Community Spotlight: espy
Welcome to the Community Spotlight blog series! We have customers in over 400 communities, for which we are incredibly grateful, so we know how special your neighborhoods are. We thought it might be a good idea to introduce you to the place we call home; the historic community of Inglewood in Calgary, Alberta. With the recent hardships small businesses have had to face, our goal is to highlight some other local businesses in Inglewood with whom we are proud to share the community.
With Inglewood being one of the trendiest neighbourhoods in the city, operating a business that specializes in fashion carries an added weight of expectation. Enter espy, a designer boutique that puts an emphasis on experience.
It’d be easy to write off the shop upon first glance as just another clothing store, but the “espy experience” goes much deeper than that. The brainchild of owner Megan Szanik, this fashionista has long harboured a love for the world of style, and has been a part of the industry for years in a variety of roles and locations. The desire to open her own space was always something Megan had longed for, and in 2009 that dream became a reality; albeit in a much smaller space than the boutique’s current operations. Since then, the shop has grown into a leading fashion boutique in an expanded and modern space, with another expansion in the works.
Much more than just another local boutique, espy offers so much more. They offer professional fashion stylists who work with customers, an in-store master tailor and they use their shop as an event space, hosting things like fashion shows and Date Nights. It’s this variety of offerings that allows espy to really translate to more of an experience than just a shop, providing fashion from head-to-toe for customers.
Proud to call Inglewood home for over a decade, it’s the vibrant community feel that espy embraces, with Inglewood feeling like a small town within a big city. espy loves the history behind the neighborhood and the fact the majority of the shops are locally-owned and operated, they take pride in contributing to that fact as well. In fact, Megan loves working in the neighborhood so much, she actually lives in it!
The pandemic presented its share of challenges to the store, they experienced their first closure at an inopportune time after just having a shoe launch to start the new decade. The store reopened the first day they were able to, and as a result of reworking their operations and taking advantage of government supports, they take pride in the fact that nobody was laid off. Miraculously, they were able to keep the espy team intact. In fact, relying on the belief that opportunity can be found in any situation, Megan was able to lead espy out of these turbulent waters and expanded the store, as well as stretching into new markets, like golf attire and espy The Label kaftans and robes.
espy is looking forward to people coming to the shop and connecting once again. They have missed their clients and their stories and learning about them. By the time September hits, espy will have gone from 7,800 square feet to over 12,000! The expansion marks the third time that the business has grown and they can’t wait for everyone to experience this new chapter.
espy is located at 1009 9 Avenue SE. Their website can be accessed here, and they can be found on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.