Sisters, Daughters, and Others Act: Kiki Risas
By Breanne Boland June 2, 2005 Issue

Situated at the edge of the Publix shopping center, Kiki Risa can be a surprising find. Their loyal customers, however, would not agree – they’ve known all along.

Kiki Risa is named after owner Marissa Fortenberry and her sister Kirstie, whose childhood nickname was Kiki. Six years ago, Kirstie and Marissa opened the store together. The family’s retail roots go back quite a ways: “My mother has been in retail for like 40 years,” Fortenberry says, “and my sister has a couple of retail stores.” Both women worked in Louisiana, their home state. While her mother has since retired, leaving her daughters to the hard work, another of Fortenberry’s sisters still runs the original store.

“I never did think I’d open my own store,” Fortenberry remarks. A lot more has changed in Fortenberry’s life than her expectations. She now has two daughters, Phoebe and Lily. Her youngest even has a store named after her: Pink Lily, just a couple stores down from Kiki Risa. Pink Lily focuses more on shoes and accessories, while Kiki Risa is devoted mostly to clothes, although it has accessories as well. The girls are still a little too young to be fashion plates, but they have time to grow into the family tradition. “It’s kind of in our blood,” Fortenberry says. “We really like fashion, and we know clothes, and that’s how we were brought up.”

However, that time could come sooner than Fortenberry thinks – Kiki Risa caters to a wide range of ages. “Anywhere from girls, teenagers, to older ladies,” Fortenberry says. “We dress everybody.” Leila Earnest has been the store’s manager for four years, and oversees most of the day-to-day operations. You may remember her from some of Kiki Risa’s previous ads in The Beachcomber. She agrees with Fortenberry’s assessment. “We try to cater to as many different styles and ages and looks as we can,” she says.

While Kiki Risa opened when Destin had a dearth of boutique-style clothes, that’s not so much the case anymore. The store does have exclusives on some clothing lines, Theory among them, but both Fortenberry and Earnest feel that the store distinguishes itself by its customer service. “We give our customers a lot of attention,” Fortenberry explains. “We pick out clothes for them, dress them completely from head to toe.”

“We do have people that just walk in,” Earnest says, “but the majority of our clientele are people that we know on a first-name basis.” Sometimes the service goes beyond when someone is in the store. “A lot of them aren’t actually from here, so we do a lot of mail orders, based on their particular style. Usually we would prefer for you to step into the store so we can get a look at you,” she clarifies, but they clearly have no qualms about dressing you from afar.

The opportunity for creativity is Earnest’s favorite aspect of her job. “I didn’t really have an outlet to be able to be creative before,” she says. “Usually when you work for someone, especially a corporation, you don’t have a lot of room to be able to express yourself and be an individual. You have to conform to what they want.” However, there are more immediate benefits. “You can always have a cute little outfit if you need to go somewhere,” Fortenberry declares.

And there’s probably more there than you think. “Usually when you advertise you advertise what’s trendy,” Earnest says, “but that can be deceiving. People think that’s all we have, so it is a big deal for us when a mom and a daughter walk in with their grandmother and we can play out to each of them.” Fortenberry agrees. “We just like to dress people who want to be in style, anybody that wants to be dressed in the latest and greatest in whatever’s out there. There’s no age limit to it.”

It helps that they arrived in Destin at a very appropriate time. “As people come in opening restaurants and other businesses, you have an awareness that there is life other than the beach,” Earnest says. “So we have Christmas parties that we have to cater to. People used to come to go to the beach, and now it’s a little different.” The store is still evolving, though, even as the customers are catching up to it. “Our clientele has grown, and it changes all the time. We like to be the same – that’s why we are who we are – but we have to be receptive to other people coming in here. We hope that we can change while still staying the same, still having that same base that everyone has looked forward to in coming to our store.” If their regulars are any indication, Fortenberry and Earnest have nothing to worry about.

For more stylish information, call 650-0554.

More from Breanne Boland