Retail Therapy: Former model runs Orange Cove-based boutique on wheels

If you see a blond model driving a big blue truck full of clothes around Valley roads, that’s the area’s latest mobile boutique.

The Dear Danger Mobile Boutique launched in May and has been selling at events around the central San Joaquin Valley ever since. Inside the truck are clothes and jewelry for women, and an owner whose backstory stretches from Alaska to her home on a citrus ranch in Orange Cove.

But first, the clothes.

The 16-foot-by-7-foot store space in the back of the truck holds long dresses with a bohemian print, $30 lacy coral skirts, lots of white tops, and rings with rough cut and unpolished rubies and emeralds ranging from $54 to $65.

“Nothing on the truck is over $80,” says owner Lindsay Howard, 30.

She’s bringing in plus sizes soon, and her latest order is mostly American-made clothing.

The Dear Danger truck has set up at special events and regularly at Art Hop nights in downtown Fresno and the monthly vintage pop-up sale organized by Misc. Trading Co. You can also find her most Friday nights at the Kings River Winery in Sanger (there’s usually a $10 admission for this wine and music event).

You can see which events she’ll be at next at the Dear Danger Mobile Boutique Facebook page.

The truck itself is a former Penske truck that once had advertising on its side for a real estate company. The former owners used to camp in it and had installed three beds.

Howard gutted the whole thing.

The beds have been replaced with clothing racks. Stairs are attached to the back for customers to get into the truck and a sliding glass door keeps the air conditioning in.

The truck’s passenger seat folds up and a curtain is pulled across the windshield to create a private dressing room.

There’s real hardwood flooring – installed by the drummer in her boyfriend’s band – and crown molding.

The “Danger” in the name is Howard’s nickname and Lindsay Danger is her alter ego.

Ideally, she’ll create a blog on her website, a sort of fashion-based Dear Abby with questions like “Dear Danger, my fiancé and I are going to Miami. What am I going to wear?”

Howard is coy about how she got dubbed Danger, except to say she’s a curious person who’s not afraid to take risks.

And that might come in handy when starting a mobile boutique.

Such stores on wheels are common in bigger cities such as Los Angeles. The boutiques will often participate in meetups – similar to how food trucks gather in Fresno – where customers can shop numerous trucks at the same time.

But the fashion truck trend hasn’t quite taken off in Fresno yet.

Aside from Dear Danger, Fresno-based Thee Style Lounge sells women’s clothing and accessories – and is in the process of switching to carrying plus sizes – in a converted 12-seat bus. The bus does mostly private events, including bachelorette parties.

One of the first retail trucks to hit Fresno, Eye Candy Mobile Boutique, has moved to a brick-and-mortar store at 105 Dwyer Ave. in Madera.

And the owner of Twee Boutique, which moved from a brick-and-mortar store to a 1966 travel trailer, isn’t using her trailer anymore. She’s still selling her “I’m Kinda a Big Deal in Fresno” and other T-shirts at Peeve’s Public House & Local Market and other stores.

The concept of a mobile boutique is new to many people who stumble across it, including an amazed Beverly Belardinelli, who ventured into Dear Danger during a recent Art Hop.

“Are you kidding? Is this really a mobile store?” she said. “I’ll be darned.”

Howard typically sits on a chair outside encouraging people to come in.

Howard, who grew up in rural Alaska, has a background in fashion. She attended the Fashion Institute of Design & Merchandising in San Francisco, as well as the University of Nevada at Reno, and worked as a model in San Francisco.

Reno is where she met the man who would become her boyfriend and the reason she moved to the Valley. Devin Peralta was the lead singer in punk band Cobra Skulls and after he came back from a tour in Europe and Australia, they got together.

His family runs Mulholland Citrus, the nearly 300-acre, fourth-generation citrus farms in Orange Cove. Peralta grew up in San Luis Obispo, but decided to join his uncle’s farming operation.

Howard came with him, leaving San Francisco for the polar opposite: a rural part of Orange Cove, the isolated farm town of less than 10,000 about 45 minutes southeast of Fresno.

“It’s crazy to me, but I love it,” she says of living there.

Fresh-squeezed orange juice from oranges on the farm and morning bike rides to the pond with the dogs are part of a normal day there. While Peralta is working on a tractor, Howard is working on the Dear Danger business.

Being based in the small town gave her the space and time to hone the business.

“Living in Orange Cove is the reason why I was able to follow through with this whole business plan,” she says.

As she finds her way, she’ll eventually expand Dear Danger beyond the Valley, going to whatever festival or event she wants.

“That’s the beauty of this, I can take it wherever,” she says.

This story was originally published September 12, 2015 at 8:00 AM with the headline "Retail Therapy: Former model runs Orange Cove-based boutique on wheels."