When you walk into To Be Continued in Scottsdale, you’ll find two things: gorgeous clothing and exceptional service.
Chrissy Sayare is co-founder and CEO of To Be Continued, a luxury resale boutique in Scottsdale, which she established in 2014 with her husband and have since expanded to add TBC2- a smaller store in Scottsdale two doors down from the main store; opened their Dallas location in 2016 and most recently opened their Los Angeles location in November 2019.
With a high-tech background, Sayare was an executive recruiter and owned her own business for 18 years before opening To Be Continued in 2014.
When Sayare and her husband moved to the Valley, they noticed there was high activity in the resale marketplace, but Sayare said nobody was catering to the well-heeled women of the community.
“I thought, ‘this would be a wonderful way to address what I saw as a need in the marketplace for resale that’s very focused on the luxury client,” Sayare said. “So I thought, ‘I’m going to do for the first time something that I’m passionate about, which is fashion’ and I’m a lifelong entrepreneur. So opening a business around fashion and also offering a place where luxury was accessible because my whole life I’ve been a bargain hunter and so I’ve always had champagne taste on a beer budget.”
“What I hope to accomplish here are a couple things: one was servicing and really paying attention to the needs of a very particular shopper and consigner, but also making the luxury products accessible to a bigger audience.”
Since they opened in 2014, Sayare said the reception has been incredible and TBC has been more successful than she anticipated.
“The community is extremely supportive of us here, I think without them I wouldn’t have opened a second store, but I felt like we really hit upon something that was needed and they really support their own and they’ve been doing that for us since we opened.”
Due to the boutiques’ success and Sayare’s commitment to sustainable fashion, Sayare was recently inducted into the Vogue100, a membership by Vogue Magazine that brings together creatives, designers, entrepreneurs, editors, photographers, social influencers and more to bring their experience and perspectives to discuss topics impacting the fashion industry today, access to networking opportunities and exclusive industry events.
Sayare was recommended to join the Vogue100 by Vogue Fashion Director Tonne Goodman, whom she had met at one of Goodman’s book signings in California promoting her book Point of View. After Sayare met with Goodman and some of her colleagues in Paris during fashion week in September 2019, she said the membership was a great fit.
“Vogue is really interested in talking about and promoting sustainability in fashion and that’s what we do here,” Sayare said. “And I’m really ensconced in that too because I sell previously owned things which helps the environment. I met them in Paris and Milan at the end of February and there lots of talks amongst the editors and designers about this so I hope to bring that information back to TBC and all of our supporters what I’ve learned about what’s happening in that space, because everybody’s interested in it and participating to the extent that they can.”
The Vogue 100 gives members access to exclusive networking opportunities and private events. One example is a competition in sustainability that was held during Milan Fashion Week in February. Vogue partnered with Yoox to host a sustainability fashion challenge with judges, and the Vogue 100 was invited to attend and a dinner was held afterwards for everyone involved, Sayare said, who was in attendance.
In addition, Sayare travels extensively from Paris to China meeting with clients to find the right pieces for To Be Continued, which include in demand or very rare items and brands.
“Chanel is our biggest seller, Hermes, Louis Vuitton, Gucci, Dior, Prada—they’re all very strong in the pre-loved market, they all have really good resale value and our shoppers want those things and we try to be current, so we want things that were from six months ago or 12 months ago; and we have a very strong vintage market in LA, so we have a section that does really well of just vintage,” Sayare said.
The secondhand market will reach $51 billion by 2023; and 56 million women bought resale products in 2018; and 26 percent of luxury shoppers buy secondhand. Sustainability is also an important factor, as 59 percent of consumers expect retailers to create clothes ethically and sustainably.
The store’s layout and design was intentional and sophisticated, with key items in the display windows, to the organized racks of clothing and shoes. Sayare said the design was partly drawn upon her experience walking into retail shops, and was originally going to paint the existing space and put mirrors up, but her husband said, “If you’re going to do this, do it right.” That led Sayare and her husband to take their two locations and bring them down to the studs and add intentional lighting on the ceiling, on the top of the shelves and in the shoe department. Sayare said the lighting makes a difference because “people feel good in this space.”
Another design element they brought into the space were circular patterns. “A lot of things are circular, and that’s because this is a circular economy of things starting out new, getting sold, coming back to us, so the lights on the ceiling are circular. The floor also has circular patterns in it, because I wanted to subliminally touch upon the circular economy of things.”
Sayare wants to build To Be Continued as a brand, not run it as a store. And that brand has strong ties between its four locations, as customers who have shopped in Scottsdale also visit and shop in Los Angeles and Dallas.
“In LA, I would say a few times a day people are like, ‘You’re here!’ and they know us from great experiences in Dallas and Scottsdale, I’m really proud of that because it shows me that we have been building a brand that’s based on integrity, trust, ethics,” Sayare said.
“Traditionally this has been an industry where there weren’t many regulations so it was very hard for the shopper or consignor to trust completely that what they were buying was authentic. To trust that the things that they dropped off were going to be cared for and not lost, stolen or damaged, and they would be out of luck if any of those things happened,” Sayare said.
“We guarantee everything–the condition and safety of the product, and if something happens to it in our care, and it happens, no matter how careful we are, we take care of it. I think that is one of the reasons we have grown so quickly and that our brand is as strong as it is because trust was the No. 1 thing that we set out to achieve with our clients.”
Sayare said she’s proud of the brand recognition TBC has received in Los Angeles, and repeat customers who tell others of their positive experiences shopping at one of TBC’s locations have helped the boutiques grow organically.
“I’m also very proud that after six years we have four stores, a burgeoning online business and we get amazing product and the competition is fierce. I say we’re in the pack with the leaders and considering that we’re four stores versus the financing that they (large, online retailers) have behind them, we’re doing the basics right and it’s resonating with our clients.”
While some items like a Birkin bag remain elusive for most, Sayare said TBC has many other items that can fill that niche of wanting a designer piece on a budget, pieces that can make you feel like, “I own something very special and makes me feel good everyday,” Sayare said. “I hope that people walk in feeling like they’re part of the TBC family, that it’s the beginning of a very long relationship. And at TBC, we can sell you something and will probably want you to consign it again, so for us there’s endless opportunity for relationship building because we service the buyer and the buyer as a seller.”
Through her Vogue100 membership, Sayare said she wants to learn about best practices for TBC that she wasn’t aware of prior and implement them at each of TBC’s four locations, and wants to grow TBC into a worldwide brand with more brick and mortar locations.
“A common culture in all our locations, is we find our clients love to come into the stores and connect with our sales associates. I’m working hard with my team to create an international brand that is associated with trust, beautiful product and the opportunity to purchase something you may not have otherwise been able to afford–to have a little piece of the dream of luxury.”
