How this SLO lingerie shop with the quirky name thrived and adapted over 40 years

In 1984, a lingerie shop with a cheeky name opened in downtown San Luis Obispo.

Four decades later, the Fanny Wrappers boutique on Higuera Street has become a SLO institution, known alike by locals looking for excellent service and help with fittings as well as tourists intrigued by its offerings.

Now one of the longest-running retail stores in town, the shop has survived and thrived through economic downturns, an earthquake retrofit, the pandemic and more, moving to different locations, adjusting its logo, theme and colors, and even changing owners.

What hasn’t changed is the quality and range of the products, smiling welcomes and helpful service at the store that carries a wide array of lingerie, from bras and underwear to sleepwear, accessories and bridal merchandise.

“Longtime customers are what kept me at it so long,” said former owner Terry Treves, who sold the business in 2016.

The gratitude of those clients grateful for skilled fittings and quality products, and the success of special events — such as offering unusual Halloween costumes and her separate weeklong, pre-holiday shopping events for wives and then husbands — added fun that kept the motivation going when times got tough.

How Fanny Wrappers got its start in SLO

Fanny Wrappers got its start in the mid-1980s as the brainchild of former owner Terry Treves, a San Luis Obispo High School and Cuesta College grad.

After a brief banking career, the 21-year-old Treves bought out her partner in a jeans store in Mission Beach near San Diego and eventually came home to San Luis Obispo to launch Fanny Wrappers, after having switched her earlier business to lingerie.

Fanny Wrappers was unique from the start, beginning with its easy-to-remember name.

It wasn’t “’Intimate This’ or ‘Sensual That,’” Treves said in a 1997 announcement when the store was honored for best U.S. business name in a contest run by the national Business Magazine.

“We’ve got a twist,” and people remembered it, Treves said, even turning the shop into something of a tourist attraction.

However, the name wasn’t always a hit in this county.

“It wasn’t well received here,” Treves recalled of the opening. “We even had picketers! They just couldn’t get past the name and the fact that we had a tiny, tiny section with lotions, notions and a very few adult toys. They figured we had to be ‘that kind’ of store, which we were not.”

Instead, the store aimed to provide quality products and service for people who needed help ensuring just the right fit.

“Many times afterwards, customers give us hugs or a heart-felt thank you for making their experience pleasant and maybe even life-changing,” Treves said. “In fact, that happened again just last week to one of Fanny Wrappers’ longtime employees. The customer was in tears, thanking her.”

Lingerie shop has had multiple locations over the years

The store’s first location was near the corner of Monterey and Marsh streets, a site that’s now occupied by the Downtown Center.

But it wasn’t there long.

Only a year later, in 1985, Treves moved Fanny Wrappers to 733 Higuera. Then three years later, she had to close for two months because of a fire at the Party Exchange next door (where Mother’s Tavern is now). The smoke destroyed the soft-goods stock at the lingerie store.

By 1990, Treves had moved her shop again, this time to the busy corner of Higuera and Chorro streets, where it became a downtown icon and remained until 2020.

There were some other rocky times during those decades, with recessions, the aftermath of the San Simeon earthquake, floods and more. Still, Treves and her store prevailed.

Capping it off was a three-year seismic renovation of the unreinforced masonry building, which the 74-year-old Treves now defines as “the longest running retrofit in downtown SLO.”

By 2016, “I was ready to retire,” she said of her busy life running Fanny Wrappers and her tiny pet-supply store down the street, Tails.

She sold both businesses that year., and Samantha Phelps bought the longtime lingerie store.

In retrospect, it was almost preordained that the two should meet and do business, they said.

Both were strong women running their own businesses. Each of them had a pet-related business (Phelps owns Bayside Dog Spa in Morro Bay) and loved animals, especially horses. The two have remained friends ever since.

After the sale in 2016, businesses were clobbered by the nationwide COVID-19 pandemic closures and resulting retail downturn, and Fanny Wrappers new owner faced her own challenges.

By October 2020, Phelps found the big store’s rent was unmanageable for its high-impact corner location.

So she moved Fanny Wrappers to a smaller spot less than 200 feet away, across the street at 856 Higuera, next to what was then Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory.

“The smaller space is really working for us now,” the 44-year-old said. “We got to update this store before we moved in, change out the logo and colors, like a refresh, which was really exciting.”

Why store’s service stands out

The store’s 40-year tenure has come during a period of substantial change for downtown San Luis Obispo, with longtime mom-and-pop shops being replaced by corporate branches and multi-story new buildings.

As department stores and specialty shops closed, some customers have found Fanny Wrappers to be one of their only county options for getting a professional fitting before buying an undergarment. That’s especially true of women in the harder-to-fit categories.

Phellps said the fitting process can average from 10 to 30 minutes. Sometimes, it’s as much about finding out what doesn’t fit the customer’s body and desires.

“You learn what kind of style and comfort they’re looking for, do measurements, try some bras on and see where it’s fitting and where it’s not,” she said.

“It’s definitely a business that cannot be replicated online,” Phelps said.

An expert fitter “can look at somebody and basically tell you 90% of the time what size they’ll wear,” Treves said. “There’s a science to it.”

Shoppers find familiar name brands such as Scarlet Blue, Natori, Wacoal, Hanky Panky, Cosa Bellai, plus sleepwear by PJ Salvage and Felina.

And the store carries a wide range of sizes and types. Phelps and her staff hope to expand the upper end of that size range sometime this year.

When people ask how Fanny Wrappers survives and flourishes in the same block as industry behemoth Victoria’s Secret & PINK, Phelps replied, “they have a different type of customer …. younger, college age.”

“They don’t have the size run we have,” she said, from 32A to 42H.

Phelps really isn’t planning long term yet.

“I haven’t had much time to see where we’re going or plan for the future,” she said. “We’re still recovering from Covid.”

Learn more about Fanny Wrappers

The store at 856 Higuera St. is open Tuesdays through Saturdays from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., Sundays and Mondays from noon to 5 p.m. For details, call 805-439-1938 or go to the shop’s website, Facebook or Instagram.