Nearly eight years ago, Buck Wimberly and Joey Mendez opened local men’s boutique ULAH.
At the time, the shop was one of the first new businesses to open at the Woodside Village development in Westwood.
Since, then the couple says the shop has seen its ups and downs — from pandemic-related challenges to reconstruction at the development near County Line Road.
Now, after a slow year for sales, they’ve launched a community campaign to keep the store afloat with the help of one of the store’s most popular items — candles.
ULAH aimed to fill a gap in the local market
When Wimberly and Mendez met, they both worked for Kansas City-based Hallmark.
About a year after they became a couple, the two started brainstorming ways to start a business of their own. They landed on menswear, Wimberly said, in hopes of creating a happy medium between small boutiques and large department stores.
“We felt like there was a need in the area for a boutique of this size,” he said. “We felt like with our combined (professional) experiences, we might be able to provide a solution.”
They stocked ULAH with a wide range of men’s clothing items, accessories and gifts. For the store itself, they aimed for a prairie-inspired backdrop — “modern with little touches of rustic elements,” as Wimberly puts it.
In addition to clothing and accessories, ULAH also offers interior design services.
Five years after opening ULAH, Wimberly and Mendez expanded their offerings with a store geared towards women, LUNA by ULAH — bringing on a new co-owner, Elise Alexander.
Candles are a significant part of ULAH’s history
At ULAH’s beginning in Westwood, candles quickly became a staple for customers.
The first fragrance they offered, “Prairie”, is still a bestseller to this day — a nod to the native Kansas landscape with notes of sandalwood, cedar and papyrus. (ULAH’s candle line now has three more landscape-inspired scents, “Desert”, “Canyon” and “Prairie Rose”, and each candle has three size options — small, medium and large.)
So this year, when it became difficult to fulfill fall orders at the store, Wimberly and Mendez turned to those candles again, in hopes of drumming up support from the customers who have been buying them for years.
“It’s always tricky as a business to figure out how vulnerable to be about the state of affairs,” Wimberly said. “But then we felt like, why not just be honest and open about our struggle? We didn’t want to be a store that suddenly announces a closure, and then everyone (says), ‘What could I have done to help?’”
Their candle campaign launched at the end of September, and they hope to sell $5,000 candles by Saturday. Just in time for the store’s eighth anniversary, which the store will celebrate with a special event on Saturday night.
Customers can buy the candles either in person or on ULAH’s website.
Hoping for a next chapter
The upcoming eighth anniversary isn’t the only development in ULAH’s future.
Wimberly and Mendez were also featured as personal stylists on talent competition show Second Chance Stage, which will air on Thanksgiving. It can be streamed on Max.
“It was such a fun experience,” Mendez said. “We watch singing competitions and those types of shows, so to be able to see the whole thing happen was really, really fun.”
If all goes well with the candle campaign, Wimberly and Mendez foresee other developments in the store’s next chapter.
They’d like to expand ULAH’s reach beyond the Kansas City metro by ramping up the store’s online presence even further and trying out new marketing methods.
In the meantime, the shop’s co-owners said the community can help out the store in various ways — whether that’s buying candles or recommending them to customers if they’ve already purchased some.
Since launching the campaign, Mendez said the store’s following has shown an abundance of support — both by placing candle orders and offering well-wishes.
“The coolest compliment I’ve been hearing is, ‘We don’t know what we’d do without you guys,’” Mendez said. “It’s been nice to hear a lot of love and support coming through the door. People have been wanting to help in any way they can, adding to the count and asking how we’re doing.”
Similar news: Customers rally around OP bookshop after its bank account was hacked
