About Chic to Chic

Ellen Didion didn’t set out to open a high end consignment boutique. The shy girl from New York knew she loved fashion at an early age, but it took a journey of nearly twenty years in the fast-paced worlds of New York and Washington D.C. fashion to bring her to the opening of Chic to Chic Consignment Boutique.

Ellen began working at a high-end clothing boutique in high school. Always known as the quiet girl, her friends and bosses alike were shocked at her ability to create outfits, design window displays, and help her customer’s find exactly what they needed. What started as a high school job quickly morphed into a career. By the time she was twenty, she was working for a major New York based men’s fashion company and pursuing a career doing what she loved: helping other people discover what makes them look and feel beautiful.

Seventeen years later, she was a buyer and district manager for the same company, running four stores in Maryland. It was only after leaving that company and deciding to go back to school that she discovered the world of high end consignment.

While working towards her business degree, Ellen was working three jobs. Fortunately for her, one of them was a position at a Washington D.C. fashion consignment boutique. By the time she was a senior at the University of Maryland, she was engulfed in the world of Fashion once again, preparing to open her own store and writing her senior paper on high end consignment. With a little bit of help from family and friends, a year spent collecting clothing that fit the store’s designer image, and hours upon hours of planning, she opened the doors of her first location just two weeks after graduating in 1997.

Now, a decade and a half later, Ellen and her Chic Girls continue to do what they do best: spend their days helping other women look and feel beautiful. Whether that means helping them pick out the perfect outfit for a first date, sponsoring 5k runs that encourage their clients to improve their fitness, or hosting seminars about simple ways to live healthy lives, Ellen and her Chic Girls are up to the challenge. While these tasks may seem like a lot for the owner and staff of a consignment boutique, for Ellen it’s all part of the store’s mission, the same mission that got her into fashion in the first place. As she puts it, “I want the woman who comes in the store to feel better about herself when she leaves than she did when she came in.”