Today we’d like to introduce you to Shara Tatham.
Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
We are Bridget Smith and Shara Tatham, we began Bounding Main in 2020, in the middle of the pandemic. During this time, a retail space on Main Street in Cambria opened up for a lease. We’d talked for many years about opening a fun, stylish women’s boutique in downtown Cambria. When we saw this spot, we looked into it on a Friday afternoon, on the following Monday, we signed the lease and got the keys. We literally got the space remodeled and stocked for opening 3 weeks later! We have such a great community of locals and tourists that keep coming back, and supporting this dream of ours. We spent the next 3 years learning more about business, being bosses, and more about the fashion industry.
Thanks to our incredible community, what started in Cambria has grown into sister boutiques. We have one in Avila Beach (Opened December 2023) and Paso Robles (opened in December of 2025). While every location feels unmistakably like Bounding Main, each shop has its own unique aesthetic and tailored demographic to match its neighborhood. We carefully curate each storefront so they feel wonderfully different from one another, but they all share the exact same heart. No matter which one of our locations you shop at, our mission remains the same: to help you find those pieces that make you feel confident and beautiful.
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
Bridget and I have really leaned into each others strengths, and I truly believe that’s why we’ve had success in our business. We curate, purchase and plan everything together and then we divide and conquer to get all of the many tasks finished. We really make a good team, and have learned how to trust each other with decisions along the way. The one downfall, that we both would say is a bummer, is that with 3 shops now, the two of us rarely work together. Which is one of our favorite things to do! A lot of our planning for the shops is done via facetime, but we still manage to work together a couple days a month which helps us stay focused and connected.
Appreciate you sharing that. What should we know about Bounding Main?
Bounding Main is known as a loved local (central coast) women’s clothing boutique. We feature a basic relaxed coastal casual aesthetic. Bridget and I really love curating and merchandising the shops and making all of them feel so warm and inviting. We really love to create a beautiful space. Also, we both really enjoy fashion/style and bringing a casual coastal sense of style to the shops that other women can purchase and feel amazing in the styles they buy at Bounding Main.
I’d say each store has different types of tourists that visit time and time again, and we love to cater to those demographics and provide styles that women can keep coming back and find something stylish that makes them feel comfortable and confident and also reminds them of their travels to the central coast.
We also have the best staff, they love our customers and our customers love them! Our team is great at welcoming people into the shops and helping to create a fun welcoming atmosphere. One of our rules in the shops is no negative self talk allowed! That goes for our customers too! We all have different bodies, big and small proportionate, disproportionate, but all perfectly made. We like to accentuate the positive about all of our bodies and we love for our ladies to walk out of Bounding Main feeling empowered and great about themselves!
Also, every quarter, we change our window displays. We brainstorm and come up with ideas, what we want them to be and what medium we want to use. Many times we use recycled items, we’ve used old clothes pins, vintage paper dry cleaner hangers, corrugated cardboard. One time we used all of our vendors tags, took them off the clothes, painted them and made mobiles out of them. This is one of our favorite things to do! We’ve made paper flowers, cardboard succulents, so so so many different things! Our customers love them!
Can you tell us more about what you were like growing up?
Im going to answer this for both Bridget and Shara! I (Shara) grew up as an only child with a single mom who worked a lot. I craved attention and expressed myself a lot through my style (think 1980’s, big hair, loud colors!). I loved thrifting and mixing patterns and colors together, and in high school, the bigger the hair, the better! I’ve since tamed the crazy style and become a little more subdued. I like a lot of basics with a splash of color or a fun funky piece. I’m a mom and a grandma now and have always enjoyed exploring outdoors with my kids and now my grandkids.
Bridget grew up in the same time period, she is an extremely creative person, and loved to express herself with fashion as well. She grew up with sisters, so there was a lot of clothes sharing. I’d say Bridget has always had a little bit more of an elegant elevated style with a kick of something fun and funky. Bridget has always enjoyed cooking, she really makes amazing meals for her family, and she is very creative and hospitable, always willing to throw a fun party for any friend or family member!
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.shopboundingmain.com
- Instagram: @shopboundingmain
