Community Highlights: Meet Nicole Eberhardt of Bougie Beach Collective

Today we’d like to introduce you to Nicole Eberhardt.

Hi Nicole, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
My journey to Bougie Beach Co. is a long but beautiful journey. Born into a family of Architects, I followed but in my own way through interior design. After a 13 years design career, I was ready to leave LA. I was finishing up the eHarmony headquarters and they gifted me a 30-day trial and I met my now husband. We moved to Oxnard, where he was born and raised. I got my yoga teacher training certification and started managing a yoga studio, growing the retail exponentially. I now manage the retail only at the studio and combined my passions, retail and creating, through Bougie Beach Collective. I create with my business Fybre Co., selling these and many other products at my boutique. Merchandise I bring into the store has a focus on local and/or women-owned brands. We specialize in the beach life with everything from beach house decor, beach equipment, clothes and bath/body products.

I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle free, but so far would you say the journey have been a fairly smooth road?
Is any road worth traveling smooth? Nope. Making the decision to once again make a big move or change in my career was much harder, especially with a family. There is also very limited, or nothing actually, space options to open a retail space at the beach. My husband, in real estate, had a small space down in Hollywood Beach that he didn’t technically need, so we relocated him, worked with the landlord and got the lease moved over to my business. If you’re thinking, did she kick him out, yes, yes I did but he went very willingly knowing that there was a need for a store like mine in the area.

Thanks – so what else should our readers know about Bougie Beach Collective?
The co. in our name stands for collective as we are a collective of mostly women-owned brands. We specialize in beach-related merchandise, home goods, beach gear, clothing, and bath/body. Our items are well-priced quality items, made or sourced in the US.

We are located within a community with a lot of short-term rentals and have partnered with some of them to provide bath products, decor, blankets, etc. creating a relationship between their renters and our customers.

There is no store like this in our town and can be reached by bike or walking by more than 2,000 residents or short-term renters. I hope to expand the Bougie Beach Co. brand to the Bougie Baby, Bougie Bro, Bougie Home, Bougie Folk, an all-inclusive one-stop shop for locals and tourists.

We’d love to hear about how you think about risk taking?
I tend to be a risk taker and make big moves. I truly never thought of myself that way since I had crippling anxiety in my early 20s. But when I hit 25, I left a long-term relationship, my home, to move to CA and start fresh in my design career. After about eight years of living in LA and building my profile, I wasn’t happy. I was trying to leave LA but I met my husband and moved up to Oxnard, leaving that career in the past. I became a yoga instructor/retail manager but have never been happier. The boutique gives me a chance to create, design, and provide a service to local artists making their work more well-known.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.bougiebeachco.com
• Instagram: bougiebeachco
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Bougiebeachcollective/

Image Credits
Mario Fuentes