Hot Shop: Ann Mashburn

Sid’s wife moves next door
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Photograph by Patrick Heagney

Sid Mashburn opened his namesake shop on the Westside three years ago. The men’s boutique is a sartorial menagerie—juxtaposing silk tartan ties with Levi’s 501 Original jeans—that has become an institution among Atlanta’s dapper gents. But Mashburn, as it turns out, is a family-run brand. Wife Ann has cohelmed the ship since its inception, with their five daughters, ages nine to twenty, helping out when possible. And in June, the family welcomed a new addition as Ann opened her own eponymous boutique just a few feet away—a modest 1,100-square-foot brand extension.
Ann Mashburn the boutique is the feminine version of Sid Mashburn. Aesthetically, Ann’s store is a pink Parisian music box that counterpoints her husband’s green English hunting lodge. Her habiliments entail womanly alternatives to Sid’s staples: Lacoste polos, Levi’s jeans, Mackintosh raincoats, Tretorn tennis shoes. Like Sid, Ann has her own private label, featuring feminized men’s-style shirts, pin-striped trousers, shirtdresses, and double-breasted sweater jackets. She also offers up a coterie of books for sale, but where Sid carries Walker Lamond’s Rules for My Unborn Son, she sells Richard Avedon’s Woman in the Mirror.
 
A former Vogue fashion assistant, Glamour editor, and J.Crew stylist, Ann curates her shop with the eye of an editor, not a designer. She admits to not knowing how clothes are made—that’s Sid’s expertise—but she knows what looks good with what. Boasting a familial line from Martha’s Vineyard that dates back to the Pilgrims, Ann has created an assemblage that works not because the pieces exemplify what’s hot right now, but because they highlight what’s timeless and show how to personalize classic styles. Consider one of Ann’s outfits: a black, stretchy, cotton-knit tube dress by James Perse paired with a black, jewel-neck cardigan; and cognac, handmade leather sandals by Barbara Shaum. Thanks to Saint James sailor shirts, Pretty Ballerinas ballet flats, J Brand jeggings, and Kendall Conrad leather bags, her boutique appeals both to those who value affordability and those who value expensive trappings. “I would like to buy things that I will wear till I’m in the grave,” explains Ann. 1198 Howell Mill Road, 404-350-7132, annmashburn.com

This article originally appeared in our October 2010 issue.
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