Shopping in Charleston

While artwork may gain immortality by challenging traditional aesthetics, the life of a painting or photograph is only as secure as the frame that contains it. This dedication to preservation is what inspired Michael and Ellen Mintz to open Frames Unlimited in 1979. That same spirit extended to their business itself: when Hurricane Hugo took its toll on their original shop, they gutted it and reopened, this time with more square footage for a gallery and design space. They remain in that space today, helping their staff members create custom frames and matting. In addition to paintings and photography, the staff helps customers guard heirlooms and specialty items such as sports jerseys or athletes still wearing their sports jerseys. Their services also extend to museum-quality archival framing, with special UV-filtering glass to protect art from light’s harmful rays. No matter the job, their shop stocks the materials to match it. Thousands of mouldings run the style gamut from very traditional to ultracontemporary, and colorful frames include hand-finished Italian designs and water-gilded gold leaf.

Her windswept tresses are still golden, and the turquoise surf still roils beneath her feet, but this Venus isn’t breathing or made of Botticelli’s brushstrokes. Her upturned face and ruby lips are made of beads, peyote-stitched together by Jennifer Lowe to create an award-winning sculpture that traveled to museums with a Beadwork Magazine exhibit. The Venus followed Lowe to her namesake store, where the masterpiece now stands in all her glory among a wealth of czech-pressed glass, natural seeds and pods from the Amazon, and vintage glass beads.

Visitors can gather up this glimmering bounty and take it to the store’s play table, where tools await to help them turn the seed beads and gems into necklaces or use them to jazz up their formal retainer. Helpful staff members hover nearby to give tips on wiring earrings or attaching fasteners, as well as teach a full schedule of classes that covers both basic and advanced techniques. They also impart their wisdom during parties to celebrate birthdays or a successful Crown Jewels heist.

During the mid-1970s, two touring musicians named Ed Blanton Jr. and Bubba Willis opened the original Encore Music to share their vast knowledge with aspiring tunesmiths and to stock a variety of quality instruments that would rival the inventory of a large franchise store. Though successful, the partners eventually went their separate ways in 1986. Ed Blanton Jr.’s son, Ed Blanton III, revived Encore Music two decades later with the same goals in mind, calling upon his experiences in the East Coast punk-rock scene to motivate young musicians and mohawks to reach for the sky. In its current incarnation, Encore Music now offers music lessons in guitar, bass, piano, and drums, and stocks all the equipment necessary to create an at-home recording studio.

The water starts to darken along a stretch of marsh grasses, just before its surface is slashed apart by the fins of hungry redfish. The redfish trap schools of mullet into a tight corral—and then go into a feeding frenzy. South Carolina fishermen love this scenario. The owners of The Charleston Angler love it, too, which is why they founded their shop back in 2000. The shop's crew of seasoned anglers supply fly, inshore, and offshore fishermen with tackle specific to South Carolina's waters, from the coastal flats that draw trophy tarpon to the inland lakes filled with blue catfish. Along with advising customers on gear from brands such as Shimano, Penn, and St. Croix, the shop hosts classes and seminars. These sessions can cover topics as broad as Orvis fly-fishing, or as specific as catching bass in the cypress-strewn swamps of Francis Marion National Forest.

Beyond tackle and apparel—some of which comes from their own "Redfish" line of t-shirts, trucker hats, ball caps, visors, and jackets—The Charleston Angler offers fly-fishing and light-tackle charters and runs an in-house embroidery boutique. The staff also posts tips, insights, fish haikus, and fishing reports on its Reel Blog and encourages customers to share their fish stories.

Betty Lilly opened Frame Up in 1977 to preserve the cherished photos and artwork of her clientele. Three years later, she handed over ownership to her daughter Denise Mosimann, who has held the custom-framed reigns of the family business ever since. Today, the framing professional and her staff will meet one-on-one with customers to customize jobs and update already framed items, selecting from the troves of mats and multicolored mouldings housed within the onsite framing facility. The preservation pros take as little as one day (depending on availability) to protect photos, diplomas, and the promo posters of successful home movies behind museum-quality glass. Frame Up also specializes in selling local and wildlife artwork, including prints from John James Audubon's Birds of America.

Since 1989, The Carousel Boutique’s clothier Beth Anne Kenna has outfitted ankle biters with homespun and designer children's fashions in boys’ sizes newborn to 4T and girls’ sizes newborn to 10. She crafts matching doll dresses, polka-dot hair bows from grosgrain ribbon, and baby booties by hand. She also personalizes ensembles with custom embroidery or skull and smiley ribbons, which allows parents to distinguish the good twin from the bad one.