Our Story

It all began in the brick and cobblestone town of Chapel Hill, North Carolina.

Dakota and Natalie met while moving into neighboring rooms in a big white sorority house on Rosemary street. Dakota had migrated her way down the East Coast from Newport, Rhode Island and Natalie had brought the sunshine with her all the way from Santa Barbara, California. One heart-to-heart, a night out, and a morning biscuit later and they were inseparable. 

Though from opposite coasts, the girls fell in love with Carolina and the South, quickly adopting "y'all" into their vocabulary, planning weekends around football tailgates and basketball games, and adding cowboy boots to their wardrobes. They both loved fashion, and learned a bit from one another. Dakota borrowed Natalie’s snuggly oversized knits, Natalie tagged along with Dakota to get manicures.

Over the years their friendship took them all over map – riding horses on the beaches of Punta Cana, bar-hopping down King street in Charleston, basking in the sun of Sunset Beach. They were fun seekers, but they were working hard too. After graduation, Dakota landed her dream job in the buying offices of a luxury fashion retailer in Dallas, and Natalie left for Denver to make the world a better place with an education nonprofit.
 
After getting her fill of mountains and snow, Natalie joined Dakota in the corporate Dallas world. They lived a year there in a rush of working long weeks, then dressing up, dining, and dreaming on the weekends. It was nearing summertime when both free-spirits were restless in their corporate careers. They had been dreaming about opening their own store together for months. They wanted to create a place where their individual styles would mingle – feminine but chic, effortless but put together, classic but contemporary. A place where women could have fun with clothes and find everything they would need for any occasion, any destination. A place that would never feel too serious - where you could splurge on a specialty embroidered dress, or drop in for some accessories to wear on a last minute date. They would be the treasure hunters – discovering small, specialty makers and curating collections filled with unique pieces. Harper & Tucker would be a place to have fun, to dream a little, and to indulge in beauty.
 
One Saturday the girls agreed to scope out the boutique scene in one of Dallas’ emerging neighborhoods. They shopped and planned and daydreamed about their business venture. The one thing that had stumped them was what they would call this new shop. For weeks they had shot ideas back and forth, but nothing felt quite right.

It suddenly began to pour buckets of rain and so they fled into a nearby pizza parlor and took two seats at the bar, sopping wet and laughing. Here, the rain splattering on the windows, over IPA’s and shared pies, the girls took a break from business talk. Both animal lovers, their chatter turned to their plans to adopt dogs once they had quit their day jobs. It was then that an idea came to Dakota.
 
“What if we named the store after the dogs?”
 
Natalie’s eyes lit up, and without missing a beat, she replied with the two names they had already picked-
 
“Harper and Tucker”
 
And there it was. Natalie was the Harper and Dakota was the Tucker.
 
Since then, it’s been a blur. After a year of building their online store, Dakota and Natalie migrated back to Dakota's hometown of Newport, Rhode Island and opened a brick and mortar boutique in 2017. You can find both of them and the dogs at the stores most days. They are free-spirited and spontaneous, but always have at least one backup plan. They love sunshine, ocean, good books, champagne, animals, brunch, traveling, any kind of adventure, and of course, shopping. They work hard, but never take life too seriously. They have roots sprouting from Rhode Island, California, North Carolina, Florida, Colorado, and Texas – and their style pulls their favorite things from each of their homes. They have followed their arrows and made it here – and they hope that maybe a little bit of Harper & Tucker love will help you follow your arrow, too.