GoodThings, a gift and apparel retailer based in White Bear Lake, expanded in the Linden Hills neighborhood of Minneapolis just two months after arriving.

The firm, which had stores in White Bear Lake and Maple Grove, expanded into Minneapolis and St. Paul by purchasing two of the four Bibelot gift stores that were closing upon the owner's retirement.

After announcing the deal in January, GoodThings subsequently got the opportunity to lease some other space in the Linden Hills neighborhood, where Bibelot had been a fixture for decades.

As a result, earlier this month it moved the Bibelot shop, now renamed Bibelot-GoodThings, five doors down Upton Avenue and opened its second clothing-only store, called GoodStyle, in the former Bibelot location. It has another GoodStyle in White Bear Lake.

"Adding GoodStyle to the same block enriches the array of what our stores are able to offer the vibrant Linden Hills community," Tyler Conrad, who leads the store, said in a statement.

The clothing store features classic and contemporary apparel that is chosen by GoodStyle's buyers who, the company said, "focus on finding fashion trends before they appear in the mass market." Some of the brands in the store are Cut Loose, Lilla P, 525 America, M. Rena and Democracy. For this summer, the firm's trend report recommends mixing up a closet of neutrals with fashions "in living coral, shades of yellow and maybe even a little lavender."

GoodThings was started by Conrad's mother, Sharon Conrad, in 1973,; she leads the operation with him.

Roxy Freese started the Bibelot stores more than 50 years ago and ran them until retiring recently at age 86.