Shabby Chic: A Business Analysis of Rachel Ashwell's Venture

This essay delves into the business strategies and challenges faced by Rachel Ashwell in establishing her interior design company, Shabby Chic. It examines the unique style of the brand, its competitive advantages, and the initial struggles Ashwell encountered, such as sourcing materials and building a network. The essay highlights key strategic decisions, including the use of flea markets, loans for inventory, and the eventual expansion of the business. It also analyzes the major strategic mistakes, such as the change of venue to shopping malls and over-reliance on third-party suppliers, which led to brand dilution and financial difficulties. The essay concludes with a discussion of how Ashwell regained the company's reputation and status, providing a comprehensive case study of business development, strategic planning, and the importance of understanding market dynamics and customer preferences. The essay also offers valuable insights into the application of offbeat and unconventional business models in the competitive global market.

Running head: SHABBY CHIC : AN ESSAY
SHABBY CHIC: AN ESSAY
Name of the student
Name of the University
Author Note

1SHABBY CHIC: AN ESSAY
Shabby Chic is a form of interior designing and decoration which according to certain
eminent stylists and aesthetics, “celebrates the beauty of imperfection and antiquity” (Ashwell and
Costin). Shabby Chic pattern of home decoration and designing first developed in Great Britain,
England which is known for its English legacy. The “shabby chic” pattern of decoration was first
observed in the country houses of Great Britain which had faded, worn-out and rusted sofas,
furniture, curtains, old paintwork which gave an effect of vintage nostalgia. Shabby Chic way of
designing the houses included recycling of old furniture and fabrics which is considered to be a
resistance by the artisans against the upper middle class culture of possessing delicate and fine
antique pieces as home decors. The shabby chic interiors are an art of imperfection. The interior
itself is a work of imagination, creativity and skills (Brembeck and Sörum ). A business enthusiast
named Rachel Ashwell was the founder of a chain of home décor furniture called Shabby Chic in
the year 1996 which became famous and a cult worldwide. “The world of Shabby Chic” is a
book where Ashwell not only talks about her unique and personal style, but also gives valuable
teachings regarding start-up strategies (Ashwell and Costin). The respective essay is an argument
about the strategies, the initial drawbacks faced by Ashwell while establishing her business and
what has she learnt and experienced in her business profession so far.
Strategic opportunities and limitations Shabby Chic encountered
The most significant and patent trademark of Shabby Chic is its style. The most
prolific and determinant competitive advantage Shabby Chic possessed and still possess is
its remarkably unique style of decoration which is unconventional and believes in
imperfection to be its beauty and theme. After a struggling life of pursuing her career, Ashwell
finally got the opportunity to serve the Hollywood industry where she came across a director and
got married. As the director with whom she got married belonged to the business class of the

2SHABBY CHIC: AN ESSAY
United States, therefore, though the marriage did not last long, she learnt quite a lot about
business prospects, strategies and implementations. Lack of inventory was a strategic
limitation of Shabby Chic. The only best strategy at the time of just starting the business
was to buy pieces of props and materials from the flea market or a conventionally cheap
street market to use them as shabby chic materials. With the constant contact with the flea
market of the United States, Ashwell came in connection with the components of the market,
such as carpenters, furniture makers and repairers, seamstresses, embroider specialists and
pattern cutters. Ashwell utilized them in building her own business components and deriving
ideas from them regarding designs and craft. Therefore, she used the most customary strategy of
building networks of the people associated with the respective business to survive initially and
create a stop gap arrangement for her business. Ashwell ran the business on cash
(Shabbychic.com). Through an intense introspection of the local and street markets, she was able
to grab the goods and decors which, though being cheap, has aesthetic value which the sellers did
not understand. She bought those components for cheap, modified and used them as the
components of Shabby Chic décor and sold them in an expensive price in the market. This is
how she survived initially before gaining success. The next most important strategy taken up by
Ashwell was that every time she opened a new store of Shabby Chic, she would take a loan of
$100,000 for buying inventory, acting as security for the lease and providing the business with
working capital for almost three months. As the business ran positively, the loan that she had
taken were paid down immediately with the flow of cash that was incoming in the business.
Ashwell operated her other two branches in New York and San Francisco in the same manner
and quickly rose into fame. Shabby Chic, with its outstandingly unique style statement and

3SHABBY CHIC: AN ESSAY
fashion of home décor, rose to prominence and was also visited by various actors and T.V
personalities (Shabbychic.com).
Apparently, the business of Shabby Chic had seen the good and positive sides of the
market. However, it was not late that the business saw its nemesis. There had been global ups
and downs that had made Shabby Chic fall apart for a particular span of time, however,
there has been incidents that led it grow reputed and functional again in the market of the
United States. The plan of the Google Partners in the world of industries in the United
States was to open at least 57 stores over five years but also still clinging to and maintaining
the Shabby Chic theme as target. Generally, Shabby Chic stores were built in old, faded,
shabby neighborhood to channelize the nostalgic feelings among the customers. The non
aesthetic, mundanely modernized shopping malls, according to Ashwell would not be a good
idea for Shabby Chic to get established. It resulted in brand dilution. The environment of the
malls did not co-operate with her as well. However, as the Global Financial Crisis arose in
November 2008 to January 2009, the arket constricted and Shabby Chic became a failure.
However, the serendipity shaped Shabby Chic’s fate as Ashwell introduced Shabby
ChicCouture in Texas which accidentally became a huge success and the reputation of
Shabby Chic was restored (NYtimes.com).
If I had been the owner of Shabby Chic, I would have never encouraged the change
of venue and shop of Shabby Chic. Shabby Chic, the most authentically unique and
unconventionally aesthetic interior decoration chain, which has been able to be popular
throughout the world, is only famous for its unique antiquity items which gives a vintage
nostalgic feeling among the twentieth and twenty first century millennial of the United
States. Therefore, the venue of the store is mainly chosen near an old, dilapidated neighborhood

4SHABBY CHIC: AN ESSAY
which tells a story and signifies a past, to get well the customers well synchronized with the
concept and context of Shabby Chic. The most catastrophic mistake which had been done by
Mrs. Ashwell has putting the store at a mundane and un aesthetic shopping mall that made
customers lose interest in the items. I could have avoided such situation successfully if I had
been the owner of Shabby Chic.
The major strategic mistakes of Shabby Chic
The major strategic mistakes of Shabby Chic was changing the venue of the store,
relying too much on the flea market and setting up business in the shopping mall which as
politically as well as socio-economically manipulated. First of all, setting up the venue of the
store in a mundane shopping mall which had no aesthetic value created disinterest among the
customers. The artistic fervor of the store was completely lost when it was newly introduced in
the monotonous and clinical concrete shopping malls rather than old nostalgic neighborhoods
(NYtimes.com). Secondly, large amount of stock had to be purchased from the third party
suppliers from the flea market which led to degradation of the product and brand dilution.
Third, the long term leases of shopping malls made it expensive for her to manage the business,
along with liquidation of materials which did not belong to the mall, including Ashwell’s
personal items and also the name of the business, “Shabby Chic”. Moreover, sociological
factors such as Ashwell was unaware of the mall culture and was not amicable with the
other business owners in the mall, therefore, she felt alienated. The plethora of warehouses,
complex computer systems, myriads of receptionists, officials and management staff, Chief
Executive Officers, Vice Presidents and staff made her feel alienated, uncomfortable and
disinterested in the affairs of the shopping mall. Mrs. Ashwell was not prepared for such
capitalization and publicizing her business as she belonged to the genre of offbeat business and

5SHABBY CHIC: AN ESSAY
could not cope with the fast and complicated pace of the shopping malls (Shabbychic.com). Such
catastrophic mistake for an unconventional and unique enterprise like “Shabby Chic” needs to be
avoided as every business has a separate state of modus operandi, a separate benchmark and a
separate customer whom the business caters to (Jiang, Dong, and Tang). Offbeat and
unconventional business has a separate way of publication and marketing strategies which might
not be similar to the other corporate companies working in the global market. Capitalization of
industries can harm certain offbeat business, “Shabby Chic” being the most significant example.
The respective essay is a case study and an argumentative discussion about the strategies,
initial drawbacks faced by the business enterprise named “Shabby Chic” by Rachel Ashwell in
the starting phase of her business, and what has been learnt and experienced in the respective
business so far. The essay has focused on the insight of the different strategies that were taken by
Ashwell in the initial as well as the middle of the business, the ways by she survived in the
competitive era initially and thrived, the strategic drawbacks which were the reasons for the
difficulties she faced throughout the conduct of her business and how she regained the reputation
and status of her business all over again.

6SHABBY CHIC: AN ESSAY
References:
Ashwell, R. and Costin, G., 1996. Shabby Chic. ReganBooks/HarperStyle.
Brembeck, H. and Sörum, N., 2017. Assembling nostalgia: devices for affective captation on the re:
heritage market. International Journal of Heritage Studies, 23(6), pp.556-574.
Jiang, Z., Dong, F. and Tang, Y., 2013, July. Analysis on Jingdong’s Offbeat Marketing
Strategies. In International Conference on Computer, Networks and Communication
Engineering (ICCNCE 2013). Atlantis Press.
NYtimes.com 2009. Available atwww.nytimes.com/2009/10/15/garden/15shabby.html
Shabbychic.com. 2018 Available at https://www.shabbychic.com/