The Cottage Collection

Just as Vera Bradley was founded by two long time friends, so too The Cottage Collection came in to being because of a friendship that started over 45 years ago. Caryl Donnellan and Kathryn Bradley-Wilson met in the mid sixties in South Florida where they grew up. Both ended up in Tallahassee in the early 70′s. The Vera Bradley company started in the early 80′s and in the early 90′s, Caryl & Kathryn began selling Vera Bradley at Trunk Shows at the Donnellan house. Vera Bradley herself came to a few of these shows.

When the shows’ popularity grew in size, Kathryn decided to move them to Goodwood Museum & Gardens, in one of the little cottages there. That plan started The Cottage Shows at Goodwood in the mid-nineties and the name The Cottage Collection for Caryl & Kathryn’s business. In the Summer of 2005 the two rented a small room in a store on the corner of 6th and Monroe. That move was the inspiration for The Grey Fox.