Fashioned for Success
Gibson Girl Boutique is a culmination of a lifetime love of fashion for Candy Gibson. Through the years, she’s learned that it takes more than just passion to run a successful clothing business that now ships items all over the country. Here’s how she does it.
Words by Jenny Lynn Davis | Images by Ryan McGill
As a young girl, Candy Gibson would wait patiently for the next issue of the Sears catalog to come in the mail. When it arrived, she would sit down at the kitchen table and start flipping through the pages to find the women’s fashion section, inspecting every outfit on every model, and noting the patterns, fabrics, and colors. She would then daydream of walking a runway, modeling those outfits, and feeling like the queen of the world of fashion. It was a world she loved dearly then and has loved ever since.
Candy has owned and operated Gibson Girl Boutique since April 2017. Gibson Girl is a boutique located in the heart of downtown Jasper, but surprisingly Candy’s entrance into the world of fashion occurred in another locale.
“I was 19 years old, studying at Walker College, and decided to go visit my best friend after class one day,” Candy says. “She worked as a receptionist at a law office in Jasper. We were standing on the sidewalk outside of her workplace when her landlord emerged from the building and came to speak to us. Of course, that landlord was Mr. Al Blanton, or ‘Big Al,’ as everyone knew him. During our conversation, he looked at me and said, ‘Young lady, what do you do for work?’”
Candy explained she had been looking for a job in a boutique but had really been striking out. Without missing a beat, Big Al asked her, “How do you feel about going to Birmingham to work?” When she said she wouldn’t mind, he told her, “Give me a few days.” Within those few days, Candy got an interview at Mam’selle Boutique at Brookwood Village and was hired almost immediately.
“In addition to introducing me to my husband, Big Al introduced me to working in my dream field. To this day, I can still hear him, jokingly saying in that distinct Southern accent, ‘You owe me a whole lot, Candy!’” she laughs. “But it’s not a joke; I do owe him. I wouldn’t have had a successful career without him.”
From that first job at Mam’selle, to owning her own boutique, The Purple Peacock, to selling Carlisle Fashion while staying home to raise her sons, Candy learned the ins and outs of how to run a clothing business. While working as a bookkeeper for her husband’s business, Gibson Printing, she decided she wanted to ease back into the world of fashion and apply the knowledge she had acquired over the years. But it went much differently than she expected.
“I wanted to do a small online business. I got one clothing rack and filled it, and that was going to be it,” Candy says. “I would keep doing the bookwork at the printing company and this would just be a nice side project, but people were calling me and asking to come see the items in person. Very quickly one rack turned to two, and two to three, on and on, and the sales became majority in-person as opposed to online.”
Gibson Girl exists today as a hybrid brick-and-mortar and online boutique and has taken over the entire lower floor of Gibson Printing. In addition to being one of Jasper’s most beloved fashion hot spots, shoppers love the smart, stylish looks that Candy sells in her store. Candy and her team ship items weekly across the United States, to New York, California, Texas, and more. Candy values those customers and loves being an integral part in their self-expression through fashion, but she has a special fondness for her local customers.
“I’m so glad that being exclusively an online business didn’t end up working out for Gibson Girl, because part of what makes my job so enjoyable is the people we see in the store every day,” Candy says. “It would’ve been much easier to be strictly online, but it would’ve been nowhere near as rewarding.”
Candy credits the success of Gibson Girl to her loyal customer base and her dedicated team. She notes that running a clothing business is much more than greeting customers and completing their transactions; it’s hours spent keeping the store clean and orderly, researching fashion trends to make the best purchasing decisions, and marketing the product to the right audiences through the proper methods—work that she couldn’t do alone.
“The girls that help run the store, my husband Bill, and my sons Grant and Gaines all help me ensure the success of my business,” Candy says. “No one can be successful alone. You have to have a supportive team that has your back, and fortunately, I have that. I know that, because of their help, this business will have sustained success, and that is all I could ever ask.” 78