Community Spotlight
The Independent Brings Manhattan Feel To NWA
The Independent menswear boutiques are both excited and honored to be showcasing a collection at this year’s Northwest Arkansas Fashion Week. The combination of fashion and philanthropy is one we embrace. Some of us were involved in last year’s event in different capacities, from editorials to just being attendees, and we came away more than impressed with what Jade, Danielle, and everyone involved were able to put together. We look forward to an event that will assuredly be both bigger and better this year, and couldn’t be more pleased to truly be involved in a small part of the show’s creation this time.
We wanted to take this opportunity to both introduce The Independent to those of you who don’t know the brand, and maybe better explain how we came to be to some of those that do know us under a previous guise.
The Independent was born in earnest this last September of 2012. The original shop is located in Rogers, at the Shop at Pinnacle Hills. Many of you will know it under its previous name: Baumans of NWA. It operated under that label, with a small affiliation to the Little Rock menswear store of the same name, since 2007. Early in 2012, the idea was hatched to fully rebrand and renew the shop as The Independent, with a vision to expand the scope of that brand to include multiple stores that would serve the unique menswear needs of several communities in Arkansas.
The original Independent store in Rogers continues to offer the best luxury, tailored goods and accessories, from custom made suits to ready-to-wear clothing by labels like Oxxford Clothes, Isaia, Ferragamo, Hugo Boss, Eton of Sweden, Boglioli, Gravati, and our own line of custom clothing. A second location in Little Rock, at 3608 Kavanaugh Blvd., near Hillcrest, also opened its doors in September and offers a similar lineup to the Rogers shop, with a few different labels mixed in. It is a beautiful store that has the feel of walking in to a Manhattan boutique right in the heart of our capital city.
In addition to all of that, we are stoked to announce our third location, coming to the Square in Fayetteville in March 2013. Located next door to Riff Raff, in the old Campbell Bell building, will be our Denim & Essentials shop. Trending towards a younger audience, we consider this a true jean shop. We want this to be THE place in NWA to get your denim, from the hippest labels like Kansas City’s Baldwin Denim and Nashville’s Imogene and Willie, to contemporary standards like AG. Of course, we will surround this denim with some of the sharpest, coolest contemporary labels in America, like Shipley & Halmos, Billy Reid, What Goes Around Comes Around, Benson of New York, and accessories from Jack Spade.
We can’t wait for you to see everything we have planned for 2013, just as we can’t wait to line up with our contemporaries in Northwest Arkansas to celebrate fashion for philanthropy at the second annual NWAFW. It is sure to be a stylish, revelatory time, and all for several great causes.