Winslet & Rhys
Like much of the exciting work coming out of Birmingham, Winslet & Rhys is a product of collaboration.
The modern mercantile shop sells everything from home goods and baby clothes to women’s apparel and beauty products. It opened in Avondale in July.
Winslet & Rhys, a play on its owners’ maiden names Winslett and Rice, is the first project from recent Birmingham transplants Brittany Baker and Mallory Collier.
The women, who met at Auburn University, said the opening of a specialty mercantile store has been a long time in the making — both for them and Birmingham. Though they met in college, Baker and Collier didn’t connect until two years post-graduation when they were living in different states.
Baker, an architect with a heavy background in design, was doing freelance graphic design about the same time Collier was planning to get married.
Baker’s husband knew Collier and her fiancé from the Auburn building science program, so he suggested his wife reach out to Collier about designing her wedding invitations.
“She had a three-month engagement, which is probably why she said, ‘yes,’” Baker said.
Thus, a long-distance friendship between Baker and Collier was born through wedding invitations. Baker went on to become Collier’s resident card designer for everything from Christmas cards to baby announcements for the birth of her daughter, Ava.
“Basically, I was her first client,” Collier said. “Then, we became pen pals from afar.”
During the next few years, Baker and Collier moved around the United States, and even around the world. Collier and her husband lived in Nashville and Huntsville, while Baker’s husband’s job at Harbert International took them to Morocco, Senegal, Memphis and eventually Laredo, Texas.
It wasn’t until late 2015, when Collier moved to her husband’s hometown of Birmingham, that the idea of opening a mercantile shop finally became a reality. While Collier was renovating her home in Vestavia, she realized just how much of a need there was for more modern products in Birmingham.
“West Elm is really the closest thing we have here to my style, and I just got really tired of having to source from a big box or online,” she said. “There were all these things in my house that my friends kept asking where I got them from.”
Around the same time, Collier passed by a retail property with a for-lease sign. It wasn’t at their current location on Third Avenue South, but it got Collier looking. Eventually, she found Bruce Lanier, who was renting out the other portion of
MAKEbhm’s new Avondale home.
“He was ready to go, so it forced us to really make a decision,” Baker said. “It was a now or never thing.”
They chose now.
After four months conferring through Skype and email, Baker moved to Birmingham, and two months later on July 8, Winslet & Rhys celebrated its grand opening with live music and treats from Tot Spot truck and Hero Doughnuts.
Since their opening, Baker and Collier said they have been overwhelmed with support, both from their patrons and their more than 50 makers from across the country. Collier said the store did better in its first week than she expected to do in its first month.
“It’s very validating because we thought [Birmingham needed it], and we were just recent transplants,” Collier said. “This one girl walked in, and she was like, ‘This is my happy place.’”
Collier said they’re also happy to be providing a home for many Birmingham makers who don’t have many opportunities to sell their goods in an environment that fits their brand aesthetic.
The store’s list of Birmingham products includes furniture from Plenty Design Co-Op, soap from Freedom Soaps, cards and art from Morgan Johnston, and screen prints and T-shirts from 1871 Project.
Another big part of Winslet & Rhys is its emphasis on developing custom, in-house products through collaboration with makers. Great Bear Wax Co. developed a signature candle for the shop called “House;” Susan Gordon, who works out of MAKEbhm, develops custom ceramics; and Yellowhammer Creative is printing the shop’s custom tea towels.
Baker also is putting her personal touch on the shop with a line of cards and stationery she’s printing with the help of Amelia and Phineas, two in-house letterpresses from the 1800s. Collier said she hopes to follow suit by using her experience in virtual design to offer accessible interior design services through the shop.
The women also plan to follow in the footsteps of their MAKEbhm neighbor by providing workshops teaching skills such as calligraphy, letterpress and graphic design.
“That’s one really good thing about being tied to MAKE,” Collier said. “They’re all about teaching people how to do things, so we definitely want to be a part of that.”
For the owners of Winslet & Rhys, their store is the first answer to a call many have echoed in Birmingham.
“Everyone is really into small batch,” Baker said. “They want to know who made it, what it’s made of and how it was made, so having this store is answering all those questions and giving people a place to come and hang out, too.”