TikTok Influencer Gabbie Egan’s New Store, Dicey Dyes, Brings Tie-Dye Lover’s Paradise to Covington

Photo: Devine Photography

Gabbie Egan opened her first Dicey Dyes storefront in Covington in March.

This story is featured in CityBeat's Aug. 9 print edition.

A new retail experience boasting vibrant colors, a bit of spunk and an interactive, customizable way to shop has come to Covington.

Dicey Dyes, a tie-dye shop on 3634 Decoursey Avenue, is owned by TikTok influencer Gabbie Egan. She started her shop online and was inspired to open a brick-and-mortar location after witnessing the skyrocketing demand of her products from her following of almost 5.3 million across her two TikTok accounts, @bbyegan_ and @gabbieegan. 

Egan has shared her life on social media for three years and promotes positivity and creativity daily. She is a mother and stepmother to four children, a wife, a social media influencer, a veteran and a business owner. 

The internet knows Egan for her headline-making battery arrest in Las Vegas in 2021, and for her friendship with “Teen Mom 2” star Jenelle Evans. Egan and Evans, who collaborated on the now-defunct “Girl S#!t” podcast that same year, connected over the experience of having kids at a young age.

Egan had her oldest son when she was 13 years old, and graduated high school at 17. Egan said the support she received from her classmates and family helped her adjust and not feel like an outsider, instead just another student. 

In a TikTok, Egan said she was homeschooled during 8th grade and had her son that year in January of 2014. She worked evenings and weekends, then returned to public school for 9th grade. 

She then went on to the United States Army where she worked as a diesel mechanic for a little over two years. Egan left the military and moved to Northern Kentucky after becoming pregnant with her youngest daughter at 19 to be closer to family when her husband got out of the military.

“I was a stay-at-home mom for about a year through the pandemic and all that stuff and while I was staying home with four kids at 19 to 20 years old, I was bored, and I didn't have anything to do. So I started posting on TikTok and that's where all of this kind of started,” Egan said.

Since 2020, Egan has been posting vlog-styled content of her discussing her life story, what’s going on in her day-to-day life, fun snippets of family adventures and frequent dancing and lip-syncing videos to trending sounds. 

Egan said she has always loved to tie-dye and wear tie-dye pieces, and what began as a hobby eventually turned into something much more. One day Egan and her mother-in-law made tie-dye shirts for fun and she posted them to her TikTok page and her viewers immediately wanted to buy the pieces.

“We started finding out what the best dye brands are, what the best way to do it is, different techniques and we started in her garage. Then we turned her entire shed in the backyard into a tie-dye studio, and we started a full online store,” Egan said. 

In the past year-and-a-half, the two racked up over 30,000 orders and in September 2022 they rented their first space in Ludlow, Kentucky, in the backend of a nail salon owned by one of Egan’s friends, but they began renovations two months prior.

“All of our sales were online for almost a whole year before opening a storefront and at about six months in, we realized that the sales were staying consistent, and people still wanted new stuff, people still wanted to see more. We were like well, maybe we should look into opening up a store,” Egan said. 

The Dicey Dyes storefront opened on March 10, 2023 — almost a year after their first shirt was sold on March 8, 2022. The grand opening hosted over 200 people who lined up outside waiting to get their hands on Egan’s products. Egan says the relationships she has created with her followers on social media have created the exact environment she wanted in the shop. 

“It’s almost like we know each other already. A lot of my customers are people who  have followed me, who know who I am — know my life story. I think the reason that my business is doing so well is because I’ve created so many relationships with people via social media,” Egan said.

Everything in the shop is tie-dyed by hand so no two pieces are identical. Many of the shirts have screen printings which she has purchased from digital artists. They have recently started to offer screen printings inside the shop to further customize any pre-dyed shirt.

Opening the shop was nothing what Egan expected as it is completely different from running an online business, but the support she has received from the local community, businesses and online has been motivating. She feels as though she fits in here as she has made connections with many neighboring local business owners.

“The sense of community that I've experienced makes me emotional. Since opening the store, not only the people from online but the local community here has been like a warm hug. I was expecting for people to be like, ‘Oh, this girl who thinks that she's better than everybody else with TikTok,’ but it's been completely the opposite,” Egan said. 

She is in the process of opening up another storefront down the street from her current brick-and-mortar location to use as a tie-dying warehouse and to host classes for both kids and adults. She is still working out all of the details but she wants the environment to be both fun and inviting. 

Egan hopes that the classes will light up the downtown area and create curiosity among those who pass, making them come in and potentially sign up for a class. 

Egan has hosted ten successful classes in the warehouse in Ludlow, where people spent five hours tie-dying, playing games and creating memories that influenced her to continue with classes when the timing was right. 

Since a young age, Egan has always been persistent and worked hard to succeed in whatever she does, and Dicey Dyes is no different. 

“Failure isn’t an option — whatever I’m doing I have to make it work,” she said.

Finding a way to balance her business, social media accounts and family life has been difficult because she wants to give her time to those who matter most in her life. 

“I have to make sure that I’m creating enough time for the people in my life who deserve my time the most, because it’s super easy whenever you have a social media following, you have so many people who want to meet you and spend time with you and all that stuff, to get wrapped up in that and to give too much of yourself to that,” Egan said. 

Her business is family-oriented and family-ran as she works closely with her mother-in-law to manage everything, her husband who works at the storefront full-time, her grandmother-in-law who cuts all of the screens used for pressings and many others who help when they can. 

“My mother-in-law quit her full-time job of almost a decade to work for me, and it’s not even for me because I feel like she’s my boss — genuinely she’s the better half of my brain. Everybody on my husband’s side [of the family] is involved, and my parents not so much just because my dad just retired, but he helps me a lot with my kids and I wouldn’t be able to do this without the help that I have from him,” Egan said.

Egan’s colorful, customizable products are just the beginning of what she wants to do. She loves to meet new people, especially those who have been following her life story online for quite some time. The connection she has developed with the community excites her and she can’t wait for what’s next. 

“This is just the beginning and I have no idea where it’s going to take us or what I’m doing or what the future holds, but we’re doing it,” Egan said. 

Dicey Dyes, 3634 Decoursey Ave., Covington. Info: diceydyes.com.