Shopping in Mandeville

Amid shelves lined with curiosity-inspiring playthings, and plenty of areas for concentrated toy testing, owners Aimee and Craig Gremillion can be spotted chatting with customers about their toy needs. The cheerful duo stocks their neighborhood shop, located within Citiplace, with puzzles, workbooks, arts-and-crafts kits, and games that, like scratch 'n' sniff vocabulary tests, encourage children to equate learning and creativity with fun. They rely on trusted toy brands such as Lego, Toysmith, and Fisher-Price and boast complimentary gift-wrapping services as well as complimentary personalization for select products.

The professionals at Pineapple Gallery specialize in conservation framing and only use acid-free materials when framing prized family photos and valuable artwork. For added protection, the framers finish jobs with museum-quality glass. Patrons also can look for new wall decorations in Pineapple Gallery’s collection of paintings and prints from various artists.

The team behind the mom-and-pop Fabric Warehouse started their textile adventure in 1994 with 1,000 square feet of space. Since then, the store has moved to a 12,000-square-foot building packed with colorful indoor and outdoor fabrics, along with a variety of home decorations. Fabric Warehouse's two professional designers have the knowledge and expertise to help their clients customize bedding and drapery for master bedrooms or create an animal-print theme for a Neolithic-style man cave.

United Apparel Liquidators' fashion-savvy buying team compiles an immense stash of brand-new clothing and accessories from acclaimed designers, slicing 70–90% off their original retail price before featuring them on the boutiques' shelves. The stores—which have garnered press from fashion magazines such as Lucky and InStyle over their 30-year history—brim with men's and women's attire, shoes, and jewelry from prominent high-end labels such as Alexander McQueen, Chanel, and Marc Jacobs. Staffers aim to keep the vast collection current and up to date, harnessing their knowledge of the fashion scene to scope out threads from emerging designers and time-traveling thrift-store owners.

Meta Exchange owners Wendy and Michael Dolan gather designer apparel from premium brands, including 7 For All Mankind, J. Crew, and Abercrombie & Fitch, inside their sunlit store. The Dolans acquire some items on consignment and buy others outright, stocking racks with a wide variety of in-season apparel for men, women, and sentient store mannequins. A rotating cast of accessories highlights colorful jewelry and like-new handbags from brands such as Marc by Marc Jacobs.

Young women send hangers of gauzy tops and bold, colorful dresses clacking across Frock Candy’s colorful racks, where designs hang in four storefronts in Baton Rouge, Shreveport, and Destin, Florida. Independent and well-known brands, such as Chinese Laundry, Qupid, Theme, and Lush supply casual and special-occasion dresses, prim and everyday tops, and shoes both saucy and demure to an inventory which rotates as tastes change. Frock Candy’s style experts forecast trends such as fresh colors and trending images of celebrity pets for each season.