Local Boutique Sells Status Symbols For Less

Shoula Namdar’s can thank fur for saving her hide.

Namdar says her formal gown shop, Shoula’s Boutique, needed something last year to swell her inflow of customers.

Since she had the idea to sell vintage minks last winter, she's been conteding with a buyer stampede.

“I was very low in business before then,” she said, adding, “I put a sign in the window, and people started running to buy from me.” She has since relocated to a more central spot on the Middle Neck Road business district, which opened on July 1 of this year.

Many of the furs that Namar purchases and repairs, come from wealthy women clearing out closets, who value the space more than the mink.

One fur can take over a week of continuous labor to repair, according to a very diligent seamstress who declines to be named, but said she has worked with Namdar for 18 years. The store often sells them for $800 or $900, depending on the season.

Those with a taste for things finer than they can usually afford can slake a lust for designer bags too. Pre-owned designer purses, including Michael Kors and Louis Vuitton, are sold near the furs.

“You think all those women at the movie theater are wearing real Louis Vuitton?” Namdar asked skeptically. Most of them, she’s convinced, keep their heads held up high by wearing designer fakes or vintage.

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Even with fur and Louis Vuitton surrounding her, Namdar seems most proud of her vintage gowns, which sell for $99.  The seamstress had just enlarged a purple party dress for a customer—a service that many high-end shops will not perform.

Some of Great Neck’s ritziest clothing stores are located just a skip away from Shoula’s new location at 699 Middle Neck Road—and she isn’t feeling like a welcome new addition to the neighborhood. “They just don’t like me altogether,” said Namdar, “because I put prices very low.”