After 36 years in the Mission, Valencia Street boutique Weston Wear has shut its doors for good.
“The last couple years have been really strange for retail,” said Julienne Weston, owner and founder of the boutique. “Everyone is changing habits for what they buy. They love their online.”
Though she said e-commerce and consumer habits were partly to blame, Weston said her business’s closure was also due to internal matters, which she declined to discuss. She said she’s closing down her entire business, which also includes a warehouse in South San Francisco.
“The whole thing is shutting down,” she said.
Weston said she has other business endeavors in mind — though nothing definite.
“I’ll probably do something similar, but smaller and more specialized for consumers,” she said. “I have a lot of fabric. I’m keeping all my specialty fabrics that I love. I’d like to play and have fun and be a little freer.”
She said she would take a few months off to think about it.
“Whatever I do next will be a lot of fun,” she said.
The Valencia store officially closed on Saturday. It had been sharing space with Torso Vintages, which Weston said would focus on online sales.
Weston started her boutique on 22nd and Alabama streets in 1981. It moved around the Mission District, eventually settling on at its last location on Valencia 12 years ago.
“You could see it coming from 20 years ago,” she said of current consumer trends. “I just took it as far as it could go.”