Many a giant international retail chain began life as a single store that grew into a two- or three-store chain and then kept right on going. It is no easy thing, of course, to identify the store here or there that will eventually reach that point. But a store like Mod — a trendy, affordable clothing-and-accessories boutique, owned and run by sisters Tania Rakel and Lauren Gaska and their mother, Marta Gaska, clearly shows promise. The young chain opened its fourth store in March. And just as clearly, it has been making an impression and gathering admirers. Patricia Kueneke, senior real estate representative for Cullinan Properties, which owns the Streets of St. Charles lifestyle center, west of St. Louis, is one.
“We pursued Mod for nearly a year before they made the decision to come to the Streets,” Kueneke said. “We loved that it is a locally owned and operated, woman-owned business.”
Mod may be a relatively recent addition to the retail market, but the Gaska name is something of an institution — at least in the St. Louis area. Marta Gaska opened Marta’s Boutique, a popular upscale women’s boutique in 1982. She and her daughters opened their second store in 2010 in Ladue, a St. Louis suburb with the highest median household income of any city in Missouri. “One of my mom’s dreams was to have a store in that area,” said Rakel. It was only after opening the boutique — on a highly trafficked road, next to other high-end boutiques, restaurants and salons — that the retailing family realized the benefits of spillover traffic, and began to see the value of shopping centers. “We hadn’t had that experience before,” Rakel said. Indeed, Marta’s was in a stand-alone building. As these entrepreneurs sought to expand further, co-tenancy became an important factor in choosing locations.
Marta’s ministered to an underserved population of older women in the region, but the sisters felt that there was a younger, fashion-forward audience in the locality, albeit one with a smaller budget, and that this audience was being ignored. They began to devise a new concept to serve these younger women, and they chose the name Mod in part for alliterative reasons. “We wanted something that started with an M so if we ever brought the two brands together, it would be really cool,” said Rakel. They opened the first Mod store a few blocks from Southern Illinois University Edwardsville, the students being their intended target market.
Young adults flocked to the store for the fashions they saw on Pinterest and Instagram for a third of the price (everything in the store goes for less than $60). “There’s such a thirst for the fast-trendy-casual trend,” said Rakel. “Having all that experience in our childhood of going on buying trips with our mom really helped us understand inventory selection.”
To keep up with the trends, the store turns over the inventory every two weeks. Before long, the name Mod and its clothing began showing up in many social-media posts. “This age group gets all their information through social-media channels,” said Rakel.
Since then, two more Mod stores have opened. Their Streets of St. Charles store marks their first experience with a lifestyle center. “We wanted to be in the area, because there are a lot of young families and colleges,” said Rakel.
Today the family is looking to become a regional brand. To do that, the women understand, they will need to change their business structure. “We are doing everything ourselves,” Rakel said. At present, all the important decisions are made by means of a vote, she says. “It works because there are three of us,” Rakel said. “But we can’t sustain that [model] if we want to grow.”
Future success relies on finding employees with similar values and styles. The sisters have begun scouting, and occasionally raiding, other stores for local talent, and they have also connected with nearby fashion programs. At the same time, they do not want to sacrifice the chain’s grassroots feel. Their marketing works, Rakel says, because it is authentic and the customers respond to that. This is partly why when they were deciding on the location of the next store, they went directly to their social-media base and asked their Instagram followers for feedback. As of now, the sisters are still culling the responses.