Meet Your Merchant: Clothes get another chance at Nono's Sweet Repeats

Nanette Toland said she needed a change.

After selling home decor items for years, Toland has now added a clothing consignment business inside her Topsy Lane store: Nono's Sweet Repeats.

Toland, who also runs Nono's Home Decor, now sells "gently used" clothing that customers can bring in to sell. She said she has dresses, coats and business attire for women, among other items (including some Mother's Day gifts).

So far she said she's signed up 184 consignors since opening the venture in February.

"People are cleaning their closets out with great zeal," Toland said. "They are excited to bring in their gently used items and they are equally as excited to walk out with a few new things."

Toland's shop also used to house It's All About Me Fine Clothing, but owner Karen Holmes moved the business to the Carson Mall in March.

While home decor is her passion, Toland said she needed to introduce the consignment concept after Holmes left to keep the business running.

"I just can't pay the rent with (home decor) because it's just not something people are investing in right now," she said.

Now she said people are walking into the store, and opening their wallets.

"A lot of ladies are bringing in things with tags still on them because, as most women do, we buy something with the hopes of wearing it one day and it either didn't fit right or it looked different when you brought it home," she said.

Customers who bring in their clothing can sign a 90-day contract with Toland. If the item is sold in that period, the store keeps 60 percent of the revenue and the customer gets 40 percent.

Toland said she is writing one customer a $300 check for all the clothing she has sold so far.

Toland is from Southern California, where she opened her first home decor store in 2003, which she sold before moving to Genoa with her husband in 2006.

"I loved my business in California so much that I wanted to do it again," she said.

Things were going well the first year, she said.

"Really well," Toland said. "And then the housing market and the economy did what it's going to do, but then Karen moved in, which was a blessing."