Saratoga’s Spoken is thriving in its new home in Ballston Spa
The clothing boutique’s owner, Tina Powell, reveals what's different about her store's new locale — and what has stayed the same.
As Spoken boutique’s owner Tina Powell motions me to sit, two things jump out at me: Her daughter Victoria, 9, has floated off [next door, as I’ll find out soon], and I’m in an extremely comfy chair — in front of the dressing rooms.
“It's not always so comfortable if you're standing over [a customer asking them], ’How does it fit; what do you think?’” Powell says. “Instead, they come out and I’m just sitting here, comfortable. I dive right in like we’re best friends.”
The sitting area is one of many attributes that long-term Spoken customers will recognize from the clothing boutique’s former space in downtown Saratoga — while some of the relaxed vibe might seem new. (The store is now at 89 Milton Avenue in Ballston Spa, in the former home of Petal + Hive, which has moved to Saratoga.)
“Almost everything came from our store in Saratoga,” says Powell, who purchased Spoken from its original owner, Pam Worth, four years ago. “This huge table? This was our counter, and we brought it here. Everyone thinks it's always been in this building, because it just fits perfectly.”
Powell is celebrating two months in her chic new locale, and it’s clear that she’s settling right in. “It's a little not real,” she says. “I have two girls — Victoria and Ivy, who’s 7. They'll go next door to talk for a while. They'll go across the street. There’s always a police officer around who knows their names. It's it is a little old fashioned here. I love that.”
“You don't even have to go through a roundabout to get here.”
The family (her husband, James, works in marketing) moved to Burnt Hills about a year ago, which ended up helping to facilitate the move. “I needed to be closer to my family, first and foremost,” Powell says. “I also wanted more of a community.”
In June, everything fell into place.
“I had already signed my lease to stay in Saratoga,” she says. “And that next Thursday, I was driving home and stopped in front of here. I was just daydreaming, and I looked over and saw that it was still empty.”
By the next day, she was inside with the real estate agent. “I knew immediately,” she said. “I was like, ‘This is happening.’”
Yada, yada, yada…she was let out of her lease and moved out of Saratoga within days. “We moved on Wednesday and opened here on Friday,” she says. “My aunt and uncle, and my dad, they all grew up in Ballston Spa, and this front part used to be a barbershop — where they used to get their hair cut.”
Powell loves how hospitable the town is and encourages Saratogians to head on over. “We're only seven minutes away,” she laughs. “You don't even have to go through a roundabout to get here.”
When you arrive, you’ll be greated with some immediate must-have fall looks: from a bright red J. Society sweater and comfy Dear John jeans — to the racks of mix-and-match staples in the telling colors of brown, orange and dusty pink. Powell’s store is definitely ready for its first fall in Ballston Spa.
Back in Saratoga, Powell felt that Downtown’s growth (“We were off the beaten path, so we were getting kind of lost as Broadway was expanding and growing”) was causing her business to seemingly shrink. “With all these big skyscrapers going up,” she says, “we were becoming smaller and smaller.”
But now in her new digs, the business owner feels powerful. “It's been pretty amazing,” she says. “There are a lot of women-owned businesses here. And I don't mean women-run businesses — they are in the trenches.
“Not me, because I'm the new kid on the block, but they say that women cut a powerful business corner here. Everyone here is like, ‘If you succeed, we succeed as a community.’”
Visit Spoken at its new location, 89 Milton Avenue in Ballston Spa.
Keep reading!
The $8 bread debate at BuonaSera on the Lake
Dish Saratoga: Jon Batiste came to party; Opera Saratoga's surprise announcement