A Peek Inside of Someday in the Arts District
Retail Spotlight
By: Emma North
Audie McDougall’s store Someday is a sustainable shop with a home-grown aesthetic. She tries to fill her store with goods that tell a story. These goods tell her story in particular, using inspiration from her parents and following her own style and sustainability goals McDougall has created a unique shopping experience in the Richmond Arts District. Vintage goods, high quality sustainable items, and vivacious plants all meet inside Someday.
Macrame wall hangings hang behind a tree in the front of Someday.
“I do my best to find products that aren’t available at least in the immediate area or even really in the city,” McDougall said. “I try to not only find interesting stuff but also find stuff that is gonna be new and different for customers that shop locally.”
McDougall finds products to sell from sustainable and eco-friendly small scale makers. She has found a lot of her favorite makers on instagram. “The internet makes the world really small so some of the folks I’ve been following [on Instagram] before I even had this in motion,” McDougall said. She sells pottery from a ceramicist in New York, locally made goat milk soap from the Freckled Farm, and more. In addition to internet finds, McDougall stocks items that were used in her house growing up. She grew up using Bürstenhaus Redecker products at home and now she has a stock of their brooms, sponges, dusters and more available in her store.
Scrubbing brushes, spongers, and dusters from Burstenhaus Redecker.
In addition to newly made products McDougall does a lot of vintage hunting and stocks her store with hand selected vintages pieces. Before the store opened McDougall and her husband went searching for vintage pieces at estate sales and even traveled to Pennsylvania and New York looking for the perfect items for her store.
The other big thing that McDougall sells is plants. Her dad got some plants for the shop when it was first opening and the plants have really taken off. “Plants have been such a surprise hit,” McDougall said. “Folks love plants and its been really fun kind of collecting different varieties and learning about them.” The plants have done particularly well with local customers because it saves them a trip to stores farther away like Lowes.
A flowering plant perched in the front window of Someday.
While McDougall may be new to selling plants, she is no stranger to retail. She started off in high school working at Nordstrom. “I really connected with their approach to customer service,” McDougall said. Since then she has worked for Anthropologie in New York, Philadelphia, and Richmond. For the five years before she opened Someday, McDougall was running retail at Ledbury.
Working at Ledbury is what influenced her decision to open her shop in the Arts District. She was able to witness people coming into the neighborhood to shop and see the success of other shops such as Verdalina. “Moving here and seeing the response from the neighborhood has been amazing,” McDougall said. “Not just the other store owners but the people who actually live, shop and work in this neighborhood have been so supportive and so positive, it has really blown me away.”
New and vintage goods stock the sleeves in Someday.
Now that she has her own store, McDougall has been able to further enjoy her favorite thing about retail. “One of the things I’ve really liked throughout my retail career is meeting folks,” McDougall said. And now being able to connect with a group of customers who is really in line with my worldview.”
Furniture and displays make the store feel like a home.
She has also been able to prioritize selling products that encourage a zero or low waste lifestyle. “I think it’s just part of being a conscious consumer these days is we’ve got to be looking for products that are sustainable and eco-friendly,” McDougall said. She hopes that by providing environmentally conscious products she can help set herself and her customers up to be successful in creating less waste. While she recognizes the difficulty of achieving a perfect zero waste lifestyle she says is “trying to do little things each day.”
