Impacting the Community One Square Foot at a Time: From 400 to 11,000
Defiance County was built on the backs of small business owners throughout the generations. Some of these businesses span those generations while new ones introduce something unique to the community. Pauletta Cox and her daughter Andie White own Eclectic Wallflower Boutique on Clinton Street in Downtown Defiance and have committed to leaving a positive mark on Defiance.
Eclectic Wallflower started as two separate businesses selling products at vendor markets. When both mother and daughter noticed their customers’ positive reception, they combined their ideas, and Eclectic Wallflower Boutique was born.
Eclectic Wallflower opened in 2019 in a 400-square-foot store in an alleyway in Downtown Defiance. They quickly realized they needed to expand based on the response from the community. They purchased an 11,000-square-foot building on Clinton Street and opened a new 5,000-square-foot storefront. They didn’t just survive 2020 but found ways to thrive. They were able to contribute to the community through their boutique and help the vendors they started with by transforming half of their storefront into a vendor space that local vendors have fully stocked.
Pauletta and Andie are both Defiance natives and have committed to making our community a better place. Pauletta encourages anyone looking to start their own business in Defiance to look at the market and see what spots need to be filled, as well as ask questions and take advice from other business owners. They opened Eclectic Wallflower to provide affordable items for people of all income levels and have inclusive sizing. They far surpassed those goals and now give back to the community by being kid-friendly, opening their space to local arts and vendors, providing affordable formal wear, and creating a library box outside of their store that they transform during the winter months for anyone who needs winter hats and gloves to take for free, are open six days a week, and offer fun and unique items to shop for. Eclectic Wallflower Boutique is just one of the fantastic small businesses in Defiance County. This year, we encourage you to find more businesses like theirs and shop locally.
