After more than 30 years in business, the owners of Carriages Fine Clothier in the Bocage Shopping Center have decided to close their ladies store. A hard date for the closure has yet to be set, but co-owner Jeff Daquanno says the store probably will remain open through February. Carriages men’s store, which is located in a nearby storefront in the same shopping center, will remain open.
The decision to shutter the ladies store was prompted by the pending departure of longtime store manager Pam Petit, who is going into the home design business, Daquanno says. In recent years, Carriages has grown its menswear business, while increased competition from nearby boutiques has made it more challenging to grow the market for its high-end women’s apparel.
“If Pam wasn’t leaving we probably wouldn’t be doing this,” Daquanno says. “But with the time and energy it would take to find someone to fill her shoes it was not worth it, particularly when our men’s store is doing what it is doing, which is outstanding.”
Daquanno says the store won’t have a going-out-of-business sale because Carriages is not going out of business; it’s merely closing its women’s department.
Carriages opened in 1982, long before Corporate Boulevard existed as a key connector artery between College Drive and Jefferson Highway. At the time, the Bocage Shopping Center was one of the few retail establishments in what is now a busy, high-end commercial corridor. Carriages began as a girls’ store and evolved over the years into the separate women’s and men’s stores. —Stephanie Riegel
