Double-digit sales growth, diverse clientele: Shop is bright spot on Country Club Plaza

Tynesha “Ty” Matches lights up when reminiscing about her regular trips to the iconic Country Club Plaza as a preteen. She worked there as a high schooler, dishing up ice cream treats at Cold Stone Creamery, and couldn’t help but shop there on her breaks.

Being a shop owner was never a dream then.

But now at age 33, her Matches Boutique has been steadily building clientele since opening in October 2020, so much so she extended her lease another year.

Her story defies the conventional wisdom that Plaza retailers couldn’t survive during the pandemic, much less open a shop for the first time. She is also part of another Plaza story line: Its retail scene is slowly growing more diverse.

Matches was designing and sewing her clothes while attending the Paseo Academy of Fine and Performing Arts, influenced by early-aughts music videos and trends. She studied fashion design at Clark Atlanta University in Atlanta, thinking she would like to be a choreographer for music videos.

After deciding to open her own company, she became an economics major at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, while working at the U.S. Postal Service. Then a girlfriends trip led to the idea for a boutique unlike any other in Kansas City.

“I went to Vegas with my friends in 2015 and I am an over-packer. They were like, ‘Where did you get this? Can I buy it off you,’” she said.

A month later, she opened Matches Boutique online, mostly selling pieces from Los Angeles that hadn’t been seen yet in Kansas City.

She also did weekend pop-ups around the metro with other local vendors, dipping into her 401(k) and using her tax refunds. After agonizing over her student loans, she didn’t want to go into debt for her business.

She also was cautious when opening her brick-and-mortar store, just signing a year lease so she could see how the Plaza shopper would respond. In the last few months she has noted more return customers, along with double-digit sales increases. Most of her competition is online.

“If you are looking for something unique or vacation-wear, then you want to come here,” she said.

The small corner spot at 320 Nichols Road — facing the high traffic intersection of Nichols and Broadway — had long been home to Mac Cosmetics. Now it has such items as fuzzy neon-green sherpa jackets. In the window, a crisp white button-down shirt is paired with a lacy leopard print slip dress. On a wall showcasing shoes are towering black stiletto ankle boots with a large studded bow.

Her bestselling items? Shoes, earrings and unique denim — pants with fringe, floor-length jackets, corsets.

“I don’t really have customers, I have extended family,” she said. “It’s like dressing my little sister or cousins. ‘Come out so I can see and put the rest of it together.’”

Downside of a Plaza location? “Snow days, rain,” she said.

The best part? “It’s always been the luxury shopping center — Halls, Coach. I just felt like this type of creative woman would shop at Matches and enjoy the atmosphere, the architecture of the Plaza,” she said.

Matches also may be one of the first Black-owned retailers to open on the Plaza. A Black-owned shop there could not be found in The Star’s archives, which date to the Plaza’s beginnings in 1923.

Plaza officials previously said in a statement that they don’t “collect information related to race or ethnicity during lease transactions. Many businesses have a complex structure or multiple owners, and even if this information was collected, it would be proprietary unless the tenant chose to share the information or identify in a specific manner.”

Encouraged by the response to her Plaza boutique, Matches would one day like to have locations in multiple cities and states, to work as a stylist on New York fashion runways, and to bring more fashion events to Kansas City.

“The celebration was getting here,” Matches said. “It was overwhelming at first to know we are part of history. To have customers come in and shop and feel safe, to feel at home and welcome on the Plaza. Maybe even heard, because a lot of gay and (transgender people) shop here.”