When one thinks on-trend clothing store, a boutique in Occoquan most likely won’t come to mind. But this historic small town is going through somewhat of a revamp, and with it comes Urban Posh, a boutique that opened this past June. Owners Angie and Pam Behbahani had been looking for a spot for Pam’s salon, Good Hair Day, which moved from its Lorton location to the small town of Occoquan. And when another space became available, the two ventured into the fashion industry with this new store.
“Within a day of knowing we had this store space, I left my job,” says Angie, who went from health care specialist to co-owner of a boutique. Pam had wanted to add a clothing line to the salon, but the two decided on opening a store instead. And everything seemed to fall in place. “I was working in health care as an executive for an assisted living facility. We have a 2- and 3-and-a-half-year-old. And after so many years of doing [my job] with a family, I got burned out,” says Angie, who notes that running a boutique isn’t stress-free. “It’s a different kind of busy, a different kind of stress, but we have more time with the family and something where I don’t have to look at the phone every 10 minutes to see if someone called or died as I was working in the field I had been in.”
Urban Posh is a sunlit space right on the water, and the calm of the bright, gray-painted store lends itself well to the laid-back, on-trend California vibe of the pieces it carries. With indie brands the Behbahanis find at shows in New York, Atlanta and Las Vegas, the pieces, as Angie describes them, are “soft clothing that travels well where you can dress it up and dress it down [to] meet an audience of everybody without breaking the bank.”
And the atmosphere of Urban Posh is something the Behbahanis were on a mission to achieve: a place where women could come in and feel comfortable and relaxed, a space with fresh apparel and accessories that make any woman feel pretty. “I’ve learned that we are really hard on ourselves, women, and it is sad in a way, but if we have that place that makes you look good and feel pretty, this is it. This is what we want,” says Angie.
Urban Posh carries a range of products from attire and bags to jewelry, sunglasses and shoes. They even have a section for infants to 4T with onesies and rompers. And though the two have just embarked on this venture, they are already looking to the future of the store.
“The whole thing is not to be rich but be rich in doing what you love,” says Angie. “It’s fun and artsy and cool with the people you meet. We’d like to eventually make this bigger, whether we stay in the town here or grow in another town, and push our online, too. At the end of the day, too, we’re happy with this 800 square feet we have.”
Notes:
Urban Posh Boutique
125 Mill St., Unit 4, Occoquan
