OUR STORY
In 2006, Boulden launched the first SWANK store in Birmingham, Alabama. She quickly built a loyal following by stocking her store with hot-off-the-runway pieces and a highly-curated selection of designer items. “While traveling, I search to buy things I know will not be duplicated. Even if someone else carries the line, my eye is different. I tend to gravitate toward lesser-known talent, but always have a sweet spot for my well-known, high-end designers,” says Boulden.
Boulden’s unique taste and flawless accessorizing (she often models her own uber-chic ensembles for the website) flooded SWANK with satisfied customers. Soon, SWANK was being featured in publications like Lucky, InStyle, Elle, Cosmopolitan, and many more. This national attention allowed Emily to open an additional location in Atlanta. Boulden chose Atlanta for SWANK’s second location because of the city’s respect for high fashion. “Fashion is good taste plus a dash of daring,” she says. “And we believe that SWANK is just what fashion-forward Atlantans are looking for – edgy yet sophisticated finds.”
Boulden was catapulted to style-icon status for a wider audience when her reality TV show, “Pretty Wicked Moms,” debuted on Lifetime in 2013. Thanks to popular demand, it’s online store, ShopSwank.com, now brings Boulden’s exclusive unique taste and flawless accessorizing to a nationwide audience.
BEHIND-THE-SCENES
MEET EMILY
FOUNDER + BUYER
Emily Dees Boulden
Emily Dees Boulden is the owner of Swank, a high-end women’s clothing boutique and online store located in the heart of Buckhead, Atlanta, the South’s most prestigious zip code. Swank,which has been voted one of Elle Magazine’s “Top Boutiques in the Country” and the “Best Boutique in Atlanta,” is known for it’s cutting-edge fashion in an upscale setting.
Long before SWANK, this young entrepreneur already had an extensive background in fashion. Her first job was at her grandmother’s historical general store, Williams Brothers, in Philadelphia, Mississippi, where she began working and buying for the family business as a teenager. After completing an internship with Donna Karan in New York City, Emily graduated from The University of Mississippi with a degree in Fashion Merchandising. Armed with impressive experience in the fashion industry and an always-unique eye for clothes, Boulden landed a job as an assistant buyer for Saks Incorporated’s Parisian division.
Boulden spent two years at Saks honing her skills and soaking up what the buyers’ world had to offer. Ultimately, though, she craved having a more personal relationship with her customers. Boulden set out to create a space where she could deliver her high-fashion aesthetic to real people, and bring hands-on styling to individual clients.
In 2006, Boulden launched the first SWANK store in Birmingham, Alabama. She quickly built a loyal following by stocking her store with hot-off-the-runway pieces and a highly-curated selection of designer items. “While traveling, I search to buy things I know will not be duplicated. Even if someone else carries the line, my eye is different. I tend to gravitate toward lesser-known talent, but always have a sweet spot for my well-known, high-end designers,” says Boulden.
Boulden’s unique taste and flawless accessorizing (she often models her own uber-chic ensembles for the website) flooded SWANK with satisfied customers. Soon, SWANK was being featured in publications like Lucky, InStyle, Elle, Cosmopolitan, and many more. This national attention allowed Emily to open an additional location in Atlanta. Boulden chose Atlanta for SWANK’s second location because of the city’s respect for high fashion. “Fashion is good taste plus a dash of daring,” she says. “And we believe that SWANK is just what fashion-forward Atlantans are looking for – edgy yet sophisticated finds.”
Boulden was catapulted to style-icon status for a wider audience when her reality TV show, “Pretty Wicked Moms,” debuted on Lifetime in 2013. The show welcomed TV audiences into Boulden’s world as a mom, a wife, and a businesswoman. Boulden was depicted as confident, commanding, and unafraid to speak her mind, but the show also revealed a tender, silly side as she interacted with her young daughter, Amzie Boulden.
It came as no surprise that Boulden was the breakout star of “Pretty Wicked Moms,” earning her and her best friend, Nicole Noles, their own style spinoff called “GET SWANK’D,” which aired August 4, 2015 on the FYI network (and is now available for streaming on Amazon Prime!). In it, Boulden and Noles take their SWANK style on the road in a quest to SWANK-over America. Though fashion is the end-game, where Boulden and Noles go, comedy follows.
Boulden is also actively working on the continuation of her own personal clothing line, EMILY DEES. If all this didn’t keep her busy enough, Emily and her husband, Peter Boulden, owner of Atlanta Dental Spa, have two always-trendy little girls, Amzie and Atley, and one handsome little dude (and recent arrival!), Brax Boulden.
OUR SWANK TEAM
“An Impeccably Stylish Boutique and Online Store”