Abby Bullock still remembers her very first pop-up. It was in 2014, after she’d fallen in love with fashion buying as a Dallas fashion student and moved to her husband’s hometown of Baton Rouge.
“I jam-packed my 4-Runner with baskets of clothes, and I booked my first pop-up in Shreveport at my friend’s house, and it like, blew up,” she tells 225 in a new feature in the current issue.
Since then, her brand, Wanderlust by Abby, has spent the past three years living up to its name.
Her boho, festival-ready selection of clothing traveled Louisiana and the South with shopping pop-ups and, eventually, a van that Bullock transformed into a mobile boutique. But with the Baton Rouge opening of Wanderlust, her first brick-and-mortar shop, the fashionista has finally put down some roots.
In a 500-square-foot space leased in the Southdowns Shopping Center, Wanderlust by Abby opened in early March.
Bullock’s love of the road shows in her store’s collection, which pulls items locally and regionally from cities she’s visited. Take a quick lap of her space and you’ll find stone pendants from New Orleans’ Eveille Jewelry, lipsticks by Covington’s Kismet Cosmetics and handbags by Baton Rouge’s own SavvyRoot. By summer, Bullock plans to have her entire inventory of clothing made by in-state brands, too.
“I want to give an outlet for other girls to feel like they can look unique in Baton Rouge, that they don’t all have to wear Tory Burch and all that. Express yourself; show your uniqueness. I want people to be able to afford it and have quality goods.”
