M2 Boutique: Shopping in Lakeview

By Karissa Martin

The pink- and brown-striped awning over the entrance to M2 Boutique fluttered in the light breeze in Lakeview late on a Saturday morning. A dry erase board informed passersby of the 20 percent discount with a purchase of two items of jewelry. The expansive window displays invited customers in with the promise of purses, hats and every accessory imaginable.

Inside, several customers bumped their way through the petite shop, trying to get a look at every item in the store. The overwhelming array of purses, clutches, earrings, necklaces, bracelets and more was covered with every shade of purple, pink, green, red, and every color of the rainbow. Along one wall, a large collection of silver and gold jewelry sparkled brightly, an eye-catching display in M2 Boutique.

For the accessory-lover, this could only be heaven.

“I really enjoy shopping at M2,” said Amy Ponto, a shopper, of Lakeview. “I think they have really cute and stylish accessories for reasonable prices.”

The staff is “very helpful and friendly and can assist with finding specific accessories that you are looking for,” Ponto added.

Melissa “Mel” Nelson, the owner of M2 Boutique, said that this is exactly what she had in mind for the store when she started it seven years ago.

“I started this store with the intent that this is a business where we’re going to be 100 percent hands-on,” she said. She wanted to “treat customers like friends.”

“I always knew that I would do this,” Nelson said of running her boutique.

She started working in the jewelry business at 16 and has kept with it ever since.

Although she knew at 19 that she eventually wanted to open up her own store, Nelson, a chicly dressed, blonde-haired woman with an ever-present smile, attended Columbia College in Chicago. After receiving an entertainment management degree, Nelson began bartending and working at a high-end jewelry store on Michigan Avenue.

In 2003, after much experience in the jewelry industry, Nelson opened up her first store, M. Boutique, in Lincoln Park. She had no help with her store―she said she had to use odds and ends to create displays, and she even painted her own kitchen table to add to the mix.

“I’ve worked with jewelry my entire life,” she said when asked if she knew what she was getting herself into. Nelson said she was prepared for it, but there was still a lot of work that went into starting M. Boutique. “There were times when I slept on the floor because I couldn’t get up to go home,” Nelson recalled.

Nelson has come a long way from sleeping in her little shop in Lincoln Park. Forced to expand her booming business after three years, she said that she closed M. Boutique and opened M2 Boutique at its current location in Lakeview.

With its vast array of colors, trendy merchandise, and ever-changing selection of gently priced items, ranging from about $5 to $250, M2 Boutique is a mirror image of Nelson’s personality. She said low prices are important to her because she thinks that a woman should not have to pay ridiculous amounts of money for stylish accessories.

She said she works hard to be on top of the current styles and to keep a steady cycle of new merchandise. As M2 Boutique’s Web site states, “Buy it when you see it because it’s gone before you know it.”

In addition to its current location, M2 Boutique is also in Naperville, and Nelson has a store called M4Men right next to M2 in Lakeview.

“I think success is a state of mind,” Nelson said when asked about her growing success. “I look at this as this is what I’m supposed to do.”

Nelson said she is not satisfied, even after her expansion to multiple locations. “I’ve become a glorified office manager,” she said.

Indeed she spends her days at work cramped in the tiny, cluttered room at the back of the store, working with numbers and inventory instead of with customers.

“I want to get back on the floor,” Nelson said.

Right now, Nelson’s employees like Kelly Feldmiller are the ones on the floor interacting with the customers.

“I like being able to work one-on-one with customers,” Feldmiller said. That is what makes people keep coming back time and again. Feldmiller said it’s “the fact that we personally help customers.”

Feldmiller said that working for Nelson at the boutique is a lot of fun. Not only do you get to know the customers, but you “get to know people you work with,” she said.

“We all like working here,” Feldmiller said. “A lot of people that work here end up staying here for a long time.”

“It’s kind of fun to be at work,” she added.

On a recent day, a customer waited at the counter as Feldmiller placed her new purchase in a little pink box, wrapped it in pink tissue paper, and dropped it into a crinkly, clear bag with a little pink shopper on it.  With a smile, Feldmiller handed the customer her merchandise, and the customer turned to leave, a satisfied sparkle in her eye.