It’s safe to say that community is a human need, and we often come to delineate our lives with the people and pursuits we’re surrounded by.
Community will coalesce in all sorts of quirky corners, be it Dungeons and Dragons, paragliding, slam poetry, archery...you get the idea: finding other people who share your passions can give life a kind of vibrancy that didn’t previously exist.
For Ursula Roberts, owner and operator of Refined Grey, she found community and vibrancy in something that has, unexpectedly, grown into a successful business on the Missoula landscape.
“Before Refined Grey, I worked for an auditing company,” Ursula says. “It was a very unsocial job. I was working from home, on a computer all day. As a way to detour from the mundane, I started a side gig, finding a few clothing and accessory styles that I thought people might enjoy. I started selling out of my house and via a Facebook group that I created as a way to show the details of items and fit of styles. The group quickly became a place of community for me and so many others.” It only takes one seed to eventually make a forest, and Ursula’s small pursuit soon began to grow beyond its humble origins.
“I always had loved the idea of having a store, but when I started this, that really wasn’t the primary intent. It was about things I was excited to share with others,” Ursula says. “When Covid hit, and people couldn't easily go out and shop, it ended up kind of taking off. Now there’s close to 4,500 people in the [Facebook] group. It took hold as an option for shopping but I was doing it all out of my house.”
“After about a year, it was really hard to manage a business in my basement,” she says. “I kind of loved having it accessible 24/7, but I would find that even late at night I’d be down there pricing things, ordering merchandise, and printing labels. My youngest daughter was still home at the time, and I’d be like, ‘Grace, let’s watch a show. You can steam stuff while we watch TV’ [laughter].”
“So eventually, I ended up next door [to the current location], in the basement. I moved to that space, mainly as a place to ship, a warehouse, and way to get merchandise out of my house,” she continues. “And over time, people would ask, ‘Can I come shop? Can I come try things on?’ So I started having a few days where I’d have a few hours open, and it just grew into what it is today.”
“I love that I’ve met so many women through doing this, and a lot of the people that come into the store to shop started by trying stuff on in my basement. So it's really neat that I have a lot of the OGs that have watched Refined Grey blossom into this. That's been really fun and rewarding.”
Ursula’s shop moved above ground to their current space, a retail store that feels, well, refined, but equally accessible and unpretentious, situated on an unassuming block off Stephens Avenue. “I get a lot of compliments from customers about not being downtown.”
Ursula says, “It’s a very easy place to pull up and run in. A lot of people come in on their lunch, a lot of people stop on their way home, or pop in on their way to a game. I love downtown, as far as going there, but sometimes it’s more of an event than a ‘run in and grab something.’”
“When I moved back to Montana [from Texas],” she continues, “I felt there was a niche for a price point for a lot of people that live here, not necessarily just those that come to visit. One of my big goals is for it to be accessible in all ways to Montana women. I strive to do well with that, and I love that if you buy a shirt you don’t have to justify having it for four years.”
Like many Montanans, Ursula took a few years to try out another locale and couldn’t resist the pull of home and eventually returned, with the wider lens that a change of geography brings. She’s brought that widened perspective to Refined Grey. “I lived in Texas for twelve-plus years,” she says, “and there were a lot of different options, different price points, and I felt like that was something I could bring in, and I really enjoy that."
“I always had loved the idea of having a store, but when I started this, that really wasn’t the primary intent. It was about things I was excited to share with others."
“I love that I’ve met so many women through doing this, and a lot of the people that come into the store to shop started by trying stuff on in my basement."