'I was looking at the bigger picture.' South Bend man opens clothing store in UP mall

MISHAWAKA  — Corey McKinney's clothes store always had loyal customers.

Those customers didn't always know where to find him. McKinney, a 1993 Riley High School graduate, sold shoes from the trunk of his car.

"I went to a lot of different locations on the west side, the north side and the west side, and a lot of people asked me why I moved so much," he recalled. "Of course, it wasn't always me.

"It was just a road that the Lord took me on."

That road eventually took McKinney to the place where he had long wanted to be. He reached his goal of opening a store at University Park Mall. That store, Garb's, opened last month in the location once occupied by Aldo.

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"It was always my desire to come out to the mall even though I was in the neighborhood and I really liked dealing in the neighborhood because that is where I came from," McKinney said.

"That is my culture. I came from the west side of town and the north side of town, and  I really enjoy dealing with those people.

"But I was looking at the bigger picture."

And for McKinney, the bigger picture means having a presence in a place where nearly everyone who walks through the doors is intending to buy something. It means having a sign above the entrance with the business's name emblazoned on it. It means being at a location where parking is not an issue and costumers expect to be safe.

McKinney sells the brightly colored dress shoes, hats and suits you will see when attending or visiting a Black church, and people who are members of the area's historically African-American houses of worship make up a large portion of his customer base.

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Being in the mall gives McKinney a chance to reach a more diverse costumer base, however. He noted plenty of his customers followed him to the mall, but Garb's also gets a lot of the kind of walk-in traffic other stores at University Park Mall receive as browsers search for items they can't find anywhere else.

McKinney said his secret weapon is the distinctiveness of his fashions.

Fashion and entrepreneurship have been big parts of McKinney's life. McKinney was a pastor's kid who spent much of his time in church and dressed in suits, ties and dress shoes.

"My parents brought me up to dress up, and so that's just what's in me," he said.

McKinney's fashion sense extended to school and also less formal situations, like hanging out with friends. McKinney said he was big into sports, and he'd often be wearing suits and dress shirts while hanging out with friends.

"They would come to pick me up or I would come to pick them up, and I would be sitting on the sideline in a three-piece suit watching them play basketball."

His father, Carl McKinney, worked for himself as a neighborhood car salesman.

"He would buy cars and then sell them to the parents in the neighborhood for $500 or $600 to help those kids get their first car," McKinney recalled.

His father had health issues that forced him to quit his job, and he sold the cars to provide for his family. Still, McKinney wondered why his father, who was also a pastor, didn't go to a job like the other neighborhood dads.

"He was able to explain to me what he did, and I really enjoyed the fact that he could do what he wanted to do," McKinney said. "That inspired me because I wanted to be able to work, make money, travel and spend time with my family.

"I'm a family guy and I really love family."

McKinney's family includes his siblings, his wife Latisa, daughter Camille and his mother Mary Beth McKinney. McKinney said that his mom, wife, daughter and brother, Don, often help with the business.

"My mom is my biggest inspiration," McKinney said. "I call her, and she will be right here helping."

McKinney got into the clothing business because his mother needed help finding church shoes.

"It was always hard for my mom to find the decent shoes that the church ladies wore, so I started doing some research and ran across this company and started buying shoes," McKinney said.

Soon, he was selling ladies dress shoes from the trunk of his car. He bought a box van when the shoe boxes could no longer fit in the trunk. McKinney sold his shoes at barber shops and beauty salons. Businesses like banks allowed him to set up booths and sell shoes to their employees.

"But it all really started at those barber shops and beauty salons, and I thank God for them looking out for me," he said.

Soon, McKinney started selling men's suits and moved into his first store front of many. He set up shop on Chapin Street. The store then moved to Western Avenue before going back to Chapin. McKinney then moved to Miami Street, Lafayette Boulevard and Lincolnway West.

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The only constant was the business's name, Shoes, a name that referenced the store's beginnings even if it didn't reflect all of the items McKinney sold.

"I even sold clothes out of my home sometimes," McKinney said.

The constant moving and the ebbs and flows in business wore on him, and McKinney and he thought about giving up.

"I just lost sight of my vision," McKinney said when asked why he considered shuttering the business. "But people kept calling me and asking if I had suits, and I said that if people need suits that bad I need to get back into the business."

McKinney said he actually had a chance to go to the mall two years ago, but he didn't believe he was ready.

"To me, the mall is a big deal, and I wasn't ready then, but I'm ready now," he said. "I grew up mentally and I knew that the items I sold needed to be in the mall and needed to be in front of more people."

Email South Bend Tribune reporter Howard Dukes at hdukes@gannett.com

Follow him on Twitter: @DukesHoward