SEQUIM — A 24-year-old Sequim retail tradition is coming to an end: Nancy’s Fashions is closing its doors — opening a new door to retirement for owners Nancy and Darryl Raines.
The cheerful marketing-savvy face of Nancy Raines, now 70, and her affable husband, Daryl, who is approaching 72 and jokingly calls himself “Mr. Nancy,” will remain in Sequim.
But the store in the Safeway plaza on West Washington Street is scheduled to go out of business by the end of June, Nancy said Friday.
The store, which the Raineses call a “typical mom ’n’ pop business,” is cutting prices to clear inventory.
The couple and business partners have been anticipating retirement in recent years, wintering near Phoenix since 2004 but also living close to family in Sequim.
Nancy cites changing times along with her desire to retire as reasons for closing.
The Raineses put much of their reason for the closure on big-box store competition in Sequim and other economic forces that over time rechanneled customer spending in their niche market of women 50 and older.
“We knew we were done when they went in next door,” Daryl said, directing his thumb over his shoulder to the Goodwill store that opened in July.
The Raineses, however, said they both felt business has slowed since 7 Cedars Casino opened in 1995, the year after their retail sales peaked in 1994.
“I had no idea the casino could hurt us,” she said. “As soon as the casino opened, they put money into those machines.
“Then, of course, there’s Costco and Walmart and Home Depot. Pretty soon, there was more places where these ladies [and their husbands] could spend their money.”
With the Raineses semiretired, they said the profits were going to pay for additional help to keep the store open.
Nancy said the quality of their clothing, which they bought at shows in Las Vegas and Phoenix, had to bring higher prices along with it.
What helped prolong their business stay in Sequim, she said, was the fact that she put her face out there in local advertising, worked at the store every day and attracted a loyal clientele to the colorful 2,000-square-foot shop brimming with women’s apparel.
“All of a sudden, Nancy got into her 60s,” she said, and retirement began to beckon.
She called it “ironic” and a “double-whammy in the community” that The Toggery clothier in downtown Port Angeles also recently closed under similar circumstances.
“It’s just sad,” she lamented. “These mom and pop stores like The Toggery, they’re going away all over the country, not just in Sequim.”
She said the couple “pulled the plug” in 1987, with Darryl leaving his job with Seattle Metro bus system to move to the area.
Nancy came from a retail family, in the business since she was 17.
They owned another women’s clothing store in Port Angeles after buying out Fashion Crossroads in 1987 but closed the First Street store after about five years.
The original Nancy’s Fashions in Sequim was located in Sequim Village Shopping Center across Washington Street from the Safeway plaza.
“1994 was our biggest year ever, before [J.C.] Penney pulled in and before Walmart came,” she said.
“We were in the strip mall where everybody came to shop.”
The dollar figures “were just not there to sell” the shop instead of closing it.
Now nearly completed for opening on Sequim’s west side, she said, Ross Dress For Less “was just another store for people to come to.”
“We never, ever left out good service,” she said. “That’s what we’re missing in today’s society is good service.
“We had a niche, and for the success of our store, the niche was the retired lady, and we had clothes for women 50 and older.”
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Sequim-Dungeness Valley Editor Jeff Chew can be reached at 360-681-2391 or at jeff.chew@peninsuladailynews.com.