By Jeannette Batz Cooperman
Brandy Pinol always wore what she loved. “It was hard in school; I got teased a lot,” she says. “People just didn’t get me.” She ignored them, grew up and got a job in marketing. Then she married and, when she became pregnant, decided to stay home—which lasted about two weeks. “I sold my designer maternity clothes on eBay for more than I’d paid for them,” she says with a triumphant grin. “Then I started buying off-price merchandise in bulk and reselling it.” Soon she had rooms packed with stuff she couldn’t care less about (and nobody else really wanted, either). So she took a leap and started selling what she loved at full price, in a tiny tucked-away Clayton Road boutique named Testimo (tes-TEE-moo). Most of St. Louis couldn’t find her, and the ladies who did toddle in weren’t sure what to make of all the skulls—but her website sales grew exponentially and celebrities started placing orders. Pinol just moved Testimo to a larger, more visible space in the Ladue Marketplace. It’s time to see whether St. Louis can figure her out.
Why the name: “Testimo is Catalan for ‘I love you.’ My husband is from Barcelona.”
Top seller: Ed Hardy, a tattoo artist now creating limited-edition T-shirts
Trendy and spendy: Karen Zambos vintage couture
Global influence: sass & bide skinny jeans from Australia; Rodebjer from Sweden
Impulse item she adores: Hauntingly fragrant candles by Douglas Little
Clientele: “At the most, 10 percent of my revenue right now is from St. Louis. Celebrities find us through the Internet—but I don’t capitalize on that. I really think that [obsession with celebrity style] is going to fade away. Make your own decision.”
Rivals: Not in St. Louis—e-tailers such as shopintuition.com.
Market research: Three or four hours a day on the Internet, checking blogs and international fashion sites and noticing what women are wearing on the street in Europe.
Business strategy: “I don’t even have a budget. I do everything based on gut instinct. If someone tells me no, I just put my fingers over my ears and hum.”
Last year’s craze: Bulga. “After Jessica Simpson carried one, we probably sold 600 Bulga handbags. People were fighting over them and offering bribes to get higher on the list.”
Coming up for fall: “Laidback, very feminine looks; a lot more dresses; almost a vintage vibe, like you didn’t grab a new outfit from your closet.”
9825 Clayton, 314-432-5775, www.testimoboutique.com
