Use this search box to find articles that have run in our newspapers over the last several years.
Date: 7/18/2022
WILBRAHAM – On July 16, Ludlow resident Kelly Partridge opened the doors to her new store The GRATI Shop in Wilbraham after running an online business for three years.
When she started Contribution Clothing, which she later rebranded to The GRATI Shop, Partridge said she wanted to wait to find a brick-and-mortar location because of the coronavirus pandemic.
“I really just started looking like two months ago and I just happened on the perfect space. I knew that I wanted to be in Wilbraham, and I knew that I wanted to be on Boston Road,” she said. “I wasn’t getting anything that I loved so one day out of frustration I took a drive down Boston Road to see if there’s anything, and I did and I found the spot, it just kind of like happened.”
Partridge said the idea for owning a clothing store came from her journey to recovery from an abusive relationship.
“When you get out of an abusive relationship you don’t have confidence, you lack self-esteem, self-love, so I was really on this journey of trying to find myself again and I started my healing journey by getting dressed,” she said. “I told myself ‘If I can get up every day and just get dressed, do my hair and do my makeup and make myself feel good on the outside then maybe I can work my way in. When I thought about what I wanted to do, it made sense to do a clothing store because it was part of my journey.”
Partridge said customers can look forward to a variety of clothing and beauty products in the store.
“I offer comfortable fashion and I own my own cruelty free beauty brand, so I offer cruelty free makeup and skin care and it’s also vegan,” she said.
Partridge explained that by comfortable fashion she means clothes that “you can wear and feel comfortable and confident in,” while her cruelty-free beauty products were not tested on animals.
Partridge said that the GRATI Shop is a “mission-driven business.”
“I love giving back to the community, I do fundraisers all the time to try to support local nonprofits like we’ve done some fundraisers for Ovations, for Christina’s House, For Girls’ Inc. – like a whole slew of them in Western Mass.,” she said.
Before opening the brick-and-mortar location, Partridge said a part of her business model was to donate 15 percent of her sales quarterly to a rotating nonprofit.
Ever since she started her business, Partridge said she has teamed up with local businesses across the country for shipping, which she said she will continue to do even after opening the storefront.
“The way that I operated my online store is I partnered with other small businesses across the U.S., and they did my shipping for me so they would ship out all my inventory and house my inventory for me. This also helped me during COVID [-19] too by supporting other small businesses,” she said.
In store, Partridge said customers can look forward to a more curated collection along with goods from local businesses.
“There are going to be items in the store that are brought in by local vendors, so local small businesses that are women owned, so things like handmade soaps, hand-poured candles, essential oils, some crocheted items and some homemade jewelry,” she said. “I’m trying to support locally as well as my storefront.”
Partridge added that she is looking forward to seeing her customers in store instead of online.
“I’ve been working at home the past three years, and I work by myself. I interact with a lot of people but it’s online so I’m really looking forward to seeing people, being face to face with people again,” she said. “I’m going to be planning different pop-up events with other small businesses in the store so I’m excited to be a hub to support other businesses.”
The GRATI Shop is located at 2440 Boston Rd. in Wilbraham.