LOVEDOG Is Coming Home: Our First Boutique Opens October 1 at Kierland Commons
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Hi Everyone!
There are a lot of new faces here lately, people who know LOVEDOG, but don't necessarily know the person behind it.
So,
My name is Laurie, and I'm the founder and CEO of LOVEDOG.
Calling myself a "CEO" still makes me laugh a little nervously. BUT I realized something a while ago: if I didn't embrace that role, I would ultimately risk the success of my business.
For most of my life, when I was unsure of myself, I migrated toward the things that felt comfortable. I think most of us do. We are naturally drawn to the places where we know the rules, where we're competent, where there's relatively little chance of looking like we have absolutely no idea what we're doing.
Building a business from scratch doesn't give you that luxury.
Almost everything feels foreign at first.
I've had to learn to walk toward the things I didn't know how to do instead of retreating to the things I did. To make decisions before I felt completely qualified to make them. To trust myself. To screw things up occasionally, or A LOT learn, and do it differently the next time.
And eventually I learned something I wish I'd understood much earlier in life:
Being uncomfortable doesn't mean you're in the wrong place.
Sometimes you just haven't lived there long enough for it to feel like home.
When you've never really had one in the traditional sense, I think you spend a lot of your life trying to create that feeling for yourself in other ways.
I've been a professional photographer for most of my adult life. I've spent years standing behind a camera documenting other people's families and significant moments, marriages, babies, milestones and ordinary days. Moments that you always want to remember.
I've photographed a lot of belonging.
I just didn't have a great deal of it in my own story.
Home was more of an idea or something I was curious about. Something I watched from afar like a movie about other people's lives or living on Mars. Completely unrelatable to me.
Dogs were always different.
Wherever I was, they had this remarkable ability to make the world feel less lonely.
Maybe that's why LOVEDOG became so much more than the business I thought I was building.
Somewhere between the dogs, the fabric swatches, the late nights, the mistakes, the really good ideas and a few spectacularly questionable ones, I built something I belonged to.
And at the same time, it was building me.
It pushed me into unfamiliar places. It taught me to trust my own decisions, stop waiting until I felt ready, and get comfortable being uncomfortable.
Somewhere along the way, LOVEDOG became home.
Which makes what we're doing next feel especially meaningful.
On October 1, LOVEDOG is getting a home of its own.
We're opening our first six-month pop-up boutique at Kierland Commons in Scottsdale.
And it feels like a win.
Not an I've arrived kind of win. I'm not sure I believe much in arriving anymore.
More like one of those rare moments when you've been moving so quickly that you finally stop, turn around, and realize how far you've come.
But what I'm most excited about is that, for the first time, I get to invite you inside.
You can touch the fabrics. See the colors and textures together. Mix things I never would have mixed. Bring your dog. Try things on.
You can finally experience the happy little world that, until now, I've been trying to translate through photographs and a computer screen.
And then there's my favorite part.
I love seeing dogs wearing LOVEDOG. But as proud as that makes me, what I really love is everything that happens around them.
I love watching strangers stop to meet each other's dogs. Hearing, “What's her name?” Watching people who didn't know each other five minutes ago suddenly talking and laughing because their dogs decided they should.
I love hugging our customers. I love meeting their dogs. I love hearing their stories.
And despite the CEO title, there is an extremely good chance you'll find me sitting on the floor of the boutique loving on somebody's dog.
Probably daily.
Because when I picture Kierland, I'm not just looking at the business I built.
I'm looking at the feeling I was trying to build.
Belonging.
When you've spent much of your life trying to understand what home is supposed to feel like, it's a strange and beautiful thing to realize that somewhere along the way, you built one.
And now I finally get to open the door.
LOVEDOG at Kierland Commons.
October 1.
Bring your dog.
I'll probably be on the floor.
