Fairchild Interiors and Design to open at the Waterfront

Tuesday3:13 p.m.

WICHITA — Jan Colvin’s design career is, in a way, coming full circle.

Colvin started in the business by dressing windows for a shop in Augusta when she was 14.

She eventually went to the University of Kansas for interior design and went on to have a more than 20-year career in the business, including the last eight in Denver with Fairchild Interiors and Design.

Now, she’s returned to the Wichita area and is continuing her Fairchild Interiors, this time with retail space at the Waterfront at 13th and Webb.

“I have always wanted to have a shop,” Colvin says.

Fairchild will open in 4,200 square feet next to GM Clothes Horse shortly after Thanksgiving. (Colvin temporarily is in some space next to Doc Green’s to receive supplies.)

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By Carrie Rengers | Tags: , , , , , Filed under Retail, Waterfront | Comments (0)

You don’t say

July 8, 20092:55 p.m.

“My goal is to have nothing happen.”

— Barbara Atkinson, interim chancellor of the University of Kansas, on her hopes for her short-term leadership of KU

By Carrie Rengers | Tags: , Filed under University of Kansas, You don't say | Comments Off

Melanie Rene Jewelry to open in former Emmert’s Jewelry & Repair on East Central

July 7, 200911:22 a.m.

WICHITA — After 35 years in business, Emmert’s Jewelry & Repair at 4618 E. Central closed, but a new jewelry store is opening in its place.

Melanie Williamson hopes to open her Melanie Rene Jewelry by Aug. 1.

The custom designer says, “I do real modern, contemporary stuff, but I also will do remounting, repair, appraisal — everything.”

Williamson grew up in Wichita, went to the University of Kansas and never returned home until now.

Initially, she studied graphic design, but she says one bad teacher caused her to change her focus.

Williamson took an elective class that piqued her interest and caused her to shift her major to metalsmithing.

Eventually, she opened Gemesis Jewelers in Las Vegas, which she had for five years. She closed the shop three years ago but decided she wants to get back in the business full time.

Williamson says she’s “done with Vegas.”

“I was there almost 10 years. It’s really hard to get a business going there right now.”

Williamson likes that her new space is close to the popular Bella Luna Cafe.

Her mother, Barbara Williams of Prudential Dinning-Beard, helped her find it.

And though Williamson says she’s a very different jeweler than Jim Emmert is, she likes that she’ll occupy the East Central space where he was for 15 of his 35 years in business.

“It was previously a jewelry store, and everybody knows it’s a jewelry store,” Williamson says. “I’m just kind of relying on the old foot traffic.”

By Carrie Rengers | Tags: , , , , , , , Filed under Retail | Comments (1)