Cynthia Wolfe can’t recall what year it was. Sometime in the early 1960s, she thinks. Still she remembers vividly the words exchanged in a Providence office across the street from where she and her late husband, Marshall Wolfe, grew the fine men’s clothing store her father-in-law opened in 1908.
“We were across the street from where we are now. We had a landlord and we went to his office to renew the lease,” Wolfe recalled, speaking from her part-time residence in Boca Raton, Fla. “My husband and I walked in – at that time Marshall wore a hat – and the landlord said something and Marshall turned around and said ‘what do you think, Cindy?'”
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The landlord (whom Wolfe declined to name) gave the retort, “I don’t do business with a woman.”
The remark was a deal breaker.
”If you don’t do business with a woman, then we don’t do business at all,” Marshall Wolfe replied, returning hat to head. That same day, the couple purchased the Dorrance Street shop that bears the Philip Wolfe name to this day.
It was only last year that Cynthia Wolfe made a decision of which she’s sure her late husband would approve. Not only did she sell the business to someone who would keep the family name, she made sure some of the state’s best-dressed men will be doing business with a woman for years to come.
A stylish 33-year-old with voluminous hair and a beauty pageant contestant’s smile, Peggy Kerwin was hardly the image of a haberdasher when she met Wolfe. But the Pennsylvania native did have 12 years experience as a merchandiser, buyer and manager in both women and men’s clothing; a dream fueled by her late grandmother’s legacy as a manager for Gimbel’s department store in Pittsburgh; and incredible timing.
Lured to Rhode Island by a college romance recently rekindled, Kerwin was looking for a temporary job on the way to her own business when she met Wolfe. Wolfe was looking for a buyer after her husband’s death in July 1997.
”I said 10 years out (of Clarion University) I’m going to have my own business,” Kerwin recalled.
Wolfe could tell she meant business.
”She was very enthusiastic. She really wanted to make a go of it. She felt the retail business. It was in her bones,” Wolfe said. “I could tell from the first time I met her that she was going to be a terrific merchant.”
It took only slightly longer. The two met in October 1997. Within two weeks, Kerwin put together the business plan she thought she’d have months to perfect. On Feb. 13 1998 she became the first outsider to carry on the Wolfe name.
Kerwin declined to give the purchase price. She said she paid for the store with a combination of her own money, low interest loans from the Providence Economic Development Corporation and loans from what was Rhode Island Hospital Trust and is now BankBoston.
Leading up to the grand re-opening last October, Kerwin renovated all 2,500 feet of Philip Wolfe’s first and second floors and did away with its burgundy-pink-and-black décor. She expanded the sportswear line, added a small shoe department and a custom shirts service; and pushed closing time back an hour on all but Thursdays when the doors are open until 8 p.m. In the coming weeks, she hopes to launch a Web site.
”I needed to communicate to the customer that the store has changed,” Kerwin said. So far, her approach seems to be paying off. Kerwin claims to have doubled Christmas sales from the previous year.
Kerwin is loathe to take all the credit for her success, saying the store’s reputation and the experience of store manager Ernie Aubin and tailor Joseph Tufano provided the building blocks.
”This store was always known for its fashion,” she said. “It’s just that the clientele was growing older with the owners. So my challenge is to get the 25 to 45 year olds back in here strong.
”The word is out and we’re getting back customers who haven’t set foot in here in five years,” she said.
Kerwin doesn’t fear the opening of the Providence Place mall scheduled for August. She insists that discount and department stores appeal to a different clientele.
Wolfe, who in her career weathered the opening of two malls in Warwick, agreed.
”That was going to be the biggest disaster in the world,” Wolfe recalled. “But the department stores cannot compete no matter what they say.
“In a small store like Peg has she can pay attention to the customer. She knows exactly what they have. She keeps lists of clothing, sizes, ties, whatever.”
Being a woman in the men’s clothing business still has its challenges. But Kerwin said she’s never come close to the hostility Wolfe encountered.
”It’s an interesting dynamic. There are certainly men who walk in the door and want Ernie to wait on them and that’s fine.” Kerwin said. “But mostly men are dressing for their partners. So they figure why not have a woman’s influence on it?”
