Nora Grace-Flood Photos
Clara Bowron Sunday with her final purchase.
After 66 years, Ann Taylor sold its last dress Sunday at the Chapel Street location where the upscale clothing chain got its start.
The store, geared towards female professionals, closed its Chapel Street location with a final sale on Sunday. It was the first Ann Taylor store to open, in 1954.
The store, geared towards female professionals, closed its Chapel Street location with a final sale on Sunday. It was the first Ann Taylor store to open, in 1954.
After Ascena Retail Group, which owns Ann Taylor and a number of other well-known brands, filed for bankruptcy last week, brick-and-mortar stores around the world shut down in mass quantities. For Ann Taylor, this includes their New Haven location.
Richard Liebeskind, a New Haven native, named “Ann Taylor” after the best-selling dress in his father’s womenswear showroom. The store was originally aimed at producing quality clothes for New England women: “Ann” was a popular name around the region while “Taylor” suggested tailored, well-fitting apparel.
Over the past seven decades, the company grew into an internationally-renowned label, though recent years have seen Ann Taylor and other retailers struggling to survive.
The rise of fast fashion, online shopping, and new clothing services has accompanied growing interest from the public in affordability and convenience. While in-person shopping offers unique advantages to consumers and businesses alike, like enhanced customer experience alongside persuasive salespersons, retailers that rely on actual stores for revenue have been hit the hardest by the pandemic.
This is especially so for expensive stores that focus on professional attire: Brooks Brothers and J. Crew are two other prominent retailers to file for bankruptcy within the past few months.
With office workers and other business-casual dressers Zooming into work meetings from the comfort of their homes in the comfort of their pajama pants (or in no pants at all), Ann Taylor and similar stores have been especially empty, even after getting the green light to reopen for indoor shopping on May 20th.
Not to mention, when any indoor activity outside of one’s own home means risking one’s life (and others’), shopping for clothes can feel low-priority.
On its final day of operations, the Chapel Street store across from the Green offered all items at 60 percent off. Despite the potential financial incentive, few customers stopped by to shop on Sunday afternoon.
Clara Bowron, a regular visitor who lives in Guilford, was one.
Bowron (pictured) described the closure and the loss of physical storefronts as “really sad.”
“I lived in Cambridge, in Harvard Square, for a time,” she recalled. “It was full of shops; it was so fun to check out these different stores. It’s just not like what it used to be.”
Bowron said the same has been true for New Haven; while she said that she occasionally goes into Lululemon on Broadway, she expressed little interest in the other businesses that have taken over the plaza.
Carrying a bag with a pair of black pants and a navy striped shirt, Bowron said she came into the store hoping to “mix up” her wardrobe.
Since going through a career change, Bowron has relied on Ann Taylor to discover versatile clothing appropriate for formal and casual situations alike.
Bowron worked for years as a lawyer advocating for children’s rights before ultimately deciding she wanted to take a more hands-on approach. She began studying to become a nurse practitioner, accepting her first job as a nurse just a few months ago.
“For so long I just had lawyer clothes,” she said with an exasperated laugh. “Then for three years I was a student, and lived in leggings and sweatshirts.” Now, when she’s not wearing scrubs, she’s looking for simple clothing pieces that are well-made and affordable.
“Ann Taylor is definitely on the expensive side,” she said, “but I always shop the sale rack. Styles turn over so quickly that they always have really great sales here.”
Staff at Ann Taylor on Chapel Street unanimously declined to comment for this story. Despite it being one of their last days on Chapel, the Ann Taylor associates were still following strict instructions from management. Customers may be disappointed by the closure, but employees will be out of work and seeking new jobs in a crumbling economy.
Worldwide, Ascena retail group will be closing 1,600 of its 2,800 stores. This means a substantial percentage of their 53,000 employees, 40,000 of whom were part-time workers, will be looking for new sources of income.