The indomitable Sophia Scarpelli has brought distinction to the Town of Greenwich for going on 40 years in her shop, Sophia’s Costume Rentals & Gifts at 1 Liberty Way. Her customers come from as far as New Jersey, New York, and upstate Connecticut. Count in with those out-of-towners my daughters and more recently a granddaughter thrilled to don a Sophia Princess dress. Everything Sophia offers is unique. Over the years, on my way to the gym next door, it has taken will power not to stop in for a look at her vintage jewelry and sundry gifts.
But the news is Sophia’s and my now closed New York Sports Club space might be swallowed up by Kyma, a New York City Greek bakery and restaurant said to seat 300. If so, the bell tolls once again for the possible loss of a local business we all love, swept away by out-of-town giant retailers.
You can’t get any more local than Sophia, born and raised in Cos Cob, Greenwich High School graduate, and perfectly comfortable with her sometimes-famous clientele. So, imagine getting the news via the grapevine that her costume shop might not be around next Halloween, after having survived the pandemic, and three months lockdown last summer.
“So, you’re going out of business?” a friend emailed her in early February. “What are you talking about?” she answers. Her friend happened to be at a P&Z meeting and saw an application for the building “formerly occupied” by Sophia’s. A quick call to her landlord for answers brought, “Well, I didn’t want to upset you because it’s not a done deal yet.” If the deal does go through, says Sophia, “I have to get out of here by June.”
Hadn’t Sophia already put in her orders for spring and summer items with some of the goods now on their way? “All I wanted was to have one more season because I didn’t rent anything from February. There were no parties, no fundraisers, no plays, no school things. I was just hoping that I would have this Halloween and Christmas season to recoup.”
It wasn’t as if Sophia hasn’t imagined she might run out of steam after 40 years. “I don’t know if I can handle it anymore because things are different. I could probably have an internet business and sit in my house and do just as well,” but surely her clients would miss that fun experience of trying on those vintage costumes. Then she might be safer, having survived two elderly drivers crashing into her store over the years.
“I think it would be really sad,” she says of a potential closing, “because I draw people with my costume rental business from all over, and when they come to my store to rent a costume, they end up staying in town and having lunch and shopping and doing stuff. There’s no place where you can rent a high-end theatrical costume except Manhattan.”
“I love this town,” she continues. “I love what it used to be, and I’m watching it become a city.” She sees her First Selectman Fred Camillo “doing great things for the restaurants,” she says, “but I don’t see him doing great things for retail.”
“To watch this big New York company {Kyma] come into Greenwich, you don’t think that place isn’t going to hurt Le Penguin or Orienta, or the Black Forest because they’re going to put in a bakery? It’s not going to hurt Coffee Luca, and Something Natural, or the new guy Raphael’s new French bakery? It is going to hurt Myrnas, the little Greek restaurant that just opened up. Between me and two blocks there are seven bakeries. It’s going to hurt all those little guys. It’s going to hurt all the little restaurants.”
But most of all, says Sophia, “It’s going to hurt the retail because there is going to be no parking. It doesn’t take a mathematician or a brain surgeon to figure out that a 300-seat restaurant that’s going to be a venue for bar mitzvahs and weddings and graduations, etc., is going to have a gigantic impact on the parking. At least with the gym they came in and out, but those people are going to be having the spaces for four to six hours.”
Sophia looks across the history of her store with pride and wonder, “You wouldn’t believe what this store looked like when I moved in when I was 21 years old. There was no floor – it was gravel. There were no lights, no electricity. It was a warehouse. And they don’t know what they’re talking about when they say that gym [next door] was a stable. My building was the stable. The gym is where they kept the carriages, and there was a ramp that came down because I have the original barn door. I still have it in my back room. It’s about 15 feet by 10 feet high. I never gave it up. I kept it as a memento of what the building looked like, but nobody knows that but me.”
To visit Sophia’s extraordinary costume gallery and gift selection online go to www.sophiasgallery.com.
