Elevation Clothing: A Familiar Name With A New, Fun Attitude

Sep 22, 2023 01:43PM ● By E. Senteio Photography By Lynn Bohannon

The Elevation team includes Jennifer Gubbins, Bif Noble, Kimbel Biele, Lilly Macri, Ryan Barton, and Jennifer Anderson. Not pictured: Lydia Locke, Staci Reardon, Ashley Clapp, and Stacy Bebo.

If you’ve been around the Upper Valley for any length of time, you know Elevation Clothing has long been a part of the vibrant heart of Woodstock, Vermont. If you’re new to the area, it may have come up in conversation when someone excitedly asked, “Where did you get that?”
In the last three years, Elevation Clothing has experienced a revival of sorts. New owner Kimbel Biele purchased the store from the previous owners and her current neighbors, Carolyn and Charlie Kimbell. Having never owned a store of any kind before, the bold move may have been out of naivete or moxie. Yet, after receiving an already great store from Carolyn and Charlie, the reward for the leap of faith has been more than she imagined possible.

Meet the Owner

Before buying Elevation, Kimbel says, she “hadn’t worked in 22 years.” But that’s not exactly true. She had been hard at work raising three daughters. “One was a pro skier, one is applying to med school, and one designs lingerie,” Kimbel says proudly. While her daughters were in school, Kimbel coached the middle and high school tennis teams. Her husband Jon traveled for work, and she was used to “having a million balls in the air.”

With her children grown and out of the house and her husband about to retire, Kimbel was wondering what came next when she heard Elevation was up for sale. “Suddenly,” she recalls, “I was like, oh, I can do that. It’s all connected to the community.” A bonus, she says, is having her daughters look at her “and being proud of me for being this businesswoman that none of us knew I was, so that’s kind of fun.” Fun is a word you will hear frequently when talking about Elevation.

Although she had no experience owning and running a store, Kimbel did have a bit of retail in her background. When she was young, she worked at Tiffany’s, where she learned “a ton about making things special.” Prior to becoming a full-time mom, she worked with clothing companies “J.J. Farmer, Barry Bricken, and Sandy Links, selling their lines into specialty and pro shops.” That was where she learned about merchandising. What she learned has served her and her Elevation Clothing customers well.

Two Floors of Wow!

One might describe Kimbel’s style as eclectic. The items you find at Elevation are contemporary and traditional, exhilarating and comforting, durable and fashionable. Maybe you want to play hard and look good doing it. Or you want shoes that keep your feet happy as you explore new places and hike majestic mountains. How about a sexy dress that’s comfortable, or one “you can go hiking in and roll into a ball and put in your backpack?” Maybe you’re in the market for locally made jewelry or finely tailored gloves. Are you in search of a wall of socks?

Kimbel runs through a list of just some of the brands, national and local, that fill the two floors of the store: Stio, Faherty, Barbour, Patagonia, KÜHL, Cotopaxi, Blundstone, Indyeva, Scarpa, Skhoop, Artemis, In2, Whimsy Designs, goodr, Vermont Gloves, Darn Tough, Skida, Kari Traa. However, Kimbel will tell you it’s not about brand names. It’s about quality, comfort, and sometimes personal experience. “We brought in Scarpa Italian hiking boots because my husband found them in Italy when he was on a biking trip, and he fell in love with them.”

When it’s something new they can introduce people to, “our staff has fun telling people about it. I’m happy we sell KÜHL because it’s fantastic for curvier people and a really well-made product. We have athletic wear that’s fashionable enough that it can be worn anywhere, and a huge Barbour section, which is an English line like what you see on the show The Crown. Some items we sell are a bit more trendy, like Faherty and Stio. We have Blundstone boots and fun fashion pieces, like right now we have these super-cute flip-flops.” What unifies the store’s diversity of styles, functions, and products, says Kimbel, is that everything is “well made and looks good.”

“My merchandising goal,” says Kimbel, “is bringing lots of different products together.” Instead of a rack of shirts or stack of pants, “I mix it all by colors.” Kimbel believes this helps customers think outside of their comfort zones. “My staff and I love when we can help someone who might come in thinking they looked good in a particular brand, then they find something that makes them actually look or feel better.” Often the staff will buy something at the store and then come back and tell customers about their experiences. “There’s an excitement in helping someone find something they didn’t know they were looking for or try something new and unexpected that turns out to be perfect.”

A Community Within a Community

The Dream Team: Bif, Kimbel, and Kitty.

At Elevation Clothing, it’s not just about customer service; it’s about customer satisfaction and a fun, personalized experience—not just for the people who shop there but also for everyone who works there. Kimbel doesn’t call them her employees; she refers to them as a team. This may be partly why she has created something difficult to find these days: a happy workplace. If you ask employees what it’s like working at Elevation—whether they’ve been there over a decade or less than a year—you hear words like fun, community, and family. Bif Noble has worked at the store for 14 years, and Kitty King has been there for 10. “They came with the store,” Kimbel says, and she is so very glad they did. Bif says, “Kimbel has created an incredible, fun, and enjoyable workplace. It’s something every customer feels when they enter the store. They always leave feeling like family.” It’s a feeling that Bif, Kimbel, and each team member likes to cultivate. “My team is so genuine, kind, and hardworking. One of the things I love about the store,” says Kimbel, “is that my team all loves to be here, and they’ve become friends. So when you walk in, it’s a really happy place.” It’s a combination of things that lends itself to the upbeat atmosphere, including “the great products and the great customers,” says staffer Staci Reardon. “It’s a fun and rewarding place to work, and the customers reap the benefits.” A recent addition to the Elevation team, high school student-athlete Lilly Macri says Kimbel is giving her “the experience of a lifetime and emphasizes creating a welcoming and helpful community for the customers and her employees.” Working at Elevation, Lilly says, has made her “a better person.” It’s her “dream job” because, as a local, it’s where she has always loved to shop.

For Kimbel, each team member brings something special: “I feel so blessed. I just never thought that the team part of owning a store would be so life-changing. It’s like everyone walked in at just the right time to be the spark we were missing.”

But it’s not just the friendships among coworkers. It’s the relationships they’ve created with their customers. The bonds formed over picking the right outfit for a first date, a road trip with friends, a weekend in the mountains under the stars, or the perfect gift. Remembering a little girl who visited on her birthday for a Cotopaxi backpack she’d wanted “forever,” Kimbel laughs. “We carry these awesome backpacks that are all repurposed fabrics. So each one looks completely different. And she couldn’t decide.” So Kimbel suggested she lay them all out. “She had 25 backpacks out on the floor. And she just put one away at a time until she got down to her perfect birthday backpack. She had so much fun!”

Chaos Theory Kimbel wants everyone who comes into the pine-scented space to find something special for them, even if it’s just a fun time and good conversation. Elevation’s clientele ranges from babies to boomers, from students to seniors. “When customers come in here, they always say, ‘You have so much great stuff,’ and everybody pretty much finds something they like, whether they buy it or not. I love that. I want people to say, if you go to Elevation, they’ll help you find what’s right for you.”

Kimbel prefers the store full of choices and people. “Sometimes it gets a little crowded, but I think I like a little bit of chaos versus boutique. Raising three girls under two-and-a-half years old taught me to keep chaos fun. It’s nice to have a place where people walk out smiling bigger than when they walked in.”

Elevation Clothing
15 Central Street #1
Woodstock, VT
(802) 332-6380
elevationclothingvt.com http://elevationclothingvt.com/

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