As Times Change, Gail Rothwell to Close

For the first time in nearly a decade, Gail Rothwell spent September not at Paris Fashion Week or Milan Fashion Week, but here in East Hampton, where she runs a women’s clothing store on Newtown Lane.

The current fall collection will be the store’s last.

After eight and a half years, Ms. Rothwell will close the boutique that bears her name later this year.

“It’s definitely time,” Ms. Rothwell said earlier this month, while seated in floral barrel chairs at the rear of her store. “Times change. I’m looking forward to a new challenge and excited by the prospect of it. I’ve met some wonderful women who have become lifelong friends.”

In a Rick Owens leather jacket and top, the Row slacks, and Prada heels, Ms. Rothwell wore her trademark neutral palette of beiges and black.

“What I have received the most credit for was that people loved my edit,” said Ms. Rothwell, whose devoted clientele relied on her modern yet edgy aesthetic and unique ability, each season, to distill a designer’s entire collection into a handful of must-have pieces.

“I would sit in the showrooms next to the big guys in New York and Paris and look at each item and think about who would wear it,” she said. “Mostly, I bought what I liked and what I wanted.”

When she opened her Newtown Lane shop it was the first upscale fashion boutique on the East End of Long Island for well-heeled customers in search of Rick Owens, the Row, Jason Wu, Marni, Balenciaga, Lanvin, Stella McCartney, and Bottega Veneta, among other designers.

Spouses, Ms. Rothwell said, who previously extolled the lack of a Barney’s or Bergdorf Goodman bill, suddenly wondered: “Who’s this Gail Rothwell?”

“Right from the get-go, I knew she was the real thing,” said Rowaida Younes, who, along with her husband, Jay Plumeri, owns the Race Lane restaurant. While working as the director of wholesale for Bottega Veneta before opening Race Lane, she developed an immediate bond with Ms. Rothwell. “She’s so honest and she wasn’t afraid to tell you that she was scared and excited, that this was new for her,” said Ms. Younes, who described Ms. Rothwell as a pioneer.

Despite opening near the height of the 2008 economic collapse, by 2011 and 2012 “people were back on their feet and feeling better,” said Ms. Rothwell, and annual sales were growing steadily higher.

But over the past year, she has seen an abrupt change in the shopping habits of her customers. Though some of the decline can be explained by a particularly harsh winter, another transformation has taken hold, with many clients spending their dollars online instead of at brick-and-mortar stores — even at designer price points.

Her younger clients, women in their 30s and 40s, first shifted their shopping habits online. “She could pour herself a glass of wine, once the kids were asleep, place an order in multiple sizes, have them delivered to her doorstep, and try them on with her shoes and her handbags,” Ms. Rothwell said. “It’s a completely different experience.”

And an experience, Ms. Rothwell quickly found, that has proven difficult to replicate. Though she also operates a website, unlike Net-a-Porter, she cannot sell her items online. Because she is a small, independent retailer, luxury designers want limited exposure and generally extend online buying privileges to larger merchants.

Besides shopping online, Ms. Rothwell has also observed her clients leading a more casual lifestyle (read: stockpiling fewer cocktail dresses), with many preferring to spend their money on experiences — whether new houses, cars, or vacations. The perfect summer weather, she says, also cut into her bottom line.

Like many year-round business owners, Ms. Rothwell does nearly three-quarters of her business from Memorial Day to Thanksgiving. It isn’t uncommon for some of her customers to wardrobe themselves for an entire season, spending $30,000 to $50,000, in a single day.

Still, winter was a particularly lean time. For instance, while a typical January at Gail Rothwell generally yielded $90,000 to $100,000 in sales, January of 2014 resulted in only $10,000 in sales. As a consequence, this year she closed for both January and February.

Though Ms. Rothwell has cultivated an eye for beautiful things, she came from far humbler beginnings. Born in the Bronx to a father who was a retired Army colonel with the 42nd Infantry Division and a mother who taught first grade, the solidly middle-class family later moved to northern New Jersey.

After graduating from a Catholic all-girls high school in Demarest, N.J., Ms. Rothwell attended the Laboratory Institute of Merchandising, where she is now a board member.

In her 20s, after landing a promotion as an assistant buyer in children’s wear at A&S, an arm of Federated Department Stores, which later acquired Macy’s, her family went out to dinner to celebrate her $250-a-week paycheck.

From A&S, Ms. Rothwell moved first to Bamberger’s, a department store chain headquartered in New Jersey, and then to the corporate level of Federated Department Stores, where she honed her expertise in women’s footwear, ultimately overseeing its chain of nationwide department stores. She later moved to Nine West Footwear, starting as its vice president and beginning a 17-year stint as president of several divisions, ultimately presiding over the entire company and a $200 million annual budget.

While at Nine West, she worked alongside Vince Camuto, one of its founders, who believed in following his passion, a quality Ms. Rothwell admired. It was Mr. Camuto, and his Gin Lane, Southampton, estate, that first lured her to the South Fork. In 1994, she bought her own house in Bridgehampton, making the decision to buy it in just one day.

In 2005, after leaving Nine West and selling her apartment in New York’s East Village, she moved to Bridgehampton year round, fastidiously contemplating her next act. Although she honed her expertise in a moderately priced, big-volume retail market, she decided her next gamble would be at a far different price point, opening up what longtime clients refer to as “the jewel box.”

Since starting her own business nearly a decade ago, one of her proudest legacies is Shop at Sunset, an annual shopping benefit that supports the Retreat, the only nonprofit domestic violence agency serving the East End of Long Island. Its shelter has 18 beds for women and children from various socioeconomic backgrounds, and last month its hotline received more than 400 calls.

Ms. Rothwell is the president of its 12-member board. Loretta Davis, the executive director, described her as a “peacemaker” who “runs a tight ship.” Every August during Shop at Sunset, participating businesses donate a portion of evening sales to the Retreat. This summer’s event included 35 businesses.

For the time being, Ms. Rothwell can still be found at her shop, which is to be open five days each week until late November. The doors are closed Tuesdays and Wednesdays. All merchandise is currently 60 percent off.

After spending several months debating whether or not to close, Ms. Rothwell feels liberated by her decision. Mostly, she’s excited for the unfolding of her still unknown next chapter.

“We spend a lot of time trying to put square pegs in round holes,” said Ms. Rothwell. “For the first time in my life, I don’t have a plan. Sometimes, you just have to go with it.”

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Correction: The version of this story originally published in print and online said that Macy's had acquired A&S. In fact, according to a reader who is a professor at the Fashion Institute of Technology, it was Federated Department Stores, whose dominant arm was A&S, that acquired Macy's and assumed its name.