THOM 7 | Fall / Winter 2016

TASTEMAKER
“We offer you a cold or a hot drink, we’re playing
music, you can play ping pong — none of that’s for
show, this is who we are.”
As for setting up shop (literally) in a neighborhood
that had yet to establish itself, Ann says it made the
adventure even more exciting: “There’s an element
of being a pioneer.”
It’s a mindset that Sid likens to that of his
Thomasville-based customers. “In Thomasville, it’s a
little bit of a self-sufficiency thing,” he explains. “We
can go anywhere in the world and accomplish what
we need to do, but we like being here. I think it’s a
little bit like us.”
In 2007, Sid Mashburn opened its doors and the
store's success has been constant ever since.
Three years later, opportunity came knocking when
West Side Provisions co-developer Michael Phillips
approached Ann to open her own eponymous
boutique.
“He said, ‘I need you to do a women’s store and he
really pushed me to do it,’” she says, adding that her
daughters were also a driving force. “My girls were so
sweet. They said we would love to work for a woman
and we like women’s clothes more. Sid was smart
enough to say there’s an opportunity here, let’s take
it. I just wanted to make sure that it didn’t detract
from the brand that we’d already built, but business
was fantastic straight out of the gate for my brand.”
“She did more dollars per square foot in her first
year than we were doing in year three or four in
men’s,” Sid says proudly. “It was incredible.”
Even more incredible is the growth of the Mashburn
fashion empire. With locations in Atlanta, Houston,
D.C. and Dallas (and more in the works), the
designing duo are careful to curate their fashion
footprint step by step.
“We’re trying to grow at a thoughtful pace,” explains
Ann.
“It’s a very sophisticated growth strategy: Wherever
there’s a professional sports team, we’ll probably go
there,” adds Sid. “And I’m only half kidding.”
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