Cynthia Rowley celebrated the opening of her new Boston boutique on Thursday night with a V.I.P. shopping event at her Newbury Street store, followed by an appearance at "Fashionably Late," a weekly fashion show series at the Liberty Hotel, this time helmed by Rowley and PR firm the Moxie Agency. The festivities were the first of four parties throughout the country to celebrate the designer's new stores.
The event was put together in a matter of several weeks, after Rowley inked the deal that landed her store smack in the middle of the Back Bay’s busiest retail thoroughfare. “These challenging times have created, for us, great opportunity,” said Michelle Finocchi, Rowley's director of public relations, who coordinated the Boston events. “We’ve been wanting to open a store on Newbury Street for years and were finally able to negotiate favorable terms.”
Early in the evening, some 40 consumers crowded into the jewel-box boutique to mingle with the designer, sip Mionetto prosecco, munch from bags of gourmet popcorn from Garrett Popcorn Shops, and take advantage of the night’s special 20 percent discount. At 8 p.m., the party migrated to the Liberty Hotel, where approximately 350 guests—Rowley among them—watched from the lobby rotunda as models walked the third-floor catwalk a little after 10 p.m. The models presented 15 looks from Rowley’s spring and fall 2009 collections before heading downstairs and up the escalator to pass through the crowd.
Admission was free, but guests had to pay for the Ketel One cocktails and bites from on-site restaurant Clink. DJ Michael Savant provided background music before and after two performances by indie band the Beets, who were featured in a short film that appears on Cynthia Rowley’s Web site and ran in New York City taxis during Fashion Week in February.
“Over the course of Fashion Week, [the film] was seen by approximately 1,176,000 passengers,” Finocchi noted. “The Beets then played the after-party for our runway shows, and we invited them back to play the Liberty Hotel party in Boston.”
The party ran until last call at 2 a.m., with guests mingling, drinking, dancing, and taking in the scene throughout the night.
