Beauty and the Beast:

JIM MCLAUGHLIN/FLORIDA WEEKLY Courtney Fylstra, store manager of Mallie Montgomery Boutique in Fort Myers, said the shop is bending over backwards to attract new customers and adding both pleasure and value to the lives of their loyalist customers. It's the secret every clothier knows: No human is not an artist.

In the very act of dressing for morning or night, for work or play or love or war, every one of us creates — a comfort level, a look, a style. Beauty and utility together define human ambition, perhaps.

Which means that the more options we have for dress, and the more we can rely on those who understand our needs and desires to outfit, the better we'll do in life.

That's especially true in tough times. Nowadays, small clothing shops on the Southwest coast are showing their true colors, outfitting Sunshine Staters not only for tastes ranging from the parochial to the urbane and international, but for newly trimmed sails of their economies, as well.

From 5th Avenue South in Naples to the busy boulevards of South Fort Myers and The City of Palms proper, the economic and stylish range offered by small clothiers is breathtaking. And it comes with sales, special services and inventive buying talent that defies the recent poor odds of small-business survival.

FLORIDA WEEKLY PHOTO Bharat "Bert" Patel and his wife, Sangita "Sandy" Patel, offer silk and cotton fashions from India designed for the subtropics, at the Indian Bazaar in South Fort Myers. "People now have fewer dollars to spend and they're looking for something really, really different when they buy clothes," says Beth Ressler, owner of Wind in the Willows (A.K.A. Beth's Boutique), on 5th Avenue South. So she gives it to them in a shop festooned not only with beautiful clothes for women — from the small to the large sizes and from casual to formal outfits — but with spectacle, ornamentation, charm, wit and style in ceiling-to-floor gifts and attentive service.

"Our customers are looking for the 'wow,' they want that 'wow' factor if they're going to buy," echoes Courtney Fylstra, store manager of Mallie Montgomery Boutique in Fort Myers, where owners Heather and Emily Holland offer "classically hip clothes for women, from teenagers to 70-year-olds," as Ms. Fylstra describes the inventory.

Both shops — indeed, all clothiers succeeding in a recession — are bending over backwards to attract new customers and add both pleasure and value to the lives of their loyalists.

At Wind in the Willows, for example, Ms. Ressler keeps five ladies on staff right through good times and bad, from morning to night, seven days a week, so no customer will face the increasingly common, big-department-store frustration of no-help-in-sight — often a result of layoffs these days.

And at Mallie Montgomery, "Yes, we're having to run a lot of sales and specials," Ms. Fylstra explains, "and we carry more inexpensive pieces than we have in the past."

But dazzle and sophistication remain part of the mixing palette (three different Mallie Montgomery buyers put their own stamps on style, much of it obtained in New York or brought in from Atlanta).

"They want something really unusual if they're going to spend money these days," Ms. Fylstra points out.

Changing patterns

Most storeowners and managers have noted changes in the shopping patterns if their customers, no matter what markets they cultivate.

"The recession has hit all of us, so everybody feels the pinch, but our longterm customers keep coming in, and new customers appear all the time," says Bharat "Bert" Patel, who has owned and operated the robust and remarkably varied India Bazaar, with his wife, Sangita "Sandy" Patel, on U.S. 41 in south Fort Myers for more than two decades.

The riotous, irresistible rainbow of colors in clothes made from soft silks and top-grade Indian cotton specifically for a subtropical climate — combined with prices that range from less than $10 to more than $1,000 — appeal to people from all walks of life, Mr. Patel says. Customers come in to pick up not only clothes for men and women, but a wide range of food and gift items from south Asia, as well.

The Patels, who arrived in Southwest Florida to visit friends and remained because the climate reminded them of their home in western India, have family members there who buy for them, based on the Patel's recommendations. The shop includes Indian traditional clothing as well as trendy skirts, dresses, sundresses, men's shirts, tops, scarves, pashminas, sarongs and a great deal more.

"Even if you go to India, you cannot find this all in one place," says Mr. Patel.

At Brodeur Carvell Fine Men's Wear, with shops on 5th Avenue South in Naples and on Cypress Lake Drive in Reflection Commons in South Fort Myers, Rob Carvell and his partner, Ron Brodeur, are adjusting to the changing market with unprecedented flexibility and a change in directions.

"We're seeing an overall change in buying patterns, so we're mixing our merchandise," he explains. "We have been strictly a men's store, but beginning in the fall, we'll sell clothes for both men and women. We're trying to expand to reach a broader mix of customers."

The price range is expanding, too. "We're responding to this economy, and we realize there's a time and a place for everything," says Mr. Carvell. "We continue to cater to our upscale clients by concentrating on suits in the $895 to $2,000 range, but we're bringing in lines in the $495 to $695 range, with dress shirts under $100, and very nice sports shirts and trousers that are under $100.

"And we're starting our sales earlier. Once we waited until after Father's Day, but now we'll start at the end of April or the first of May."

Remarkable deals appear everywhere, for shoppers who are both discriminating, and willing to extend their range of curiosity — not just at the fancy boutiques. It's a buyer's market, in other words.

At a Goodwill Industries store in south Fort Myers, for example — a location surrounded by upscale neighborhoods, similar to the store in Naples — a Vera Wang wedding or bride's maid dress was on sale late last week for $40. The shimmering confection of stylish sophistication appeared in perfect, possibly onceused condition, down from its original price by hundreds of dollars, if not more, estimated Kirsten O'Donnell, director of public relations for Goodwill of Southwest Florida.

"What we've noticed," Ms. O'Donnell says, "is that business has fluctuated a little since the economy started to struggle. We're seeing more people in our stores, or people who might not have shopped in our stores regularly, and who now do so more frequently. There's more foot traffic. For a while, people were spending less than they had been, and there were more of them."

Spending less

Sometimes spending less is not only a matter of recessionary pragmatism, but of pleasure in the deal.

At Personal Boutique on Vanderbilt Beach Road in the Collection at Vanderbilt, owner Kelli Manious is doing well nowadays with her traditional "Fashion Swap" - set to occur next Sunday, April 26, from 10 a.m. to noon, and on Wednesday, April 29, from 6 to 8 p.m.

In a fashion swap, although admission is free, every trading visitor to the women's clothier pays a $10 door fee, and brings high-quality, near-perfect condition clothes to be traded. Visitors get tickets for each item of clothing they contribute, or they can buy tickets for $1. Refreshments are served and women often depart carrying items representing the benchmarks of clothing fashion for which they spent mere cents on the dollar of original value, says Ms. Mantious.

If that's only almost unique — an unusual spin on old and new recessionproof marketing — then Ms. Manious' estimation of current market conditions is unquestionably unique.

"It's the same to operate off-season as it is in season for us — you just have more tourists. And I've not noticed a huge change in business during the recession," she says.

Meanwhile, back at Wind in the Willows, bold inventiveness is the name of the game, both in business and fashion.

"I have a lot of inventory, in part because I went into some of the big stores and noticed that they didn't have a lot — and I thought, 'I'm going to do the opposite of what everybody else does," says Ms. Ressler, at Wind in the Willows. So she began buying more, not less, as the recession deepened.

Although she increased the inventory, "Everything I bought, I labored over. I really had to watch my expenses, so I asked myself, 'Is this just fluff, or do I really need it?'"

With decades in the business, both as a buyer for big national stores and as her own woman, Ms. Ressler has good judgment, and it's been paying off.

"We had these great bubble sleeve jackets, for example, and they were very feminine, they made the customer's arms look good. And we brought in a jacket like an Audrey Hepburn jacket — it made their waists look tiny. We did so well with those."

Recipe for success

Add to good judgment a work ethic that is matchless, and you have the recipe for success.

"This has been the toughest I've seen it in 33 years in the business," she says. "But I had a good season. It wasn't out of the park, it wasn't fabulous — but it was a good decent season. I learned how to work smarter. I went back to the basics (of good business). I tried to be smart with my time. I got in the store before it opened, I put out as much merchandise as I could — what was selling, the topdollar items like the $2,000 jackets.

"Each day I kept trying to replenish. At the store, I helped the girls with customers. When I had a lull, I'd go home and do paperwork. I felt like I had to maximize every day."

The same spirit prevails at Mallie Montgomery.

"We just had a trunk show that was very successful — we had a couple of designers come in and show their whole collection, since as a boutique we can only carry one or two examples on a permanent basis," explains Ms. Fylstra.

"One of our hottest sellers is UnaLuna out of Miami — so that's local. It's very Florida, very lightweight, wrinkle free, with bright colors in dresses, tops, rompers (shorts and top combined), from $75 to $200."

Buying local whenever possible is the way to go if extraordinary service and the independent range of stylish choices is to survive the recession, adds Ms. Fylstra.

"We try to keep people aware, that they should keep it local," she says. "If you want to see these stores a year or two from now, then shop at the small stores. The Saks and the Dilliard's — they'll be there. But our biggest thing is, keep the money local and support local businesses."