May 14, 2009

Shop at Jake for lessBy Jessica SedgwickSunTimes.com

Since the Esquire movie theater on Oak Street closed down a few years ago, there hasn’t been much reason for me to visit the Gold Coast area. I never enjoyed being taunted by the smug (and dare I say slightly evil-looking) mannequins in their gorgeous $2,000 Prada dresses I’ll never be able to afford.

But I can start exiting my CTA bus there again, because I might be able to start shopping on the Gold Coast.

Jake, 939 N. Rush, a well-known, high-end boutique for men and women, is hoping to reel in a whole new customer with a new concept: a “shop-in-shop” for women called It’s Great to Be Jake, with price tags between $50 and $250. The shop, launching Friday, will offer clothing, shoes, handbags, gifts, makeup and more.

The concept began when co-owner and creative director Lance Lawson was on buying trips in New York and Paris and started to notice a trend: Cool and unusual items were now below the traditional designer price point.

Score for us.

“We wanted to reach out to a new customer, one that was a little more in their 20s and 30s that was interested in finding the hard-to-find designer pieces that we carry in our stores, but that may not have the endlessly open wallet to pay for everything,” Lawson says.

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