No Whimsy, Please; We’re Park Slope 2.0

Image via Park Slope StoopIt seems today is the day for eulogies around these parts. Park Slope Stoop reports that Eidolon, one of the first Cute Little Shops to open during the storied Gentrification of Fifth Avenue, is closing after 14 years.

Their clothes were always a little, shall we say, Virginia Woolf, for me, but the miniature shop was welcoming and pretty, and they sold plenty of accessories that were accessible for the more conventional dresser. Over the years I bought sweet, reasonably-priced jewelry, printed headbands and belts, and fabric bags, almost all made by hand by the shop’s co-owners.

There was a time when those handmade cloth bags were quite the thing. Once, my intrepid husband ventured into the daunting realm of women’s purses to buy me a gift, and had such a good experience with the helpful saleswoman, who was also the bags’ maker, that he still talks about it years later (get a life, hon!). When I told him the shop was closing, he let out a sincere and dismayed, “aww!, why?” (get a life, hon!).

Oh, and the Gentle Souls shoes! I discovered them at Eidolon when they were beautiful and unusual and comfy, before Kenneth Cole bought the company and snooze-ified them. Apparently some girl designed and constructed them by hand in her studio in the Bronx. I’m picturing antique cobbler’s wooden shoe moulds, and perhaps elves that snuck in at night to finish the work.

I guess it’s the same old story, increasing rents blah blah blah, but also I imagine there are fewer women in the neighborhood these days who want to dress like circa-1910 Bloomsbury Bohemians – think the Shlegel sisters in Howards End – to keep an expensive storefront afloat.

I wish I could’ve helped more, bought some handmade frocks, say, but Jesus, I gotta go to work in an office. In Manhattan. On Wall Street. If I go out on a limb and wear something like textured tights around there, I feel like the neighborhood weirdo. The Park Slope I live in now is disappointingly low on weirdos, but at least we still have Crazy Skirt Lady. You know who I mean.