New Oamaru business The Vault is all about "loving local", providing beauty services and stocking homewares, clothing and jewellery.
The new shop will stock local products including designer Abby Sangster’s handcrafted jewellery range Lover Lover, Candle Cup Co and fashion label Eweburn Creek.
The store will also stock Byron Bay clothing brand Afends, an "affordable label" that caters to men and women.
Monique Lewis, 21, who opened MK Beauty & Boutique last year in the Victorian Precinct, will be operating her salon in the former iSite building in Thames St.
The historic building was once the Colonial Bank building, which the Bank of New Zealand bought in 1895 and operated until 1969.
The new business name is a nod to the building’s history and the bank vault room that will now become Oamaru’s first known infra-red sauna.
"The idea behind The Vault is the building is The Vault and MK Beauty & Boutique. We’re staying the same and will slide in underneath that name," Miss Lewis said.
"Because we’re a beauty salon, our retail was kind of getting a little bit missed. So The Vault is more of the retail store and the other local businesses coming under it.
"Then MK Beauty can just operate as the beauty salon, as it is, which is very exciting. I’m very excited to have Abby on board ... she’s absolutely awesome."
Ms Sangster said it was exciting to be part of a "fabulous" new venture with other new brands coming into Oamaru and to have a presence back in the CBD.
Miss Lewis, who is leasing the bottom floor of the historic building from the council, said the support she had been shown by the council property manager was "amazing".
As a young entrepreneur, Miss Lewis is passionate about helping other businesses succeed as well.
She said Oamaru had "amazing shops" and she planned to stock items that were usually only available online and would fill a "gap in the market".
"We’ll have kids’ products including toys and games and some baby stuff, baby booties and teethers, kind of just what mums are telling me that they like for their kids that’s not in town.
"Other smaller businesses can display their products as well," she said.
"You get to figure out what does best and what doesn’t and it gives them a real good idea of the market that’s outthere."
Miss Lewis was "really excited" to stock Byron Bay fashion label Afends to expand the youth offering in town.
"They’re a more affordable price range and they stock men’s and women's, but it’s also for younger people.
"I don’t really buy anything in town, so it’s quite cool to be able to have more range for a younger person, but even my mum’s going to wear it, because she loves it, too.
They were "products that really make you feel special".
"It actually makes every day a bit better. Like you get to go home and light your favourite-smelling candle and you put your soft pyjamas on, things like that. It’s just little things that you enjoy doing."
Miss Lewis said with hard work and family support, the new space had been "handcrafted" to suit the businesses involved.
"I wanted it to be warm and welcoming with natural and soft light. I don’t like clinical spaces," she said.
