Rada Boutique and Upscale Consignment

            At Rada Boutique and Upscale Consignment in Wakefield, they do things just a little different.

            They don’t just sell clothes to women, owner Rada Frohlichstein said at the store last week; they “dress them.”

            It’s a unique philosophy that matches their unique store.  As its name implies, Rada Boutique and Upscale Consignment, located at 394 Main St. in downtown Wakefield, mixes consignment clothing with boutique clothing.  This means the racks are filled with the latest fashions from around the world as well as pre-owned clothing.  The breakdown of pre-owned to boutique is pretty even.

            “Fifty-fifty,” Frohlichstein said.

            While the folks at Rada pride themselves on doing more for their customers than simply selling them clothes, this doesn’t mean everyone who comes into the store is forced to buy a whole new outfit.  It’s more about making sure customers know how to work their new purchases into their many different looks.

            “We want to make sure if a woman purchases a bracelet, she knows that she can put it with this color, that color, this outfit, that outfit, this occasion, that occasion,” Frohlichstein said.

            Frohlichstein believes this commitment to “dressing” her customers is one of the things that makes her store different from a store one might find at a shopping mall, where she feels people buy more than they need, and don’t get the appropriate fashion assistance.

            “I know how to dress myself,” she said, but noted that not everyone does.  “They’re endlessly roaming and they get the wrong stuff,” she said of helpless mall customers.  “You should be beautiful when you shop.”

            “That’s what’s cool here,” added Frohlichstein’s longtime friend, and shop-helper, Debbie Luisi.  “You know everyone that comes in, we know their sizes, you know what they like.”  When a new piece of clothing comes in that matches a particular customer’s style, Luisi noted, they’ll hold it for that customer.  It’s all part of knowing their customers and understanding these customers’ individual styles.

            Sometimes, the staff at Rada knows their customers better than their customers know themselves.

            “One day,” Frohlichstein said, “a customer comes in and she goes, ‘I have a date and I need this.”  The customer was looking for a white lacey top, Frohlicstein recalled, and had forgotten that a year before she had bought just such a top at the shop.  Frohlichstein hadn’t forgotten, however, and reminded her customer of it.  “She said, ‘Oh my God, I forgot about it.’”

            Four years after Rada Boutique and Upscale Consignment opened in Wakefield, Frohlichstein and her team must be doing something right, as just last month she opened a second Rada shop in nearby Melrose.  Unlike the Wakefield location, this shop is starting out as just a boutique.  “We will feature consignment as we have a collection worthy of it,” Frohlichstein said.  Though, as there always seems to be a little twist at Rada, she noted a slight variation that’s planned for the Melrose consignment clothes.

            “New with tags,” she said, meaning that while the clothes will be pre-owned, they will never have been worn before.  It’s just one more thing that makes Rada Boutique and Upscale Consignment different.