Two sisters with retail in their blood have opened a boutique at Chandler’s Wharf in downtown Wilmington. The shop, Camillions, celebrated its grand opening just in time to welcome holiday shoppers.
Camillions, which held its grand opening Nov. 25, is owned and run by Lindsay and Meredith Snyder. Among the shop's featured brands are Alex and Ani, Vera Bradley, Crislu, Dogeared, Hobo handbags and Simply Noelle, according to Meredith Snyder.
The sisters are third-generation specialty retailers, she said Wednesday.
“Our grandmother started the store in 1983 in Hagerstown, Maryland. It used to be called Back Street, but she changed it to Camillions,” Snyder said, explaining that her grandmother wanted a name that would reflect the idea of changing fashions and changing styles, “like a chameleon, only she used her own spelling of the word. We in the third generation thought it would be wrong to change her spelling.”
The sisters’ mother continues to operate Camillions in Maryland but moved the store to Frederick from Hagerstown.
It was a random wish to live in North Carolina, followed by a successful job interview in Wilmington, that brought Lindsay Snyder to town. She was working in retail in the area but wanted to continue the Camillions tradition in her new hometown. She spotted a vacant retail space at Chandler’s Wharf and within six weeks had signed a lease with Chandler’s Wharf general manager Nancy Bullock, convinced Meredith Snyder to move to Wilmington to help run the shop and stocked the shelves with inventory, thanks to her mother’s existing relationships with the brands she carries.
“It all happened so fast,” Meredith Snyder said, adding that business has been good thus far.
Camillions occupies 1,200 square feet of space in units A and B of Chandler’s Wharf, Bullock said Wednesday. The previous tenant was Decades of Décor, which recently moved to Castle Street because of its need to expand its furniture inventory.
“I wanted to keep [the tenant] but didn’t have more space to offer her,” Bullock said.
