According to their website, “Thick as Thieves” was founded by a married couple in 2017. The team moved to Palm Springs and opened the shop as a “boutique store,” featuring a variety of goods, including clothing and unique gifts.
“House Beautiful Magazine” included the shop in a list of “50 Best Home Stores in America,” the website points out. Additionally, “Goop’s Travel Guide” listed Thick as Thieves as one of Palm Springs’ best shops.
Samantha Caltagirone, co-founder of Thick as Thieves, says that she and her husband Jeremy Smick were working more than eighty hours a week at corporate jobs in 2017 when they decided to visit Palm Springs on a whim. They immediately fell in love with Palm Springs and decided to move there to start a business and “never looked back.”
“We sold our house, packed up everything we owned and headed west,” Caltagirone told Coachella Valley Times. “We’ve always had a knack for design, and wanted to reinvent the traditional ‘souvenir shop’ in this tourism heavy town. We thought travelers wanted more than coffee mugs and key chains, that they would appreciate local wares and handmade goods to remember their trip by.”
Caltagirone says that Thick as Thieves is a “highly curated shop” offering handmade goods, gifts, clothing, oddities and unique finds that blend industrial, primitive, modern and global styles. The boutique also offers heirloom quality kids goods.
Reflecting on the store’s impact on the local community, Caltagirone points out that she intends to expand the store’s inventory “to provide a platform for more local and global artists to sell their handmade goods” with a focus on “sustainability not just within our own practices but in the vendors we work with as well.”
Caltagirone said that the store maintains an active presence in the local community in order to gauge the changing needs and preferences of residents and visiting tourists.
“We try and be out in the community and put our money where our mouth is. Go to local spots, spend time with fellow small business owners, interact with our customers and get a sense of what they are looking for whether they are a local or just visiting,” Caltagirone said.
Caltagirone is proud to support local small business and encourages others to follow suit.
“We’re a husband and wife team who live locally and run this ship ourselves. It’s important to us to support local and we’re hoping others feel the same!” Caltagirone said.
Thick as thieves has maintained a perfect five-star rating across 16 reviews, according to their Facebook Page.
