this time, I was thinking that one day it would be great to own my own shop,” she says. “That was the long-term goal.”
Pedrick started looking at existing businesses for sale in Boston, and they “just weren’t quite captivating my attention,” according to her. But when she expanded her search to Connecticut and found Endelman Gallery in New Haven, the stars seemed to align.
“The store had been performing well, and it had a loyal client following,” she says. “For the first year, I kept everything the same: the merchandise, the staff and the name. I didn’t want to disrupt a business that was doing well. I wanted to continue the legacy and grow it, so I just observed and then gradually made tweaks.”
The previous owner even consulted with Pedrick for the first six months to hand over buying responsibilities and the other “ins and outs of boutique retail.” Pedrick, who was 29 when she purchased the store, spent time getting to know the customers before making any drastic changes. Throughout the transition, retaining employees was essential to Pedrick’s smooth takeover.
“Having the existing staff stay on was key for me, because they had all been there for quite a while,” Pedrick says. “That was so important because it gave the customers a comfort level to see the same faces. The employees were able to introduce me as the new owner, so it wasn’t a complete turnover.”
Merchandising style
A year after purchasing the store, Pedrick held a grand reopening to unveil the new name, idiom. The interior of the 1,000-square-foot space got a facelift, with a fresh coat of white paint on the built-in cabinets and neutral gray on the walls. She added eye-catching wallpaper behind the counter featuring a gold floral pattern on a black background and updated the lighting throughout the store to brighten the space.
The evolution of the store’s inventory was slower and subtler. As Pedrick started selecting and styling her own merchandise, idiom’s new identity gradually emerged.
Customers like dwell’s selection of name-dropped home decor.
“Even when looking at the same clothing lines, my eye is going to buy a little differently than the previous owner,” Pedrick says. “I never tried to buy the way I thought she was buying. I had to go with my instinct and buy what I appreciated: quality, craftsmanship, or some other detail that spoke to me.”
Pedrick still offers many of the same lines that Endelman’s originally carried, including Eileen Fisher apparel — which, she says, “has been a staple line for basically the lifetime of the shop,” dating back more than 30 years.
“As an apparel retailer, it’s important to have your tried-and-true lines that people know you’re going to have,” Pedrick says. “But it’s always good to add something new. Each season I try to pick up at least two new lines from the apparel shows, just to keep it fresh and add some variety.”
Pedrick organizes products by vendor, with separate displays for brands like Joseph Ribkoff, Cut Loose, Sympli, Fly London, Latico, and TokyoMilk. On the shelves above each cabinet, she showcases handbags and other accessories styled on stacks of vintage books. Artisan jewelry from designers like Colleen Mauer, Catherine Weitzman, Ayala Bar, Phyrra, Stephen Estelle, and Susan Roberts is displayed in its own room, dubbed “The Jewel Box.”
“The aesthetic I have created, the way things are displayed, and the colorful combinations that we use really make the store feel fresh and distinctively mine,” she says.
Lifestyle addition
About a decade after buying the store, Pedrick began experimenting with gift items in idiom’s inventory. “We started with candles and then added some baby items, and a few things here and there,” she says. “It was all performing well, so I saw that there was an opportunity, but I didn’t want to give up more of idiom’s space.”
So, when retail space became available two doors down in September 2017, Pedrick decided to open a second store called dwell to offer gifts, decor, barware, paper products, pet and baby items — allowing idiom to focus on apparel and accessories.
As her first opportunity to create a new store in an empty space, Pedrick paid attention to the details by creatively repurposing old furniture for her displays. For example, repainted china cabinets showcase stationery, old garden carts hold outdoor decor, and a vintage metal bedframe displays pillows and blankets.
“I wanted it to feel like home, so having vintage pieces with a history and a story meant so much more to me than just buying typical store displays,” she says. “Even without the product assortment, it really had a vibe.”
Pedrick scouts for products at gift shows like NY Now, Shoppe Object, and even online at the Faire marketplace. In the store, she organizes merchandise by product category, arranging shelves by color so shoppers can gravitate toward their preferred palette, whether bright and bold or rustic and muted. Using her eye for design, Pedrick packs a wide range of categories into a small space of about 1,200 square feet.
“That’s where my merchandising experience comes into play,” Pedrick says. “It feels like a cohesive store because of the way the displays are done.”
Local customers
Thanks to their close proximity, idiom and dwell share many of the same customers, while each serving a distinct retail niche. Pedrick doesn’t carry any of the same products or vendors in either location. Signs inside both shops invite customers to visit the sister store down the street, with special cross-promotions during the holidays. Customers see Pedrick and her shop dog, a Cavapoo named Haven, bouncing between both locations, with help from one employee at idiom, two at dwell, and another part-time worker split between both shops.
Over the past few years, Pedrick has noticed the customer base at both stores shifting.
“Pre-pandemic, our customer base was mostly 40-plus professionals, predominantly women, who worked downtown and came in at lunchtime,” she says. “Over the past year or so, our customer demographics have evolved as New Haven has gone through a pretty big burst of new residences. We’re now seeing the 20- and 30-somethings on a much more regular basis. That’s what you want as a retail shop: You want to keep bringing in that next generation.”
Although male customers shop at idiom regularly to buy gifts, “dwell obviously has a much broader appeal,” Pedrick says. With a variety of gifts from baby items to barware, dwell serves a wider demographic base of all ages. It draws in more Yale students and New Haven visitors — especially those in search of local souvenirs.
At dwell, Pedrick offers a wide assortment of souvenirs emblazoned with the name of the city, Yale University’s iconic blue “Y,” or maps of Connecticut. Tote bags, towels, coasters, stickers, mugs, pillows and other gifts share her love of the surroundings.
“We have so much New Haven pride that I just want to shout it from the rooftop,” Pedrick says. “A big portion of our product lines is New Haven and Yale merchandise. The Yale stuff does well year-round, but especially at graduation time; we put that right in the window and it will fly out.”
“We aren’t just selling a sweater, a mug, a pillow — we’re selling an experience. I want somebody to come in and not only get the product they need, but enjoy the experience of being in this environment.”
— Kimberly Pedrick
Besides putting local place names on products, Pedrick sources locally made items, like artisanal herbal teas from Connecticut’s Whole Harmony and honey from Wing Dance Apiary in nearby Cheshire. In fact, Pedrick says, local honey is one of her store’s bestselling items.
“We have been concentrating on Connecticut-made,” she says. “That has become more of a push for us over the last year or so — and from the consumer perspective, too, people are looking for that.”
Community support
While social media and word-of-mouth keep customers coming through both of Pedrick’s stores, she credits the local merchants association with building a consistent buzz that brings people downtown.
“ ...We’re very fortunate to be in this type of community where we all work as a collective,” she says,
Pedrick serves as president of the Chapel Street Merchants Association, which focuses on the Shops at Yale, a collection of more than 65 local boutiques, cafes, and restaurants. She’s also on the board of the Greater New Haven Chamber of Commerce and the city’s Town Green District, a business improvement district focused on keeping downtown safe, clean, and prosperous.
“It’s always important to take an active role within your community if you want it to be better,” Pedrick says. “The way the community gets stronger is from the involvement of everyone doing their part.”
As part of the community for nearly two decades now, Pedrick is committed to making New Haven a vibrant destination with unique boutiques like idiom and dwell. In a world where shoppers can buy most items online, the key to keeping customers coming back goes beyond the products.
“We aren’t just selling a sweater, a mug, a pillow — we’re selling an experience,” Pedrick says. “I want somebody to come in and not only get the product they need, but enjoy the experience of being in this environment. I want to create a vibe more than just having products go out the door.”
