All about business

In a little less than a month's time, upscale fashion retailer and tailor Larrimor's has settled in to its new Downtown location, a few blocks away from the space it called home for almost 70 years.

"This is a much better space," Larrimor President Tom Michael said Friday during a tour of the new store. He's married to Lisa Michael, the third-generation of family ownership for Larrimor's.

"Our retailer friends who come in here say the light is just incredible," Lisa Michael said. "We worked hard to maintain visibility and let the natural light flow through."

The store was in the Union Trust Building for some seven decades, and moved March 1 into One PNC Plaza at the corner of Wood Street and Fifth Avenue. The site is a former PNC branch that relocated to Three PNC Plaza, the new 23-story office, hotel and condo building around the corner.

Larrimor's was started by Lisa Michael's grandfather, Harry Slesinger, in 1939. Her father, Carl, succeeded him, and she proudly shows off catalog photos from years past, with her father as a model.

"My mother got to pick the female models who appeared with him," she said.

The store was in the middle of three trunk shows Friday, as well as the open house it is holding through March 27, to welcome longtime and new customers to the new location.

From designers like Burberry, Nat Nast and Hugo Boss on the menswear side, to Nina McLemore and Ciniza Rocca in women's clothing, Larrimor's has kept the lines customers got to know at its previous Downtown store, as well as its store in Mt fast payday loan. Lebanon at the Galleria. Milliner Jennifer Copeland and jewelry designer Carol Lipworth were on hand Friday as well to show off their custom, handmade pieces.

"When people come in here, they're really wowed," Tom Michael said of the new space.

The long, glass-walled store doesn't feel much like the bank that once occupied the space, save for a cylindrical elevator shaft that the Michaels redesigned as a functional display area.

The store retains its traditional tailoring services, with men's suits that are "made to measure." As always, customers can specialize items like pockets sizes and styles, jacket linings, and other features.

"We want people to leave here and look great, and feel like they look great," Tom Michael said.

For her part, Lisa Michael wants new visitors to Larrimor's to realize that, while many items are indeed high-ticket, the store has something for everyone. Many of the women's clothing items, for instance, are designed to be "day-to-dinner" wear that can easily transition from the board room to a banquet.

"We've really been pleasantly surprised by how easily we've taken to the new space," Tom Michael said.

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