PACIFIC CITY — Nancy Horning, owner and manager of Lucky Beach Boutique in Pacific City, Oregon, is new to town, but that didn’t stop her from displaying her clothes in a women’s club fashion show in February. 

“We want to look good, but we don’t want to be [sexualized],” she said of her and her customers’ style. “My tagline is ‘My shop is for the women who don’t want to shop at Buckle, but are too young to shop at Chico’s.”

The new Pacific City resident got to display a few of the items she sells in her store at the Nesko Women’s Club monthly meeting on Feb. 15, roping in a few of the women’s club members into being models during the fashion show she staged for the women in the organization.

The opportunity to let women in the area know she’s there and open for business, she said, is challenging in the rural coastal community.

“It’s hard to advertise here,” she said after the women’s club meeting. “There’s a little newspaper and there’s Facebook, but a lot of people don’t know that I’m here even though I’ve lived here for eight months.”

She added, “I wanted to take this opportunity to let the locals know that I’m here.”

Horning opened the boutique in June 2018 after relocating to the Oregon coast from Mill City, just east of Salem, hoping to settle in a rural coastal community and open up a little boutique catering to the region’s women. So far, she’s attracted numerous women from the Tillamook County area, selling garments, jewelry and accessories popular with women in the community. 

“I like to say it’s casual clothes,” Horning said. “You can dress it up or play it down, so I would say that’s more what I carry. I have more classic things.”

The aesthetic of Horning’s shop embraces an updated take on traditional wardrobe staples, with Horning looking for pieces inspired by looks worn by famous women in fashion history. 

“I tend to like classic Jackie. O, sixties-ish things, so that’s what my eye is drawn towards,” Horning said. 

The Oregon resident buys pieces for her shop from places as far away as New York, Los Angeles and Las Vegas, but sticks to styles she knows will sell in her shop. 

“I like to find things that, when you go to Pacific City, you go to Lucky Beach and you’re going to get something that may not be everywhere,” she said.

Being from the Pacific Northwest and having lived in other parts of the United States, Horning sees the main difference between Pacific Northwestern fashion staples as a lot more casual than what women wear in the southern states or on the east coast, two regions of the country in which she’s lived. 

“In the Pacific Northwest, it’s more outerwear, more activewear, which is great because that’s what we do here,” she said. “But in the south, it’s more about dressing up, going out for wine or going out with friends. It’s just a different lifestyle.”

East Coast styles, too, vary from Pacific Northwestern styles to some degree. Blazers, polo tops, and ties, among other items, are more popular on the Atlantic than they are on the Pacific. 

“I miss a man in a tie,” she said. “It’s more dressed-up. We’re very casual over here. We have hoodies, sweatpants, leggings, so it’s just more stylish over there.”

The clothes Horning sells at Lucky Beach, she said, hopefully are items her customers both feel and look good in in an environment where casual wear is so prevalent. 

“In the Pacific Northwest, a lot of women hide behind their hoodies and don’t dress up,” she said. “I would like to see style come back. I’d like people to dress up more than what they do.”