Just seven months after 400 of ”all the right people and press” showed up to congratulate Willie and Dainnese Gault on the opening of their men and women`s clothing boutique at Wabash and Huron, the doors were locked.
Some had heard of the closing on Bob Collins` WGN radio show: Sports reporter Chuck Swirksy announced that were it not for inclement weather, all the chi-chi merchandise would have been on the street because of an eviction notice for failure to pay some $32,000 in rent.
It was a shock to other entrepreneurs on the block. ”Whoever was advising him was doing it badly,” said Albert Gray, who co-owns two boutiques on the strip and has become its sort of guru. ”To let a person in the public eye go down the way he did is just a shame.”
Gault was rumored to have spent as much as $300,000 on the renovation of the store, which featured a lot of handcarved woods and marble. A spokesman for Margie Korshak`s PR company, which organized the Gault press kit and the March 22 kickoff party, said: ”Indications were that Willie and Dainnese had done their homework. . . . The marketing plan was `world-class style,` with clothing from Europe, New York, California and majority private-label. Gault had always dreamed of opening a retail boutique. They tried to do everything right. And the store design was spectacular.”
But others armed with years of retail experience said the mix was off-target all along. ”You can`t sell a totally California look in Chicago,”
said Gray. ”It was the wrong merchandise.”
”The whole project began before Gault was traded (to the L.A. Raiders),” said Phil Farley Jr., whose Phildon Realty Co. owns the building. ”Gault really thought he would come back and forth. But when he`s out there, and the business is here and he`s the principal, it`s hard.”
For the first month Willie and Dainnese worked at the shop. ”Throngs of women just went in to look at him,” said one observer.
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”Everyone just fell in love with the store,” said Gray. ”But they weren`t buying the store. One of the greatest names wasn`t really as big as they thought.”