POP LOCAL VOTING: How, What, and Why

How: Vote on the POP LOCAL website at https://shoppoplocal.com/the-boulevard-2024

What: Pop Local is a contest held by Edwards Realty Company, offering one entrepreneur or small business owner 3 rent-free months to test their products or services in a premium retail storefront at The Boulevard in St. Louis, MO, plus $3,500 to help bring their dream to life! The winner will be chosen by their performance in three areas: interviewing with the management team, participating in a Showcase day at the Boulevard, and receiving online votes from the public. More information about Pop Local was printed by the Saint Louis Business Journal and you can read more by clicking here.

Why: Launch is the culmination of 2 things: decades of work that began generations ago in Lia's family and the evolving work of her 25+ year career in apparel and fashion. 

After moving to St. Louis, she was welcomed into the city by Skif Int'l and LoveLaunch was born. Here at LoveLaunch, we sell high quality design through clothing & accessories made with something extra that we call love. We met wonderful people in St. Louis who wanted what we had and we grew. In 2020 the world changed, but our collective passion for beautiful well made apparel didn't, and so we pivoted and focused on our webstore, email community, and loyal customers.

Lia's been asked many times if she would re-open one of the retail locations in the years since and she has always said, "No... well, maybe if I had a partner."

Last month she learned about an opportunity that the premier Retail Landlord in St. Louis was offering called Pop Local. They were looking for a local business to partner with for one of their store spaces and they wanted Launch to apply.

And so, over the next weeks we went over every inch of our business with a comb. The books. The inventory. The web traffic. The Fall deliveries. We talked about what we hoped the future of Launch to look like. And ultimately decided we were ready to go for it. 

Out of 75 vibrant, eager, and exciting businesses hoping for the opportunity, we were selected as one of the 5 finalists chosen. We hope we've done enough to earn your vote, and thank you for all of your support always.