Breaking News

NBC TV crews catch the marvel of Dallas resale. Watch the footage from the June 12th broadcast with this link! You'll recognize our store, signage and great designer collection.

"When Conscience and Closet Collide"

Another acknowlegement of the growing popularity of resale was this article entitled "When Conscience and Closet Collide" from the Fashion and Style section of The New York Times also on June 12. Our owner, Irene's daughter, Megan lives in NYC and has shopped in all the stores mentioned. She says they can't hold a candle to Clothes Circuit.

Recycle, Resale, & Reuse

An upscale clothing boutique remains a gem after 25 years

By Tierney Kaufman From the article at Preston Hollow People Staff photos: Chris McGathey Wendy Grandell, Mrs. DFW, searches for interview suits in Clothes Circuit. Wendy Grandell, the newly crowned Mrs. DFW, searches through neatly displayed racks of clothing, looking for an inter­­view suit. She finally finds it: the perfect pink form-fitting Elie Tahari piece to complement her dark hair and deep brown eyes. “Somebody put a little bug in my ear about this store,” smiled Grandell, excited about the upcoming Mrs. Texas United States competition. “It’s the first time I’ve been to Clothes Circuit, and what a gem it is.” Clothes Circuit, the Park Cities’ upscale women’s resale store, is celebrating its silver anniversary. After 25 years in Preston Center, it is one of the oldest stores in the center and continues to expand inventory and gain customers from all over the world. “It’s still a fun enterprise; it remains playful,” said founder and owner Irene Mylan. “We have a really strong business and people use us to have more things in their lives. It’s internal recycling.” Knowledgeable employees, with an average of nine years experience at Clothes Circuit, are on hand to help the panoplies of customers that shop the store’s high-end brands. The core customer, the working woman, can shop for top designers – Prada, Gucci, Burberry, Louis Vuitton – in couture clothing, accessories, and estate jewelry and save 60 percent off the original price. Four hundred new items are added to the floor daily, most of them manufactured within the last year and many with their original tags. Irene Mylan Marketing consultant Janet Howe said that consignors shop the world, and it is not unusual to find clothing, accessories and fine jewelry from prominent sources in other fashion capitals in the U.S. and abroad. “Clothes Circuit is a premium-class fashion resource,” she said. “We have great fun when a young woman comes back to us to tell us how confident she felt in a job interview wearing marvelous clothing that we helped her select,” Mylan said. “After she gets the job, she invariably returns for her work wardrobe.” Over the past quarter century, Clothes Circuit has changed location three times within Preston Center before settling on Sherry Lane in 1988, which gave the store increased visibility. Word of mouth recommendations, advertisements in travel magazines, and write-ups by daily newspapers and online blogs increased traffic in the store. “My postman tells us that we are the busyness store in Preston Center,” Mylan said with a laugh. The high quality, high-end apparel and accessories offered at Clothes Circuit not only gain loyal customers, but loyal employees as well. Mona Zoltan, an employee for 14 years, began her sales career as a shopper at the resale store. After years working at the World Trade Center, Zoltan decided to spend her time surrounded by new clothes and people. Shoes by Chanel, sunglasses by Versace “It’s just exciting to come in here, you never feel blue,” she said. “Everybody here is very nice and [Mylan] is a dear.” Another shopper-tur­ned-employee is local resident Ann Strain, a former banker who spent her every lunch break walking around Clothes Circuit. “I found myself straightening things on the racks when I was a customer,” said Strain. “I changed jobs after 30 years, and now I’m having more fun than I’ve ever had in my working life. This is like ‘Cheers’ for shopping.” Although the connotation of resale sometimes is negative, Mylan is pleased by the evolution of resale and sees a crossover from the Park Cities bargain shopper. “A couple of things happened,” said Mylan. “The attractiveness and appeal of getting a bargain, not as intent of proving how much they spent, created more of an environment that the discount is an okay thing. Also, the notion of eBay opened up people’s eyes to the alternative of used goods.” Mylan, prior to opening Clothes Circuit, grew up in Southern California and attended the University of Southern California for undergraduate school and Stanford University for a master’s in guidance counseling. She moved to Oregon to work as an environmental lobbyist, and eventually became a community college women’s programs coordinator. Prada shoes matched with a turquoise purse When she moved to University Park in 1983 with her husband, SMU law professor John Mylan, and two daughters, Dallas was in a recession and she needed a job. “On impulse, I opened the store,” Mylan said. “I knew about sale racks, and I identified with the notion of a bargain.” She opened Clothes Circuit with bargain hunter and motivational speaker Ethel Sexton but quickly took over the project to make it her own. Currently sprawling at 7,200 square feet, Mylan continues to expand the store and its accessibility with a better website and easier access for online purchases “We send clothes all over the country, and people shop from all over the country,” said Mylan. “It’s the awareness that Dallas has a reputation as a fashion center, so we get people from out of the area.” But the increase of online inventory does not change the personal touches of this Park Cities store. “This is so much fun,” said Strain. “I always thought, ‘If dreams came true, I’d be here.’ And now I am.” E-mail tierney.kaufman@peoplenewspapers.com

More Good News

Spot light In "D Magazine"

---

Clothes Circuit Survey Results

Ways Shoppers Learn About Clothes Circuit

---

All the wonderful ways shoppers learn about Clothes Circuit

Ever wonder how a particular group of smart, creative, well-dressed women all manage to converge at a unique shopping destination that's anything but mainstream, mall-anchoring retail?

This spring, Clothes Circuit asked our customers how they first found us (they've been finding us for 25 years).

Some of the answers are really fun and unexpected, others support the age-old truth that word-of-mouth (or as one pundit quipped, tell-a-woman) is indeed the best advertising.

Here's what you told us in our recent Shopper Survey:

Friends' opinions count the most!

No surprise here. Out of our 174 survey volunteers, 86 said their friends introduced them to Clothes Circuit. And we found that friends have been telling friends all over the country. One California businesswoman makes it a point to pass through Dallas so she can keep an eye on the Chanel shoes and pick up several pairs for the price of one. Her friend, a local advertising rep, introduced her to the abundance of designer accessories in our upscale collection.

Of course, many of our friends-telling-friends predictably come from the surrounding Park Cities, Bluffview and Preston Hollow neighborhoods. SMU coeds have discovered our hot collection of designer jeans and many depend on us for a special bargain on party clothes sometimes just hours before the big event! It's thanks to our college shoppers that many of their moms from around the country make Clothes Circuit a regular stop on their visits to Dallas.

The Next Best Advertising

Now here's a tribute to the concentration talents of our Clothes Circuit customers. Sixty-nine survey participants aid they first learned about us by simply seeing the store as they drove through Preston Center. Location, location, location--our Realtor friends would say.