NEW YORK — Not too long ago, if shoppers from South Brooklyn wanted fashion apparel without leaving the borough, they headed to downtown Brooklyn, Seventh Avenue in Park Slope or, more recently, to Smith Street in Carroll Gardens.
Now, Brooklynites have one more choice: Fifth Avenue in Park Slope. Within the past few years, a spate of new, unique apparel stores have opened, or are planning to open, on Fifth Avenue.
Aside from neighborhood stalwarts Allure, Eidolon and Kimera — all of which opened selling apparel on Fifth Avenue in the late Nineties — the stretch from Flatbush Avenue to Seventh Street was mainly known for antique and collectible shops, and a plethora of discount stores.
But, as gentrification sweeps through the area, Fifth Avenue is now offering apparel and accessories from retailers such as Brooklyn Industries, Diana Kane, Serene Rose, Clothier Bklyn, Umkarna, Flirt, Goldy + Mac, Lucia, Slang Betty, Uppercut, Beacon’s Closet and Something Else.
“The last three years things went gangbusters,” said Nancy Sorkow, vice president of the Park Slope Fifth Avenue Merchants’ Association and owner of the Nancy Nancy card and gift shop at 244 Fifth Avenue. “Even five years ago, it was a lot more of a twentysomething crowd that was [living around Fifth Avenue] because it was cheaper to live in Brooklyn, and then it took off to become more gentrified.”
Sorkow credited Williamsburg, Brooklyn, natives Beacon’s Closet, a consignment shop, and Brooklyn Industries as helping lead the retail revival on Fifth Avenue. The two stores opened in 2002 and 2003, respectively. Brooklyn Industries, which launched its second store in a 500-square-foot site two years ago and has since expanded to a 985-square-foot location at 152 Fifth Avenue, has found the area impressively loyal and profitable. Sales for the private label brand total around $1,000 a square foot on Fifth Avenue.
Lexy Funk, vice president and co-founder of Brooklyn Industries, said the company was first drawn to Fifth Avenue because of the cheap rent and lack of clothing stores in the area. But the brand stayed for the street’s diverse clientele, creative atmosphere and community feel.
“We were attracted to the street because it was emerging,” she said. In contrast, “Seventh Avenue was boring and tired and bourgeois. Fifth was up and coming and exciting and younger….A lot of the stores that have emerged there are slightly more cutting edge.”
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Indeed, Funk has watched Fifth Avenue turn into a destination, for shopping as well as for eating, and she expects that the area will become even more gentrified, thanks in part to rising development of the area southwest of Fifth Avenue called Gowanus, named for the Gowanus Canal that snakes through the area.
Like many parts of Brooklyn, Fifth Avenue today is quite a change from what the slope of Prospect Park looked like even 20 years ago. In the Eighties, Fifth Avenue was just reemerging from a period when abandoned buildings and lots cluttered the area. Numerous apartment buildings were built during the late Eighties and Nineties, and now Fifth Avenue is benefiting from a population that wants convenience at its fingertips, which really means minus a trip into Manhattan.
That’s what urged Doug Grater to open his third Something Else location in Brooklyn on Fifth Avenue at Union Street, directly across from Brooklyn Industries. “We’re like a 7/11 to denim — we want to be convenient,” Grater said. “We want to be where the people are at. The more locations where we can get into, the more we can become a little brand in our niche of premium denim and apparel.”
The new 1,100-square-foot Something Else, which is expected to open in mid-August, will carry branded apparel for women and men from Kenneth Cole, Triple Five Soul, Adidas and Seven For All Mankind, like its sister stores on Smith Street in Carroll Gardens, which is four months old, and a 35-year-old flagship on 86th Street in Bensonhurst. The new store should not be confused with an existing store on Fifth Avenue called Somethin’ Else that sells records and vintage clothing.
When Ashley Gold, co-owner of Goldy + Mac, moved to the Fifth Avenue area two years ago, she couldn’t find moderately priced, yet trendy, apparel in the area, despite the large population of new mothers and working professionals who live there.
“The shops were not representative of why we moved here,” said Gold. “And the service was not as helpful as I’d hoped.”
Already avid shoppers, but wanting a fun and feminine place to shop in their own neighborhood, Gold and co-owner Susan McInerney opened Goldy + Mac late last year. The 1,000-square-foot store carries several second lines from brands such as BCBG Max Azria, Joe’s Jeans and Blue Cult. Other apparel lines offered at Goldy + Mac include Necessary Objects, Central Park West and Michael Stars. In addition, the owners each design jewelry for sale at the store.
For Gold, the service community that’s sprung up around Fifth Avenue reinforced her choice to open on the street. That’s partly because each apparel store on Fifth Avenue has so far stuck to its own niche and partly because of what Gold called “neighborhood camaraderie.”
“People are so happy to be here, and they’re so friendly,” she said. “Everyone seems to complement one another.”