If you are of a certain age, and have an eye for fashion, you might recall when the shops on Walnut Street were as exciting as the Avenue Montaigne in Paris. No, really.

Flash forward to the present. Nan Duskin, Philly’s first purveyor of couture fashion, is gone. So are all the dazzling shops that followed in her wake: Toby Lerner, Knit Wit, Plage Tahiti, Max Mara, Burberry, Coach, and others, along with the city’s last elegant department store, Bonwit Teller. Of the multitude of shops that carried designer fashions during that era, only two are still thriving: Sophy Curson at 221 S. 19th Street and Joan Shepp 1811 Chestnut Street. I wanted to know why.

“We are a family business and we had this store built in 1951,” said David Schwartz, a third generation owner of Sophy Curson which first opened by Schwartz’s great aunt in 1929. The store was designed by architect Beryl Price and, according to a 2019 nomination for the Philadelphia Register of Historic Places, it “personified mid-20th century Modernism and stood out among more traditional architecture of the Rittenhouse Square neighborhood… and exhibits sleek new materials and glassy open asymmetrical storefront with a pedestrian entrance framed by beige Roman brick.” Unique for both its time and present day is the store’s name, presented as a signature in cursive gold font. If you are a fan of mid-century modern architecture, this building is a classic.

Schwartz credits the store’s longevity to owning the property. “Many of the other boutiques in the neighborhood rented and, at a certain point, they had to leave when rents increased,” he said. According to Schwartz, that was also the fate of Nan Duskin. Born Anna Dushkin (anglicized to Duskin), a Jewish Lithuanian immigrant with a 6th grade education, Duskin got her start as a stock girl for Bonwit Teller. “She was very intelligent and connected with her customers as a buyer at the Blum Store in the 1920s,” said Clare Sauro, director & chief curator of the Robert & Penny Fox Historical Costume Collection at Drexel University. “This allowed her to partner with a young woman of means in 1926 to open the Nan Duskin shop in early 1927. Fashion/retail was one of the only career paths for women at the time, and you didn’t need a lot of money to set up a small shop.”

By then, Duskin, who now went by “Nan,” had married August A. Lincoln, a banker, and lived with him at the Warwick, a stone’s throw from her shop at 18th and Sansom Streets. “Mrs. Lincoln weathered the storm of the Great Depression and flourished when others failed–a testament to her unerring eye, understanding of Philadelphia’s social elite, and confidence in her own abilities,” Sauro explained.

Ultimately, Duskin purchased three houses on what had been prime real estate before the Depression, 1723-29 Walnut Street, and converted them into Philly’s premiere luxury department store. Women traveled from across the country and around the world to shop at Nan Duskin, including Princess Grace Kelly, who left her castle in Monoco to shop on Walnut Street.

A brilliant businesswomen, Duskin didn’t just go to Paris couture shows as a buyer. She also copied their designs for her own label. She knew her customers personally–wealthy matrons who never looked at price tags. Duskin believed that fashion history should be taught at universities and gave lectures at Drexel University’s School of Fashion Design. “After she retired, Duskin partnered with the curator of the Drexel’s Historic Costume Collection to build our collection, personally soliciting current and former clients to donate to us,” said Sauro. “There is a Nan Duskin label, or connection due to her efforts, on many of our very best pieces dating from the 1950s-1990s.”

In 1956, the Nan Duskin storefront was renovated with a marble and limestone facade and a three-story bronze entrance that created the illusion of entering a museum or cathedral. Three years later, Duskin sold her store at the zenith of its success. Under new ownership, the business continued to thrive through the 1970s and opened two branches on the Main Line. However, in 1989 a new set of owners made a fatal move. They relocated Nan Duskin from Walnut Street to a 30,000 square foot space inside the newly-opened Rittenhouse Hotel.

Unable to pay the exorbitant rent, the business went belly up the following year. Fortunately, Duskin died before her bespoke fashion emporium became a Borders book store, then Ann Taylor, and finally H&M, as if descending an elevator to the bargain basement of fast fashion. Today, the three properties that comprised Nan Duskin are once again divided. They are currently rented by Madewell, a pricey jean company, and a large retail space that is, for now, boarded up.

Ann Gitter, another equally industrious female entrepreneur, started Knit Wit in the late 1960s in the former Packard Building at 317 N. Broad Street. Shoppers found her despite the unlikely location. Business eventually grew enough to claim a prime spot at 1729 Chestnut Street with Gitter’s other shop, Plage Tahiti, around the corner at 128 S. 17th Street. In 2014, she moved Plage Tahiti’s inventory into her Chestnut Street location. After 50 years in business, Gitter closed up all of her shops in Pennsylvania, including one in Bryn Mawr. A Knit Wit store in Margate, New Jersey is still in operation today.

Meanwhile, since its opening in 1963, Main Liners and other suburbanites have been drawn to the King of Prussia Mall, where Neiman Marcus, Balenciaga, Boss, Burberry, Cartier, and other luxury stores are lined up like slot machines in Las Vegas. While thousands of shopping malls have closed across the nation, it is still impossible to find a parking space at the King of Prussia Mall on a Saturday.

Aside from the high rents, the advent of malls, and online shopping, nothing hurt the upscale shops of Walnut and Chestnut Streets as much as the May 2020 looting and fires in Center City, which reduced two historic buildings to rubble and resulted in the permeant closure of multiple stores. 

Meanwhile, Sophy Curson has managed to remain in one location for 73 years and has been in business for 95. Schwartz believes this is due, in large part, not just to owning the property, but also to being trained as a buyer by his mother. “We have customers who have been coming to us for generations and, sometimes all three generations come at the same time for a family event,” he said. “Lately, I have been stocking Tom & Linda Platt dresses. They are very colorful and have beautiful prints.”

Besides Sophy Curson, the only other high end shops to remain in the city are Joan Shepp and Boyd’s. Shepp opened her first store in Lafayette Hill in 1971 and relocated to the 1600 block of Walnut Street in 1999 with an eye-popping list of designers, from Stella McCartney to Comme de Garcons. If anyone is the reincarnation of Nan Duskin, it is Joan Shepp. Her shop is the last bastion of unpredictable and unapologetic couture in Philly.

Following Joan Shepp’s locations is like reading the tea leaves of Center City real estate. She started on Walnut Street, briefly hopped over to Liberty Place, and is now at 1811 Chestnut Street, which she runs with her daughter Ellen. According to rumors, Shepp may someday come back to Walnut Street. Will that spark a resurgence of upscale, independent stores owned by women? One can only hope.

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