York County is getting a bit more wild, thanks to this new “unique” boutique.
“This is a place for everyone to be sexy and different,” said Omar Mallett, co-owner of Midnite Wildness Boutique. “It’s for all sizes, all occasions.”
Mallett and his wife Yolanda always had a vision to start a business, he said. The couple works jobs as a master welder and a registered nurse that had required them to move around frequently. But at the end of 2017, a job with the shipyard in Newport News brought the Mallets to Hampton Roads and they decided to settle down.
Over the past year, Omar and Yolanda Mallett had driven past the vacant location at 3301 Hampton Highway in Yorktown a few times.
One day they decided it would be the perfect place to start their business.
But they didn’t want to open just any boutique, they wanted something with character and style.
“You buy clothes from these other stores and when you go out three or four other women might be wearing the same thing,” Omar Mallett said. “Here, no one else will have what you’re wearing.”
The unique styles come from the mind of Yolanda Mallett, who designs the individual pieces before outsourcing them to be brought to life. Omar Mallett said he and his wife are constantly coming up with new ideas to make their business something different, even calling each other at work throughout the day to share their thoughts.
That’s not the first time the Mallett family has been exposed to the life of a local business owner. Growing up, Omar Mallett said his father owned a couple of bars and Yolanda’s grandfather ran a few businesses.
With all that entrepreneurship in the family, Omar Mallett is proud to continue the tradition and show his 8-year-old daughter, Ohmyza, what it means to own a business.
“It’s phenomenal,” he said. “My daughter looks up at us and sees our independence and it shows her that it can be done. It will make her more independent as a child.”
Omar Mallett said his daughter is already asking questions about how to start her own fashion line and style clothes.
But opening a clothing boutique wasn’t all easy, he said. Omar and Yolanda Mallett had to — and still do — balance running a business alongside their full time jobs. As first-time business owners, they had to start from scratch and teach themselves through research and reading about how to run a successful business.
Throughout all of that, he said what got them through was their support of each other.
“It’s all about partnership and as husband and wife, we’re great partners,” he said. “We know that the things we are trying to accomplish have never been easy, but we get up in the morning and make it happen.”
Omar Mallett said he hopes the business will expand in size in the future and his ultimate goal is to one day open a bar.
“As long as we keep it different, stay firm to what we believe in and true to the customer,” he said. “That’s a success.”
The store does not currently have a website but Omar Mallett said customers should expect an online shopping option in the near future.
