Lutherville Business Puts the ‘Chic’ in Kids Clothes

The options for kids clothing traditionally have been limited to traditional patterns or “skulls and crossbones,” in the opinion of one Lutherville business owner.

Enter Bridget Quinn Stickline and her -located kids clothing boutique, .

Quinn Stickline took a giant leap and left her job as a vice president at a corporate designer swimwear company to open her own business in 2009.

“I saw a void in the market because there was classic and then there was skulls and crossbones and nothing in between,” Quinn Stickline said. “That’s where my aesthetic was. I’m kind of in the middle—contemporary, modern, but still age appropriate.”

For 16 years she said she played the “corporate game,” before becoming pregnant with her now-5-year-old daughter. 

“When you have children, your whole world, the axis shifts,” she said.
She realized that the long days, stretching into the late hours of the night, wouldn’t bode well with a new infant on the way.

“This idea [to open a kids’ clothing store] was born from shopping for her and not finding things that appealed to me,” Quinn Stickline said. “If I’m going to put it on my baby, I want it to feel really good and I wasn’t finding that combination in this market.”

Three years later, Wee Chic has become a cornerstone of the Green Spring Station shopping plaza.

“It was an adventure,” Quinn Stickline said.

Quality is king at Wee Chic, where the average garment might sell higher than at a Target or Walmart.

“My model is that my price points are not the cheapest in town. They are never going to compete with someone who is doing all of their production in a factory in China,” Quinn Stickline said. “[But] kids are really tactile. A lot of children struggle with lesser quality fabrics. They don’t wash well. ... So when the child is wearing them they are not as comfortable as the kid wants them to be and that’s going to lead to those 8 a.m. screaming fights.

“If you can avoid that, it’s worth an extra $15,” said the self-described “fabric-phile.”

This mentality, Quinn Stickline believes, is what makes parents consider “buying an $28 t-shirt.” Better quality clothing wears longer and can be passed down to younger children, she added.

Wee Chic has weathered a recession and has come out on the other side with a loyal customer base, she said. She mentioned anecdotally a customer, Tracey Fruman, who stopped by for the event two weeks ago.

“She’s been a customer since I’ve opened the doors. I know her children. I’ve watched them grow up. I met her when her first son was young. She had her second child after the store opened. He literally walked for the first time wearing a pair of my swim trunks,” Quinn Stickline said. “You don’t anticipate that kind of thing, but that’s so cool about a business this size and the hands-on contact that you have with other moms.”

Wee Chic’s clothing lines are a point of pride for Quinn Stickline who, as a former women’s merchandiser, went to great lengths with her research before deciding what would adorn her shelves.

She pulled a pink sweater off a shelf and told the story of 2H Knits, a company that trained villagers in Thailand to hand knit clothing in the home—no factories or unsafe living conditions.

“We love those kinds of stories where we can support a company that is not an unconventional model,” Quinn Stickline said. “If we do work with a company that produces in China, it’s a company that we know very well. We understand what their relationship is—whether they own the factory themselves or they are controlling quality. We really investigate the entire relationship of the supply chain so that we know that we can trust the product. This is important to me as a parent.”