Pop-up planned for spring

By Ruth Melville

For four and a half years, Bella Erder’s shop Aija, selling jewelry, accessories, tableware and other gifts, has been a lively and colorful part of Station Place. But last December Erder reluctantly decided it was time to close her doors.

Erder and her family first bought a house in Norfolk in 1997 as a vacation home. Their primary residence was in Hong Kong, where she is the managing partner in Orijen, a branding, design and marketing communications group. After Erder and her husband, Mark, decided to educate their two sons in the United States, they started spending more time in Norfolk.

Aija got its start as a table at a holiday fair at her son’s school. Erder experimented with trunk shows before deciding to try running a store in town. Her first location was upstairs in the Royal Arcanum building, but wanting to be more visible to passersby, she moved to a storefront at 6 Station Place. When she was back in Asia, she would go on shopping trips to Vietnam and Indonesia, looking for unusual, inexpensive items for the store.

Erder thinks that it is vitally important for small towns to have thriving centers with interesting shops and places to eat. From the beginning, she wanted Aija to be not just a store but a cheerful and friendly gathering place. To encourage visitors, she hosted a variety of events at the store, from wellness evenings and ladies nights to book signings and art exhibitions.

Pop-up trunk shows at Aija showcased local designers and businesses, including Annie Walwyn-Jones, Debbie Weinstein, Camp Clothing Boutique, Petria May and Darren Winston Bookseller. Erder also hosted a book signing for “The Tanglewood Picnic,” by Gina Hyams, and solo art exhibitions for several well-known local artists, including Robert Bowden, Gerri Griswold, Katherine Griswold, Vint Lawrence, Christopher Little, Babs Perkins and Robin Rose Yuran. In 2012 she held a group show for students at the Yale Summer School of Art, and last Thanksgiving there was a group show of local artists.

As a grand finale for the store, in December she organized Norfolk Night, a holiday-inspired late-night shopping and dining event downtown. The evening was a great success, and Erder estimates that at one point she had about 70 people in the store.

Erder offers “a big thanks to all our customers and a personal thanks to Chaya Berlstein, Onyx Orton, Melanie Cullerton, Nancy Herzig and Sadie Bagnall, who have worked with me on and off over the years.” She is sorry to have to close the store on Station Place, but says, “I’m already looking forward to the next chapter of Aija. I’m planning a local pop-up in March and a trunk show in Maine in April.” Anyone curious about the next incarnations of Bella Erder and Aija can follow the store on Facebook.

Photo by Mark Erder.