Jun 15, 2009

Wichitan’s love of fashion, design serves her well at Mik’sBy TimesRecordNews.com

Wrapping packages at McClurkans at the age of 14 was one of the best experiences Kim Womble ever had.

“Beautifully wrapped packages are as important as anything in retail stores,” she said.

Years later, Womble is still involved with retail and making things beautiful. For the past 21 years, she has owned and operated the fashionable Mik’s in Brook Village. It will be 22 years this August, she said.

Her shop is in the same neighborhood where her mother grew up, and the building once housed a grocery store where her parents shopped.

Mik’s, which is her first name spelled backward, carries upscale clothing, fashionable jewelry, accessories and luggage, as well as home decor.

Womble began Mik’s with high-end clothing — “a lot of couture looks,” she said. “It was beautiful, but as the years have gone by I’ve seen that if you have things that are really nice at a certain price people love it.”

In one of the trendier shopping areas of the city, her shop is next to the art studio, How Great Thou Art, (dance) Studio 5 6 7 8 and between two salons.

Working around fashion, which she has for most of her life, Womble enjoys going to work every day.

“I love it. I feel sorry for people who do not enjoy their work. I look so forward to coming here to see what we have received or what is going on.”

She does her own buying for the shop, which can mean working with an English potter, spending a lot of time at markets in Dallas and shopping from Austin to New York City.

Mik’s does elaborate gift-wrapping just like she was taught. “We spend a lot of money on our packaging. I think that’s important.”

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