“What’s with the 5’s?” you might be asking, walking into our storefront this week. We bedecked our lovely yarn tree, a holdover from our Christmas window display, with a new kind of decoration to celebrate a major milestone for our store: it’s fifth anniversary!

This business is driven by our passions: for fashion, for sustainability and community involvement, and for you, our customers. We’re so happy to have had five wonderful years letting those passions guide what we do here in the Short North! With your help this past year, we’ve been able to lend support to educational programs in the US as well as Trees for Life International, and we’ve also been able to keep over 300lbs of clothing from taking up space in our landfills through our Design Lab Collections. And all the while we’ve striven to offer sustainably made clothing options as well as classic pieces that you’ll keep in your wardrobes for years to come. We’re so proud to be a part of this community, and to have such wonderful customers who embody both substance and style!

Please come visit us in the store as we celebrate this milestone, and check out our latest development: Substance Lofts, retail and studio space for local artisans and designers to show their wares and to give our customers a peek at the creative process.

Thank you for five rewarding years, and keep visiting us as we anticipate even more great things to come!

Some big changes are in the works here at Substance, and we’d love for you to be a part of them! In our efforts to support local designers and our love for creativity in the name of fashion, we’re getting ready to announce the opening of our Substance Design Lofts, occupying the mezzanine of our store.

We are currently on the watch for local artisans and designers who need a space to make contact with customers and display their handmade wares. Two retail spaces are now available for rent in our second floor loft, and they need two very different vendors to fill them with exciting locally made products.

Space one is a retail “mini-booth,” a shelved space that is perfect for handmade candles, bath and beauty products, etc. We’re looking to highlight the work of an artisan whose handcrafted products display well on shelf space for this mini-booth.

Space two is a larger Retail Studio, with room for a work table as well as an available fitting room and mirror for interaction with customers. You’ll have space to meet and discuss custom designs with interested patrons and also to display your wares and your process. We love seeing creativity at work.

If you are a local designer who’s looking to get your handmade work seen by our flow of customers in an atmosphere of friendly fashion-conscious women, then send us an email at info@shopsubstance.com—we’d love to see your work, so any images would be welcome.

And for our customers—we’ll be letting you know when to expect to see the Design Lofts up and running, so stay tuned and stop by!