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| Issue February 11, 2002 |
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| Designer discounts: Barbara Nell's Daisy Shop is one of a handful of boutiques worldwide specializing in used couture fashions. Photo: John R. Boehm |
At the Daisy Shop, women who can spot a Louis Vuitton knockoff at 50 paces peruse racks of clothes bearing labels such as Givenchy, Versace, Hermes, Armani and Chanel — all sporting discounts that, on a percentage basis at least, would make Sam Walton blush.
Since 1995, the Daisy Shop has been peddling used designer fashions — or, as owner Barbara Nell prefers to call them, "very gently worn, noble items" — to discriminating customers who value a bargain.
"I'm the used-car lot of Mercedes-Benz," Ms. Abarbanell says.
While discounts, some as deep as 60%, may be the first priority for Ms. Nell's clientele, privacy is a close second. After all, who wants it to be known that the vintage black silk crepe Valentino gown you're wearing to that Field Museum gala (sleeveless, floor-length, V-necked and a steal at $864) has already been worn by the woman just ahead of you in the receiving line?
Ms. Nell is equally protective of the society doyennes who regularly bring their used handbags, scarves, suits and jewelry to her for resale.
Though several designer resale shops have cropped up around the city in recent years, offering "pre-worn" clothing with labels ranging from Jones New York to Eileen Fisher and even the Gap, the Daisy Shop is in a different league.
Ms. Nell deals exclusively in couture clothing. The Chambre Syndicale de la Haute Couture in Paris, a government agency, sets the standards that allow a design house to call its work "couture," based on the size of a designer's staff, the number of runway shows the house puts on annually and other factors.
Carrying 67 such labels, the Daisy Shop at 67 E. Oak St. is only one of a handful in the world offering used couture items. That exclusivity, combined with a Web presence, has helped Ms. Nell draw customers from as far away as South Africa.
'The thrill of the hunt'
She's built up a following closer to home, too.
Pamela Mustain, an information technology executive from the North Shore, didn't think of herself as a resale shopper until friends told her about the Daisy Shop.
"I always thought anything I needed I could get from a department store," Ms. Mustain says. "But then I went to Daisy and found that, for what I spent at a department store, I could buy couture designer stuff."
Among her biggest scores is the $1,200 black quilted Chanel portfolio that she figures would have cost $6,000 new. "The first time I was carrying the bag, I must have had three or four women stop me, saying what a gorgeous bag it was," she says. "I tell people I got such a deal on it. It's like the thrill of the hunt."
Ms. Nell knows that thrill firsthand. She had just entered the white-collar world in 1968 when a colleague took her aside, pointed out the inadequacy of her Peter Pan collars and pleated plaid skirts and recommended an upscale resale boutique in New York. On that first visit, she was hooked.
When Ms. Nell's years as a self-described corporate "bean counter" were ended by the early-'90s recession, she decided to try turning the knowledge of fashion she'd cultivated into her livelihood.
"I made the jump because it was hard to find couture," says Ms. Nell, whose clientele consists mainly of professional women aged 35 to 55. "Designer labels had taken over. I believed there were women out there that desired to buy couture, no matter what their pocketbook."
Core group of regulars
It's a rarefied niche, to be sure. And the recent recession has taken its toll. The shop's annual revenues peaked at $250,000 two years ago, and have since slipped 20%.
"Luxury clothing is hot and then not," Ms. Nell says. "As luxury clothing goes, so goes my store in terms of supply and in terms of demand."
Still, she counts on a core group of regulars.
Janelle Emalfarb, a Chicago real estate agent and wine seller for Kendall-Jackson Wines Estates, continues to visit the shop every two months, seven years after stumbling upon it on her way home from the gym.
"When I went in there, I was like a kid in a candy shop," she recalls, estimating that she's spent about $2,000 a year there.
The labels are the same as those elsewhere on Oak, but, in terms of ambiance, that's about the only thing the shop has in common with its neighbors.
The "office" — a wedge of space between a coffee pot and a dressing room — is where sellers, who either sell items outright or on a consignment basis, are taken to haggle over pricing.
Haggle is the right word because, after 30 years of studying couture, Ms. Nell knows what she's looking at.
From the Chanel rack, she pulls out a vintage bouclé suit. Judging by the length of the jacket, she's determined it's from the early 1950s, meaning it was designed by Coco Chanel herself, thus giving it a higher value. But this particular suit is missing a matching blouse. Another failing: The buttons are not original; they aren't inscribed with the Chanel logo on the underside.
She prices the suit at $1,600 — $1,000 less than a classic like this might fetch without the demerits. A new "off-the-rack" Chanel jacket alone can go for around $4,500.
Cynthia Dibuglione, owner of three resale boutiques in Chicago, including Cynthia's Consignments in Lincoln Park, says the key to running a chic secondhand store is to be a stickler about the condition of the merchandise. At these prices, customers expect it.
Location is critical, too. On that score, Ms. Dubiglione says, Daisy Shop can't be beat.
"Who has the greatest clothes but Gold Coast women?" she says. "You have all these women living in those high-rises there, shopping Oak Street, and they go there with their (old) clothes."
©2002 by Crain Communications Inc.
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