If Megan Wappelhorst could describe her day in one word, it would be “insane.”
But that’s what one would expect of a co-owner of Modern Tribe, the St. Charles-based online kids’ clothing boutique. Along with the company, Wappelhorst and her business partner, Jenna Ostmann, each juggle full-time jobs, while Wappelhorst is also a mom to a toddler with a baby on the way.
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“We’ve got it down to a science,” Wappelhorst says of how she’s able to fit Modern Tribe into her already hectic schedule.
St. Charles natives, Wappelhorst and Ostmann decided to take on their new business, which officially launched in October 2017, after Wappelhorst struggled to find cute clothes for her son, Finn.
“There was nowhere to find cute stuff for boys that didn’t have a puppy or a truck on it,” she says.
Additionally, she found herself going to several different places just to find shirts, pants, and accessories. In her quest to find a solution, Wappelhorst began following other children’s clothing boutiques on Instagram, which inspired her to launch her own boutique.
And so, Modern Tribe was born.
The idea behind Modern Tribe, Wappelhorst explains, was to provide cute, gender-neutral children’s clothing and to feature shirts, pants, shoes, and accessories all in one place. “A one-stop shop,” she says.
Along with clothing and accessories from other companies, Modern Tribe also features its own line, designed by Wappelhorst and Ostmann. The Modern Tribe collection is a line of graphic tees, featuring cute and funny sayings, such as “Leggings are pants” and “Snacks on snacks on snacks.”
The inspiration behind these sayings come from Wappelhorst and Ostmann’s own daily thoughts and lives. Having a toddler in the house, Wappelhorst says, “the ‘Snacks on snacks on snacks’ one, which is one of our best-sellers, is just my life.”
Modern Tribe currently sells all of its products online at modern-tribe.com, but has held pop-up shops around the area since its launch and hopes to do more in the future. The company has plans to make the clothes even more accessible by creating the option to hold “backyard boutiques,” or parties where the company provides all of the products for the party’s host to show and sell to friends.
Beyond that, Wappelhorst and Ostmann hope to work with more companies to grow their collection and to feature larger sizes in their boutique, which now features clothing in sizes newborn–5T.
All of that, of course, means more work for the already busy ladies, who seem happy and determined to take it on.
“It’s crazy, but it’s great,” says Wappelhorst. “It’s all I know.”
