Magazine Feature, Published in Paprika Southern
When it comes to fashion, there is nothing like the whimsical feeling of playing dress-up with a best friend. This is the feeling that comes over you when you step into one of the three Savannah clothing boutiques—Red Clover, Harper, and Arrowleaf— owned by Leah Lancaster Riffle and Thu Tran-Litts. It’s hard to pass any of their boutiques without being drawn into the visual storyline created by their charming window displays. Inside there is a charm-meets-chic vibe, and Leah and Thu's warm, attentive customer service engenders an insatiable desire to want to touch and buy absolutely everything.
The comfortable whimsy inside the boutiques is directly attributable to the bond they formed over their love for shopping in small, affordable boutiques while they attended college in Athens, GA. Despite briefly going their separate ways after college, they always knew they wanted to open up a boutique like those they loved to shop in during the early days of their friendship. They found that Savannah had a need for just that type of shopping, and after a year of developing their business plan, their dream of opening a boutique together was realized when they opened Red Clover in 2007.
Today, they carry the same passion they’ve always had for shopping into their love for traveling together and going to market in New York City, Atlanta, and Los Angeles, where they make personal selections for the boutiques with friends, family, and the personalized customer base they have cultivated, in mind.
Their customers range from local students, to visitors who want a special piece exclusive to Savannah, to the working woman. One of their guiding principles is giving back to their community and working with local artists, jewelers, and designers. They search for pieces that are unique and different, but always maintain their affordability.
“We work really well together and are always bouncing ideas off of each other all the time," Thu says.
As they get ready to celebrate the twelfth year of Red Clover, their best friend kinship and long-standing business partnership make up the backbone of their successful boutiques. Each married with young children, they attribute their success and being able to manage all three stores to their managers and family.
“We work a lot and have great husbands and good support systems,” says Thu.
“We have fantastic managers in both places and an amazing staff that has been with us for years,” Leah says. “Which [is] a huge part of it, the people make it, and we have great girls working for us.”
Harper, the second store they opened four years ago, caters to a dressier aesthetic such as silk items, and their most recent store, Arrowleaf, a mix of Harper and Red Clover, also carries children’s clothes inspired by their little ones.
It’s easy to see that their success grew from the seeds of the shared passion that blossomed first into Red Clover, and then into a family of boutiques as charming as the flower that first shop was named for.
