Jackson Jambalaya

 “18 years! That’s wild but I didn’t doubt I would last this long.  The only person who tried to scare me was my dad,” said Whitney Giordano Foster, the owner of Material Girls and Highland Park.  The two stores specialize in women's clothing.  

Whitney Giordano Foster

Whitney’s fondness for fashion began when she was just a girl.  “It seems silly, but I kept a little notebook as I was growing up of what I wore each day, styling my clothing so I didn’t overlap.  That was at a young, young age,” said the Material Girl.  The college coed kept collecting ideas and notes as she studied at USM.  The dreams became reality as she opened her first store in 2004, a year before she graduated from college.

How did she come up with the Material Girls name? Whitney, her mom, and her aunt went through “a bunch of ideas” but she thought of the name because she liked Madonna when she was a little girl. 

Oddly enough, Material Girls was not going to be a clothing store but more of a boutique selling jewelry, home furnishings, and gifts.  However, the Material Girl soon realized her passion was clothing so she scotched the original plans and focused on her true love. 

As for the father who tried to scare her out of opening her first store, Robert Giordano walked with his daughter into the bank to get her first loans from Trustmark.  Sadly, he passed away in 2006 but his legacy remains in her success.

She opened one of the first stores in Dogwood Festival. “I was there when Dogwood was just mud and plans.  One of my mom’s friends worked at Saks and Belks as a floor designer.  He designed the floor plan for the first Material Girls store.  Developing floor plans was quite the education for Ms. Giordano.

 
She learned about key features such as placing items at the customer’s eye level, establishing the flow of the store, and where customers were going to shop.  She said she found out how little she knew in watching her mom’s friend design her store.  However, she feels comfortable in designing her stores now after several openings.  She became adept at recognizing mistakes others make in floor design.  “Too many  stores don’t utilize eye levels.  I like having brand recognition or themes grouped together.  For example, Mississippi State colors are grouped together,” said Whitney. 

The Material Girl grew as she learned.  The store moved to a newer site on Market Street.  The store stayed there for five years before moving to its current free standing site in the Market Street parking lot.  However, there has been one small change.  The Material Girls store graduated to Highland Park.

While Material Girls focused on women in their teens to early-30’s, Highland Park caters to “the working mom,” said Whitney.  The clothing is more conservative.  She said “You graduate from Material Girls to Highland Park.”  There are Highland Park stores at Dogwood Festival and Renaissance while the only remaining Material Girls hums along at Renaissance. 

 Whitney has fifty employees.  The combined area of her three stores and warehouse is 16,000 square feet.  Her stores even offer their own private labels. 

It is said the only constant is change as Whitney soon learned. “Every time I think I’ve got it down, things change.  What’s funny is clothes I started with such as skinny jeans 18 years ago are coming back in style.  Styles always come back.  The 90’s fashion is coming back.  Next it will be the 2000’s fashion. Wait a second,” Ms. Foster pauses as she realized “that’s when I graduated from high school.” 

The real challenge, she discovered, is staying on top.  Whitney may have found success, but she remains lean and hungry.    “Nothing is put in this store without growing through me.  I am fully involved from start to finish at the store.  I do all the buying although I do have two assistant buyers,” she said. 

One major change in retail marketing is the rise of social media.  Social media such as Instagram and Facebook quickly grew from sites to exchange family photographs to major marketing tools for small businesses such as Material Girls.  Whitney was one of the first local retailers to take advantage of social media.  The Material Girls Instagram page has over 70,000 followers while Highland Park has over 26,000 followers.

“I wondered how we were going to show people (on social media) what we have in our stores.  When I started posting such pictures, Facebook just blew up," said Whitney.  She primarily uses Instagram to push her wares as it seems to be what the women in her age group use. 

Whitney would like to expand but wants to stay in her community.  She opened stores in Hattiesburg and Oxford but such expansion proved to be a mistake.  She felt very disconnected because she tends to be “hand on” with her businesses.  “When I opened Hattiesburg, I was straight out of college.  I was still involved and went down there often,” said Whitney.  Operating an Oxford store proved to be tough as it consumed her time, taking her away from her core business.

While styles change, employees change as well.  The employees she hired in the 2000’s tended to be “people persons.”  She said those employees are now attorneys and nurse practitioners.  They worked hard and grew.  The girls who come in today act is if they can not talk to people sometimes.  “They don’t connect with customers as easily.  It’s harder to get them out of their comfort zone,” said Whitney.  She agreed social media probably has something to do with these new trends.

Despite the changes, the work ethic is the same.  Employees are put through a trial period.  Some girls think the stores will be like a sorority – all fun and games.  A little bit of customer service, a little bit of modeling for social media, and hopefully a little bit of going to market.  Such fantasies are soon disabused. Whitney said “Sometimes the younger ones realize real quick it’s going to be much harder than they though it would be.  For example, the store needs to stay clean and they are going to be the ones cleaning it. I don’t think some of them get that,” she said.  Indeed, one employee steam-pressed dresses during the interview, standard operating procedure for all dresses before placing them on the floor for sale.

Only a fool would ignore online competition and Mrs. Foster is no fool.  She respects but is not intimidated by the Amazons.  Her stores offer online shopping, supported by a 6,000 square foot warehouse near Costco.  Customers can click on a picture in social media or the website, order immediately, and pick up at store or have shipped to the home.  30% of Highland Park and Material Girls sales are online. 

She said she doesn’t try to compete against the Amazons.  “I’m not them. You want cheaper, the best deal, I’d love for you to come shop my sale rack but I put a great deal of time into buying, planning, and taking care of my employees.  We ship Mississippi UPS so its ground, the next day.  If you want something and need it, you can call and come pick it up. If someone sees something online but its in the warehouse and not the store, we can make it happen for the customer,” continued Whitney. 

  While many businesses suffered during the pandemic, Whitney said sales remained the same although she and her staff worked much harder.  She said she was determined not to fold.  She said “When it’s yours, it’s yours.  I went in and said this is our game plan.” 

Make no mistake, her stores face challenges today. The economy is wild, taking business owners such as Whitney on a roller coaster ride at times.  News scares people and inflation has not yet hit her business.  Inventory challenges have been a bigger problem but most of her inventory ships from California.  “I feel like I’ve adapted well. My vendors help me out in beating shortages,” she said. 

Whitney remembered her father: “I had a good teacher, my dad.  He taught me to set goals for the day and make them.  Goals are closer than you think they are.  I’m big on you got to make mistakes to learn and grow.

 

Remember the steamer?