Erin Duke (from left) and sisters Emily Lee and Amy Gilman, who are opening Absolute Vintage Boutique this week.
WICHITA — When first we contacted Erin Duke weeks ago about opening a retail shop in the former Brown’s Botanicals space on Maple across from Target, she asked if we could wait to report it until she had a more firm opening date.
Customers, however, did not wait.
They saw her Absolute Vintage Boutique sign and came on in.
“Women want to shop,” Duke says. “You can’t stop them.”
Duke and her husband, Brian, are opening the shop with sisters Emily Lee and Amy Gilman, who already have been selling items through Craigslist as Sisters of the Wild West.
Absolute Vintage will sell a mix of vintage, new and consignment items, including furniture, housewares, art, clothing and jewelry.
“I would say a little of everything,” Erin Duke says. “We look for pieces that are unique.”
A lot of the furniture items will be repainted, repurposed or, as Duke likes to say, “reimagined.”
They’ll use chalk paint, which creates a vintage look, and likely will sell the popular paint — not to be confused with chalkboard paint — as well.
Lee and Gillman are west-siders. The Dukes live on the east side but weren’t hesitant about having a west-side shop, in part since it’s just off of Kellogg and easily accessible from anywhere.
“We just couldn’t pass up this darling location,” Duke says.
She says it’s been a floral shop for the last half century or so.
One former greenhouse area will have its own name — Amped Hobbies — and will be especially geared to men with a lot of items related to remote-controlled hobbies.
It also will feature what Brian Duke calls “mentiques.”
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