Hollywood’s Carroll & Co. to shut down after 70 years

New York - Hollywood’s sartorial haven Carroll & Co. to close after seventy years trading. The Beverly Hills’s store, known for its conservative style for politicians, professionals and celebrities is planning to close at the end of January.

The menswear store is selling the last of its made-to-measure suits and shirts, reports ‘Press Herald’. President John Carroll, son of founder Richard Carroll, said that the company’s North Canon Drive store is worth far more than any clothing he could sell.

“Those six or eight quality men’s stores that were in Beverly Hills are now gone,” said Carroll, 54, attributing the decline to online competition and rising rents. “My father was smart enough to buy our building over 20 years ago, and that’s one reason we’re closing down this store. It’s become more of a real estate issue than a retail issue.”

“It was the first contemporary men’s store in Beverly Hills,” said Ilse Metchek, president of the California Fashion Association. “Before then, it wasn’t really an American look to be dressed up. Before Carroll’s, to be well dressed and well groomed, you either had to look like an Englishman or an Italian.”