Namesake New York retailer Patricia Field has announced plans to shutter its Bowery Street location, with the 74-year old designer Field saying, “I want to open my social life back up and go to the gym for a swim everyday. I can’t do normal things anymore and I’m feeling it.” While well known for its support of young designers, edgy designs and embrace of alt cultures, Patricia Field was always much more than a retailer, functioning as a mecca and haven for all the world’s freaks, misfits and orphans. In a world of fashion overtaken by corporate machines, it happily maintained its odd ball status, which Field admitted would leave fans of the store heavyhearted, “I know that my clients are going to be sad, because they come in and tell me that there’s no store like this in the world,”
Field has been at the retail grind–and it is a total grind–for many years, opening her first store in the West Village in 1966. The store was relocated to East Eighth Street in 1971 and reopened in the current location in 2012. The store will close in spring 2016 and Field promises there will be liquidation sales before then.
Well known for her role as a stylist for the groundbreaking “Sex & The City” series as well as “Ugly Betty,” Field says she is looking forward to a more fluid schedule that will enable her to take on work she has had to pass by because of the daily demands of the store. “I’d like to make a movie with a friend of mine. I’ve had many offers to do a book, but we haven’t had the time,” explains Field.
As long time fans who ourselves found refuge within the walls of the storied Patricia Field, we our grateful for the years of amazing retail provided by Patricia Field and wish her much good fortune and of course fun wherever her next adventures take her.
