What Happened to Petite Sophisticate?

The title alone is like something from this trend dark ages:”Petite Sophisticate.” Was there really a time we–us women of diminutive stature–stated,”that’s what I need, a store that knows my need to be elevated from just miniature to petite AND sophisticated”? Apparently so. Because in the time, Petite Sophisticate was the shiz-nit.

But alas, Petite Sophisticate is. That you may have noticed again, maybe not. However, for a new that has been a formidable force in mainstream retail match through a lot of the 1980s and’90s, the question iswhat happened?

Petite Sophisticate: Where Art Thou?

One Word: The Internet (well that’s just two, but only the next one is significant ). With the arrival of simplified and protected e-commerce, fashion retailers were made to take their wares to where their customers wanted to store — online. For a few (read: Target) the leap was almost seamless, for others, it was the start of the end. There are legions of then-hip brick-and-mortar retailers (recall Fashion Bug*, Contempo Casuals, and Petite Sophisticate sister company, Casual Corner?) That didn’t change efficiently into funding demands of savvy at-home shoppers, streamlined, and the hip with the times. Nor did they update their picture to keep up with the super-fickle productions of the 2000s. As collateral damage, the Petite Sophisticate could be counted between those factors and the extreme competition caused by world-wide shopping opportunities.

The shop’s background is deep–part of the firm Charming Shoppes, Inc..  Based in the 1940s or 1950s (reports differ ), Petite Sophisticate served a true need not addressed by many other fashion retailers in the time: specially proportioned clothes that gave short women accessibility to authentic ready-to-wear clothing (rather than having to change clothes made for”average” proportions). The chain once boasted hundreds of stores nationally. In the wake of the above challenges, the newest limped over longer than most of it’s contemporaries, shutting it’s online retail platform (the passing knell) at 2009 followed by it’s brick and mortar places as lately as 2010. It had been just a few years back, in fact, I wrote on TBF of Petite Sophisticate as a source for petite jackets that are great. Ah, the memories.

The heritage? Well a lack of manufacturers catering to the shopper in any sort of way that is meaningful and style-savvy. But that’s a topic for another post. For now, we say we don’t just miss you Petite Sophisticate — but we do wish there was. (Interestingly, there are a lot of links to”lightly used” Petite Sophisticate garments online–whether it’s some comfort to the now defunct new, your followers are still out there!) .

*Note: We are conscious that Fashion Bug still exists–but we are also aware that using a title such as”Fashion Bug” and the large hair, prairie dress institutions that we attach to it, we may argue that it can be the Radio Shack of style retailers.

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Angela

Angela is a senior writer who has been hanging round TBF since way back in 2007. When she’s not weighing on the virtues of, say, feathers as a style statement, Angela functions as a bridal consultant in the St. Louis region. She also enjoys sunsets, and long walks in Target.

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