05/29/2026
Thank you to AF Food Co. for stopping by the shop and sharing a little bit of our story!
We’re incredibly grateful for this downtown community, our customers, and everyone who has supported us through the years💚💚💚
DOWNTOWN AF Vol. 1 - Itty Bitty Fashion Trunk
There’s a certain kind of person who chooses downtown on purpose. Not because it’s easy. Not because it guarantees success. But because they believe community is something you build with your own hands.
For sisters Krissy Prellwitz, Tricia Schlosser, and the late Rachel Olson (rest in peace and F$!*k cancer) downtown wasn’t just where they opened a business. It was already part of their story.
Long before there was a storefront, there was an “itty bitty fashion truck” rolling through pop ups, private parties, and farmers markets beginning in 2015. If you spent any time around the Adams Street market scene, chances are you saw them there…hauling racks, setting up shop in approximately 97 degree Midwest humidity, and somehow still looking cute while doing it (slay queens).
By 2018, that little fashion truck became a brick and mortar storefront…Itty Bitty Fashion Trunk.
And downtown became home.
“People always complain about parking,” Krissy said. “But honestly? It’s the biggest non issue.”
Which honestly feels like the most Springfield conversation possible. We will walk 14 miles from the back of a Sams Club parking lot without blinking, but ask someone to park a block away downtown and suddenly it’s a humanitarian crisis.
But for Itty Bitty, what keeps them here has never been convenience. It’s the people.
“The community of business owners downtown is really special,” she shared. “We work together. There’s not really negativity or competition. There’s a sense of belonging here.”
That sense of belonging became impossible to ignore during one of downtown’s hardest moments…
When the fire impacted staples like Cafe Moxo, the Elf Shelf building, and Cats Pyjamas, business owners weren’t thinking about themselves first. They were thinking about each other. About rebuilding. About helping downtown recover together. “It showed what this community really is,” she said.
Even now, downtown is still healing from those losses and from how long rebuilding can take. But underneath it all is something stronger than setbacks…persistence. The kind that keeps people showing up even when things are hard, messy, expensive, exhausting, or held together with iced coffee and blind optimism.
And when downtown is alive, they say, there’s nowhere they’d rather be. Summer farmers markets. Holiday walks at Christmas. Packed sidewalks. Familiar faces. Energy bouncing between storefronts. That’s the version of downtown they carry with them.
Inside Itty Bitty, that same feeling exists on a smaller scale. They know their regulars personally. They know who will love a new item before it even hits the rack. Customers become conversations. Conversations become friendships.
“We want people to feel like they’re walking into a friend’s house,” she explained. “No pressure. Just comfortable.”
And honestly? That tracks. Walking into Itty Bitty feels less like entering a store and more like getting hyped up by your funniest friend while she convinces you that yes, you absolutely can pull off the jacket.
Maybe that’s the real story behind places like this…
Not sales. Not trends. Not transactions.
Just people creating spaces where others feel like they belong.
When asked what they hope downtown looks like five years from now, the answer was simple…bustling, thriving, full of life. More amenities. More events. Maybe even a grocery store. But mostly?
More reasons for people to come together.
And honestly, after spending time there, it’s hard not to believe that future already exists in pieces…tucked inside storefronts, farmers markets, holiday walks, and conversations between neighbors.
Sometimes the people keeping downtown alive aren’t the loudest voices in the room. Sometimes they’re just sisters unlocking the door every morning and deciding, over and over again, to keep showing up.
Local deserves more than recognition, it deserves celebration 🥳
The Itty Bitty Fashion Trunk is located at 403 E. Adams St.
