The exhibit includes a 1908 wedding dress made of silk messaline satin “in a formal Gibson Girl style,” according to the catalog. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
The Shrewsbury Historical Society plans an unusual unveiling this weekend.
Or perhaps it’s more apt to call it a veiling, because the subject is wedding dresses across more than a century and a half of American life.
Putting a bow on a three-week ‘Fifth Avenue Fashion’ course offered by Red Bank’s Parks & Rec department, 10 young designers showed off their creations at a red-runway fashion show at the Senior Citizens’ Center Tuesday night.
Customers at the community knitting table at Chelsea Yarns, which opened on Mechanic Street two weeks ago. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
A retail business moving into Red Bank from out of town. An existing business rebranding itself. Another one moving a few doors away. And a fourth calling it quits.
You might say this edition of redbankgreen‘s Retail Churn has it all, churnwise.
The new rooftop deck at Teak, with the onetime borough hall in the background, is the setting for a fashion show featuring stylings by downtown shops. (Photo by Life as Fine Art. Click to enlarge)
Downtown Red Bank will be the scene of its first open-air fashion show in recent memory next month.
The aim of the event is to “showcase that retail is very much alive in our amazing little city,” said Angela Courtney, owner of the Sweetest Sin lingerie shop on White Street.
The short-lived home of a Subway shop at 60 Broad is slated to open as Luigi’s Ice Cream. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)
[See correction below]
By JOHN T. WARD
A restaurant departs as an ice cream shop and a clothing store prepare to open in downtown Red Bank, redbankgreen‘s Retail Churn has learned.
Details below.
Lisa Tave shows off the gym bag she created, which gave rise to her new shop of the same name: Physhion. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
Fair Haven’s quaint downtown saw the debuts of a pair of fresh retail faces last month:
• Physhion, a boutique specializing in workout wear that doubles as all-day clothing.
• The Pink Peony, a flowers-and-gifts shop that also offers party-planning services.
Former Rumson resident Kerry Planer was bolting from the Alex and Ani New Age jewelry store on Broad Street in Red Bank on a recent fall afternoon when spied by your Model Citizen correspondent.
For a woman out buying last-minute gifts for the bridesmaids in her wedding just days away, Kerry appeared astonishingly calm.
In fact, everything she wore purred “casual.” Perfectly fitted skinny jeans. Black-and-white striped tee with bright pink shoulders. Nude flats. Classic tortoise-shell, cat’s-eye sunglasses.
“I’m a jean-and-t-shirt kind of woman,” Kerry says. “I love the minimalist look of throwing on a white shirt, jeans, flats and draping a beautiful scarf around my neck.”
It was one of those boring rainy days in downtown Red Bank when everyone seems to stay put in the office or at home.
But it didn’t stop Tracy Stamer from strolling Broad Street with her two girls, with whom she was shopping. When you have a pair of chic army green and brown rain boots, why not take advantage?
As soon as your Model Citizen correspondent started taking photographs, though, the rain ceased and the sun came out. Tracy appeared visibly disappointed.
“So much for wearing rain boots,” said the 50-year-old Rumson homemaker.
Brian Salvatore, 24, spent his childhood hanging out “on the corner with all the punk kids” on Broad Street in Red Bank, he says.
That’s where Model Citizen found the 24-year-old Middletown resident one recent afternoon, his face decorated with a classic beard-and-handlebar-mustache combo that even the humidity couldn’t wilt.
It was smoldering summer day, much as it’s been here this week, and Broad Street in Red Bank was swarming with people downing iced coffees, ice cream – anything to keep them cool as they plowed through the thick, humid air.
Sitting on the bench outside Urban Outfitters was Mallory Morgan, 24, lighting her cigarette with such grace – not that we’re endorsing it! – her red lipstick perfectly in place, and wearing a tan and black hat that waved with each sultry breeze.
Looking dapper in his black wing-tipped shoes, rolled-up-to-the-ankle jeans and a button-down shirt, Anthony Tiedeman spends many of his days in sweat pants and dance clothes.
A 20-year-old Red Bank resident and student at the Juilliard School, he has immersed himself in an institution where students nurture their performing-arts dreams. Anthony says he loves all music and theater, but what really sets stands out for him is the art of movement.
With this article, redbankgreen debuts a new regular feature: Model Citizen, in which we track down individuals on the streets of the Green for impromptu interviews about what they’re wearing – and why.
In a perfect world, we could all power-walk through our days in six-inch Christian Louboutins. But with so much to do and so little tolerance for pain, it’s hard for even a woman of daring style not to settle for a pair of comfortable sneakers or flats.
For Kelly Karagias, though, it’s still more important to be bold in her choice of footwear.
Newly opened Sadie James Boutique offers laid-back, “coastal-inspired” women’s wear. (Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
Chelsea Delaney was all set to close on the purchase of Sea Bright boutique CoCoTay when Hurricane Sandy hit last October 29.
The business, like nearly all others in town, was wiped out, and the deal fell apart.
But Delaney moved on, and earlier this month opened a new shop, dubbed Sadie James Boutique, in Fair Haven, becoming part of a sudden makeover underway on River Road.
Denim shorts on display at Dor L’ D’or, above, and a summer dress, below, at Emilia. Further below: a boot at Do L’ Do’r. (Photos by Lola Todman. Click to enlarge)
By LOLA TODMAN
Red Bank Charter School Intern
Womens fashion is on the rise in downtown Red Bank. It may not be Paris or Milan, but you may have noticed new stores such as Lucki Clover and Bella Chic Boutique joining not-much-older merchants Dor L Dor, Rue Royale, Urban Outfitters and stalwarts Backward Glances and CoCo Pari.
Or you may even be a customer of Emilia, one of three side-by-side women’s clothing stores to open on Monmouth Street in little more than a year.
So the pressing question is: why?
Options, said Blaise Lucarelli, manager of Dor L’ D’or, which opened in mid-2010. When there are different types of women, there need to be options.
Because of that need, there are also many different stores designed around age ranges, affordability, specialty clothing and other things that may define a specific type of female, said Lucarelli.
Debbie Mishan, below, with the hundreds of entries from girls seeking to be featured in posters hung each month at her Fair Haven boutique, Skye Blue & BeTween. (Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
The oversized, constantly changing photos of well-dressed young models you may have noticed in the window of Skye Blue & BeTween in Fair Haven aren’t stock images provided by clothing manufacturers.
They’re the store’s ‘tween customers, girls aged 13 to 16, the age “just before they start shopping at Urban Outfitters,” says shop owner Debbie Mishan. And a spot in the boutique’s frames has become one of the hottest tickets among adolescent girls on the Green and a marketing boon for Mishan and a local photographer.
Lynn Skorenko in her Monmouth Street shop, former home of Adams Imports. (Click to enlarge)
Earlier this week, Retail Churn brought you the scoop on Emilia, a new dress shop going in at 28 Monmouth Street in Red Bank, with a mention of another fashion store planning the same two doors away, but few details.
On Thursday, we found Lynn Skorenko and a friend in the darkened, 1,000 SF space at 24 Monmouth, blocking off the windows with kraft paper to start renovations for what will be Rue Royale Couture, a business she hopes will be popular with teenaged girls and their moms.
Hair stylist Glen Goldbaum and fashion designer Casey Pyle teamed up with models and artists for Bewitched, a magical evening of fantasy, hair, art and more” at Goldbaum’s two neighboring salons on Bridge Avenue in Red Bank Saturday night.
redbankgreen was there.
We’ve said it before: the ‘Hip City/Hippest Town in New Jersey’ designation for Red Bank has got to go. It’s so rusty it creaks. Even the folks at Red Bank RiverCenter steer clear of it in marketing the town, they tell us.
Ah, but hips, well… they can stay. After all, they’ve only just arrived, in a sense, and they’re doing their, um, parts to help give the town some renewed sizzle as a destination for fashion-conscious women.
How recently? redbankgreen readers may recall that it was just over a year ago that Red Bank had its first-ever lingerie fashion show, or the first one in recent memory, at least. Sponsored by lingerie retailer Sweetest Sin Boutique and held at the now-shuttered Ashes Cigar Club, the packed-house event brought a flash of sexy to a downtown that’s better known for family-themed doings.
“My business is recession-proof,” says Doubletake owner Marci Kessler. (Click to enlarge)
As a handful of employees raced about earlier this month to set up for the next day’s opening of Doubletake Consignment Boutique in Red Bank, owner Marci Kessler appeared the embodiment of calm.
The racks were nearly bare of the high-end clothing and accessories expected to fill the store, located on Broad Street next door to Pizza Fusion. But Kessler, eating a salad at the cash register, was unflustered, and confident the shop would be fully stocked for its first customers.
“We’ve been doing it for 18 years,” she told redbankgreen.
A crowd that spilled over onto the Monmouth Street sidewalk packed the courtyard of the Dublin House Pub Wednesday night for the second alfresco fashion show held there in three months.
Like the last one, held in April, this one was organized by Rosa Davis of Bella Mystique on Broad Street. It also again featured amateur models from in and around Red Bank, and was supported by local hairdressers, modeling advisors and makeup artists. A series of raffles raised money for Lunch Break, the soup kitchen on the West Side.
But even with the parochial slant, the event had the frisson and throb of its more urbane counterparts. redbankgreen photog Peter Lindner was there with his gear to capture it all in pixels.
To enlarge the photo display, start it, then click the embiggen symbol in the lower right corner. To get back to redbankgreen, hit your escape key.
Sinead Dunne models a swimsuit that will be featured in the show. Below, Ruthie Chaparra in a kimono-style dress. (Click to enlarge)
Somehow, little old Red Bank survived its first century-plus of existence without an outdoor fashion show featuring skimpily clad amateur models.
Rosa Davis of Bella Mystique filled that cultural void with panache on a chilly night back in April. That’s when several dozen customers of her Broad Street boutique strutted a red carpet laid down outside the Dublin House on Monmouth Street.
The place was packed, the music was throbbing, and there was enough jiggle in the courtyard to boost the ambient temperature by a couple of degrees.
So why wait another century to do it again? Even if the temperatures are now tropical quality.
Some of the women who will be modeling clothes from Bella Mystique gathered at the store recently. Store own Rosa Davis is at center in the tall boots. (Photos by Anthony Trufolo; click to enlarge)
Downtown Red Bank will be the scene of its first open-air fashion show in recent memory next Tuesday evening.
This one is shaping up as an all-local affair, featuring the clothing of a Broad Street boutique (Bella Mystique), amateur models recruited from the store’s customers, a runway set up at a Monmouth Street bar/restaurant (the Dublin House) and other in-town touches.
A bustier-clad model gets an appreciative welcome to kick off the show. (Click to enlarge)
Aficionados of sexy women’s undergarments packed the second floor of the soon-to-be-renamed (and already smoke-free) Ashes Cigar Club Wednesday night for what may have been Red Bank’s first-ever lingerie fashion show.
The free event, hosted by Sweetest Sin Boutique on White Street, saw a handful of models in g-strings and little else strutting to throbbing music along a velvet-roped catwalk.
Want to see more? Of course you do. Read on.
If the above headline, or any two parts of it, pretty much describes your idea of heaven, you might want to make your way to downtown Red Bank Wednesday evening.
Sweetest Sin Boutique, the new lingerie store that’s already raised the temperature on White Street by a few degrees, will host a ‘Naughty or Nice Lingerie Fashion Show’ at at Ashes Cigar Bar on Broad Street.
We’re talking leggy models in nothing more than “holiday-themed” bras and panties think red, think ermine strutting down a runaway, and maybe even the staircase.
We’re also talking $1 “mistletoe kisses” available from “some cute girls friends of ours and maybe some of the models,” says boutique owner Angie Courtney.
T. Berry Square owner Jennifer Quinn Payne in her store’s new consignment section. (Photo by Dustin Racioppi)
By DUSTIN RACIOPPI
It wasn’t long after Jennifer Quinn Payne added a consignment section to her boutique children’s store, T. Berry Square, that she realized floor space had become a precious commodity. She kicked off the new operation in June with about 30 pieces of lightly used children’s clothing, and quickly, the Broad Street shop started getting smaller.
“It was kind of taking over,” Quinn Payne said of the consignment section. “We needed to expand.”
So expand she did. With Courtney Medd, brought in as a partner to help oversee the resale portion of the store, Quinn Payne packed up and headed south to a bigger space next door, to 64 Broad, to be exact.
