We found lots of great stuff.

Well it was an intense three days shopping at Moda, the Accessories show, Intermezzo and Circuit for the fall. We got in a whole bunch of great jewelry and hand bags. We also took in a bunch of great gloves and hats. Imagine that! Trying on hats and gloves in the heat of August and trying to think what people will want to buy in the freezing cold of the winter. It takes some time to wrap your head around that let me tell you.

Anyway these are some of the earnings we are taking in the next few weeks. We also took in a bunch of more complicated ones with various stones in them but the hoops sell so fast we can barely keep them in the store.

Let's all go to the mall.

This is a photo of a mall in Alabama in the early sixties. It has a weird boutiquey feel to it don't ya think.

We are hoping to open additional stores in other parts of the country if we can get an investor or two. The question is if you want to go into a mall or not. I don't think so because the mall culture will not be right for what we do. I think a stand alone store will be better.

We are going to Moda, Curve and the Accessories show next week to shop for "Transition" and "Fall" because the grind never stops. We will have the same old problem of not being able to get vendors to make stuff because they need a bigger "Cut" before they will even consider making a dress. If we had more stores we could generate a bigger cutting ticket and that would be great and make our life a lot easier. And it would mean our customers would be getting a lot more great clothes. But we will keep plugging away.

No clothes for you!

So the last couple of days we have been going to Manhattan to vendors to try to order dresses for fall. And in several places we find that they are not cutting plus at all. Or they are cutting four dresses and that's it, festa fiunute.

The first place we went to has some great dresses at a reasonable price with rich fabrics. They are only making 4 dresses in plus and although the fabrics are nice they are all kinda drab. Not really colorful. They are ponte fabric which is a rich fabric but the colors are sort of muted, grey, black that kind of thing. Now the Missy (smaller 0-12) has some great dresses in purples and berries and green and all kinds of rich lush fabrics. We get a few but our philosophy is to get dresses for our whole range of 10-28 and it is really impossible.

You see all the big department stores are not ordering woman's sizes and the companies are just not cutting them at all. So you can't get anything but old lady stuff unless you make it yourself. Which we are doing but boy it is a lot of work.

Our exclusive line from Olivia Harper that my wife designs is selling like hot cakes because it is the only stuff that has rich fabrics and the right fit. Almost every piece that What Not to Wear picked was an exclusive that my wife designed. So we are in the process of putting together a fall line that will be right on the money. The only problem is we are cutting small amounts so some people might get shut out. But if you snooze you lose.

If you wait around, no clothes for you.

No seriously! Tell me where you got your outfits.

No seriously! Tell me where you got your outfits. I want to make sure that we never buy anything from them. No really I mean it. You look like a fucking avocado with camel toe.

Hey about about some Italian?

I went to the Italian restaurant owned by the guy I had a beef with last summer. We had these vendors in and they wanted to take us to dinner and since they were paying I figured why not. Let them give the guy money and make his Tuesday night. So we had a nice old school Italian dinner. Hot antipasto with eggplant rollatini, baked clams, stuffed artichokes, shrimps and mussels. Also some fried zucchini and mozzarella in caroza for starters. Then I had gnocchi and the wife had linguine with black olives, garlic and oil and grilled chicken. The other people had various stuff like grilled sea bass, lasagna and a big salad for the vegan. Plus a tartuffo bomba for desert. So a good time was had by all.

Just put me in mind of a spicy Italian. Enjoy.

New styles for 2009!

We just got few calls from our vendors to wish a happy new year. In paticular the one that the wife helps design dresses. We have been doing pretty good with the early 60's retro style but we need to come up with something new for the spring.

We just know that it is not going to be seventies style.

No freakin' way.

Partisanship or choose a side fuck face.

We have this really cool fabric that we bought 900 yards of and had made into really cool maxi dresses that we were told was exclusive. So naturally we marketed it that way to our customers. Anyway in the past week we had two customers come in and say they saw the same fabric on some dresses in a regular boutique. So today we happened to drive by and we decided to do a reconnaissance. We sent our little cousin in who is a size 2 to check it out and sure enough they had stuff with the same fabric.

Now I am willing to cut our vendor a break because I think she was lied to as well. I didn't think that 900 yards was all that this fabric was made by the manufacturer and it is true that no one else has these unique dresses that we designed. Especially in our size range. But that was not the real problem.

We had this bag company form California that we found last year at the Moda show which was the first time they were at a show. We bought a whole bunch of their bags and they sold very well because they were unique shapes. But then we found this same boutique down the block was selling the same bags. So at the next show we approach the guy and say WTF. You don't sell to a store right down the block the same goods. He says what are going to do, it's a different zip code and their policy is that they will give exclusives in a zip code. Now the zip code line in New York City is not like in a small town. There are different zipcodes that are ten blocks apart as in this case. So we make an agreement that we can pick four unique items that he won't sell to the other boutiques in Carroll Gardens or Cobble Hill. We grumbled but accepted that. When we were looking at his stuff, we paticularlly wanted some purple bags because we knew purple would be huge this year. But this dude said they weren't doing the purple leather. Wouldn't you know it when we sent in our spy, there was a big purple bag in the window from this company. Now its time to go to the mattresses. We will never buy from these guys again. And I will do everything I can to destroy their business.

You know how some people say they don't care, but they really do care, well I don't care.

My wife always gets way too upset about stuff. I explain how a certain thing will go and when it happens almost exactly the way I say it will, she freaks out. She is very loving and generous and is always way too nice to people. I believe in always being nice but realizing that most people are not worth a shit. But when the situation repeats itself, she wants to force the issue and tell people what is going to happen. I say that you have to let it play out. You have to give people a chance. Even though you know they are not worth a shit.

For example a vendor calls up and says we have to get in an order or they will cancel it. I say I want to hold it for a week. He emails me back that their policy is that they have to ship it when it's ready. I say my window is until November 15th and if I take it on the 14th I am within my rights. But if they feel they have to cancel it, why knock yourself out because I don't care. I can always replace the stuff because if I want to buy someone will sell to me. Sure enough he said, hey no problem. I didn't think so. But the wife took it personally. I said don't do that. The guy is just a salesman and he has to answer to his boss. In fact I told him not to worry, if his boss gives him shit, have the boss call me and I would be happy to give him shit right back. So it all worked out.

But if you say you don't give a shit, you have to mean it.

These vendors are busting my balls.

All of my vendors are busting my balls. They are sending stuff out and banging us out without telling us anything. So it mades it impossible to schedule your payments. When I call them on it, all I get is excuses. The big companies don't care and the little companies are content to bang you out for what they can get worries.

A glimpse of what the Obama administration is gonna look like.

So we have our trunk show and every thing is going great. Lots of happy customers buying clothes and meeting a new designer and picking out really cool business attire. But then we had a big problem.

Another very well know designer walked into the store. Now she is not really welcome because she is a notorious rip off artist. She came the second day we were open and saw the decor of our boutique in particular the black glass chandeliers which are our trademark. The very next day she put a picture of a chandelier on her website. She also had someone google our name and every time someone mentioned us the very next entry was someone touting her boutique as a great place to go. It was obviously a sock puppet who wanted to set her up to ride on our coat-tails. In any event this person is a notorious copy-cat and rip off artist especially in her "designs." And she was in our store.

Anyway the wife freaks out that she and her minions are in the store. Her two assistants are going to racks and taking out dresses and looking at them with an obvious thought to copy them. They might as well taken out a tap measure and camera. I told my wife that I would ask them to leave. I feel it is always best to be honest. Just say we don't want copy cats and people scouting our labels and styles. I have thrown out people before, including some one from Nordstroms who was shopping our store to find new lines. At least she bought some stuff. But there was one big problem with throwing these people out.

You see this copy cat designer and her minions were black. Now the fact that I have two employees who are black and part of the family doesn't matter. The fact that the photographer I hired is a black kid from Bed-Stuy who I am helping set up his business doesn't matter. I don't want any credit or applause for that. I treat people as people. But if I threw her ass out she would immediately claim it was because she was black not because she was a goddamn copycat and thief. So we wanted to avoid an incident.

Now the copycat only showed up because she knew the designer and she sort of told her she would be here. That was kind of stupid because we sell the designers stuff in our store and the copycat bitch doesn't carry her stuff at all. So why she wanted to piss off my wife by having her come I have no idea. But the designer went and had a quiet word with her and got her to leave. Crisis averted.

But you can be real sure that if I threw her out she would claim it was because she was black. Never mind that her minions had out a couple of dresses and did everything possible except photo them. I knew they were working up to it. So it was good that we got them to leave without have to deal with that shit. I sent her a email with the facts all laid out to let her know she is not welcome.

I just hope we don't have four years of walking on eggshells.

Gayla Bantley Trunk Show

We are having the Gayla Bentley trunk show today. Gayla is a designer from Houston and has a lot of separates which are great for the working woman. They are made in a color-fast fabric which doesn't fade after repeated washings and holds it shape really, really well.

The wife was freaking out last night about this purple and black dress we picked out from Gayla's line. Well I picked it out as I got her to make it spacial for us. It is not New York at all but not all of our customers are New York. Anyway the wife thought we blew it in picking this dress. Or at least I did by insisting on the color and cut. We got four of them. We just sold two. Trooper York dodges another bullet.

Trunk show November ! with Gayla Bentley.

We are having a big trunk show on Saturday November 1 with Gayla Bentley a plus size designer. She is coming with her minions. We hear that she sells like crazy. So that will be good. The only thing that sucks is that she is coming to Brooklyn on Halloween night and we took the day off. We don't like to be open on Halloween because kids from all over Brooklyn come in to get candy. The little kids are not the problem. It is the 12 to 15 year olds who would love to throw some eggs inside the store to get it all over expensive clothes. So we are closed. We planned to lay around in our PJ's and watch movies all day. Now we have to entertain.

It never works out the way you want.

Super busy in the store today!

We were super busy in the store today. Lots of clients old and new and lots of sales. We seem to be doing great from a sales stand point. The problem is the vendors. They are panicking and demanding we take things ahead of schedule. I had to bitch slap a couple of them Friday. Enough is enough. I am not taking stuff scheduled for November 30 on October 25th. Sometimes I think I will have to jump through the phone and strangle them.

How we get new stuff.

A lot of other stores wonder how we get new and interesting stuff for the store as opposed to all the old lady Mrs. Roper shit that every other plus store has. Well an example of what happens is what happened today.

There was a new line of clothing in our sizes of 10-28 who had truly horrible stuff. I mean the fabrics were crap, polyester blends that would make you want to puke. Anyway they kept chasing us in the show at Vegas, trying to give us their line sheets to order their stuff. We took it like the flyer's you get on the street for Popeye's chicken, you know you hold it just long enough to get to a garbage can and toss it. They stalked us. Hanging out a couple of booths away from where we were sitting and when we got up ran up and tried to get us to go to their table. But we managed to wiggle out of it. But they were chasing us up and down the aisle like it was fucking Benny Hill or something.

But today they came to the store. I walk in about 6 o'clock from my other job and my wife goes "They tracked us down." With a terrified look on her face. Sort of that look when Simon showed up at Althouse's house that time.

The owner and designer of the company were in the store trying to sell our line. The wife took it as long as she could and then called me out of the back to be the bad guy. That's my job.

I had to tell them that their fabrics were shit. I wasn't buying those shit poly fabrics from the established manufacturers so why would I buy it from a new company?

But they did show me something by being aggressive and coming to us. So I told them to come with some swatches and some dress bodies and we can see if we can strike a deal. The wife has to approve the fabric and body on a dress and we will take one to see how it goes. I will always give someone a shot. But on our terms. You never know. It might develop into something good. But it is a long, long way away from that right now.

The video of the trunk show came out great.

We had hired the company that does the video for Elastic Waist to film our trunk show with Anna Scholz and Jessica Sovoda. It came out great. Lots of fun seeing our customers try on clothes and enjoy the fun atmosphere. Also a nice little interview with Anna and Jessica. Check it out when it goes up at leeleesvalise.com. It should be up next week sometime.