If you've shopped with us in the last decade, there's something you probably don't know about how Knitted Belle began: it started with me sitting at a computer for hours, completely lost, trying to figure out where on earth boutique owners bought their clothes.
This is the part of the story most people don't hear.
Before Knitted Belle, I was a programmer. I'd been laid off from my tech job, closed two other businesses that didn't work out, and was looking for something fun to do that was mine.
I didn't have a grand plan. I wasn't trying to build an empire. I just wanted a creative outlet — something I could pour myself into that didn't feel like another corporate restart.
What I had instead was time, stubbornness, and a vague idea that I wanted to sell cool clothes to women who would love them as much as I did.
Here's the part of the boutique story you almost never read on Instagram: in 2013, you couldn't just google "how to start a boutique" and get a real answer.
The internet didn't have the resources it has today. There were no TikToks breaking down vendor lists. No detailed blog posts from women who'd actually done it. No coaches, no courses, no community.
I spent hours — and then days, and then weeks — researching the product side of the business. Where did boutique owners actually buy their inventory? Who were the real wholesalers vs. the ones charging retail prices and calling it "wholesale"? What did a legitimate vendor relationship even look like?
I figured a lot of it out by getting it wrong first.
I bought from vendors I shouldn't have. I ordered too much of styles that didn't sell and not enough of the ones that did. I learned what "minimum order quantity" really meant the expensive way. I made every classic new-boutique mistake — and a few creative ones that were just mine.
I genuinely thought it would be a fun little thing on the side. I never expected it to grow the way it did over the next few years.
If I'd had access to the kind of resources that exist now — everything I wish I'd known when I started a boutique — I would have skipped about two years of expensive mistakes.
People always ask me what the "secret" was. They want a tactic. A platform. A magic vendor.
The honest answer is much less exciting: consistency, and not giving up.
That's it. That's the whole thing.
I kept showing up when sales were slow. I kept ordering the next collection when the last one didn't move the way I'd hoped. I kept emailing customers, posting outfits, refining the brand, learning what worked, and quietly letting go of what didn't.
Most of the boutiques that started around the same time as Knitted Belle are no longer here. Not because they weren't talented or didn't have great taste — many of them had better eye for fashion than I did. They just stopped.
The ones that are still standing 10+ years later all have one thing in common: they didn't quit during the boring middle.
That's the whole secret. There's no other one.
Today, Knitted Belle is the boutique I dreamed about back when I was packing orders in my living room.
We have customers who've been with us for years — women who message us when they see a piece they know is "so them," women who've worn Knitted Belle to weddings, first dates, big work moments, and quiet Tuesdays. That's the part that still makes this fun after a decade.
The styles change every season. The brand has matured. The team has grown. But the heart of it is the same as it was in 2013: real clothes for real women, picked by someone who actually wears them and really loves fashion.
A few years into running Knitted Belle, something started happening that I didn't expect.
Other women — women who were where I'd been in 2013, googling for hours and finding nothing — started reaching out. They wanted to know how I'd done it. What vendors I trusted. How I'd survived the slow years. What I would do differently.
At first I answered every DM. Then I started writing things down. And eventually, I built Grow Your Boutique — the resource hub I wish had existed when I was starting out.
I also host the She Crushes ECom podcast, where I have honest conversations with other boutique and e-commerce owners about what's actually working right now — not the highlight reel, the real version.
It's become this beautiful second business that exists because of Knitted Belle, not separate from it. Every strategy I teach has been tested in our boutique first. Every mistake I warn women about is one I've personally made and paid for. Let's not mention the $60k ads mistake I made.
If you found this post because you shop with us — thank you. Truly. You're the reason any of this exists. We can't wait to dress you for whatever's next.
If you found this post because you're thinking about starting your own boutique, or you already have one and you're somewhere in the messy middle: don't quit. Not this week. Not this season. Not when the numbers feel slow.
And if you want help — real, practical, tested-in-a-real-boutique help — I've put together free boutique resources over at Grow Your Boutique. They're the ones I wish I'd had in 2013.
You can do this. It's not glamorous. It's not fast. But it's absolutely possible.
I'm proof of it.
— Carina
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