Lisa Tave shows off the gym bag she created, which gave rise to her new shop of the same name: Physhion. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
Fair Haven’s quaint downtown saw the debuts of a pair of fresh retail faces last month:
• Physhion, a boutique specializing in workout wear that doubles as all-day clothing.
• The Pink Peony, a flowers-and-gifts shop that also offers party-planning services.
Kristi Evans at the Pink Peony, which opened last month. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)
• Joining two other fitness-related enterprises – Clementine Cycling Studio and Red Bicycle Studio – at 813 River Road is Physhion, the creation of Rumson resident Lisa Tave.
A veteran of make-it-happen corporate suites, Tave invented a multipurpose gym bag, also called the Physhion, eight years ago, and had modest success with it, placing it in major chain gyms and stores, she said.
With its various interior pockets for things like toiletries, sneakers, cellphones and a separate closable pouch for sweaty clothes, the Physhion allows active women to travel from gym to the office with all their stuff in an attractive shoulder bag of Italian leather and coated twill that doesn’t smell like a locker, Tave said.
Now, after a stint raising her four sons, the lifelong fitness fan is back, not only selling her bags, which she calls her “girls,” but bolstering the line with clothing and accessories for fitness-oriented women.
Tave, who leads stationary cycling classes upstairs at Clementine when her shop is closed, told Retail Churn that she wants to give women who work out an alternative to the uniform look created by Lululemon.
“My thing is that everybody looks the same at the gym,” she said. “But individuality shouldn’t stop at the gym. You should have your own look.”
Because today’s women are living their lives in a nonstop blur of movement between home, gym, school, work, errands and socializing, Tave said she also wanted to stock her racks with activewear that’s suitable throughout the day, and even into the evening.
Among the lines of workout pants, tops and more than she carries are Vimmia, Nux, Phat Buddha, Koral and Nesh.
“And once the inventory sells out, I don’t restock it,” Tave said, “so it’s constantly changing.”
• At 783 River Road, the Pink Peony takes over a space last used by Lollies candy. The shop is the creation of borough resident Kristi Evans, who decided to leverage an event-planning business she started in her home about five years ago into a retail operation.
With a growing calendar of weddings, 40th-birthday parties and other events, “I thought, ‘I need to get out of my garage,'” said Evans, who has a marketing background and once owned a day spa in Jersey City.
The Pink Peony features two uncluttered rooms displaying housewares such as candles, picture frames and vases, all with a “contemporary chic” vibe, Evans told Churn.
“We’re really big on the vases being as beautiful as the flowers,” she said. ” We always match them.”
Her approach to floristry is to make displays that are “chock full” of colorful flowers, whereas others in the industry use lots of greenery as filler to keep costs down, Evans said. Still, she said, her flower-and-vase combinations are competitively priced: “I like to keep it reasonable.”
