Against the backdrop of San Francisco’s struggling Union Square, the new women’s clothing store appearing on O’Farrell Street around the holidays offered a small jolt of optimism.
Inside its doors, owner Taylor Jay, whose shop bears her name, seemed to embody the very energy and tenacity the shopping district will need if it’s to rise from the retail ashes.
“I’m a dreamer,” laughed Jay, whose flagship store on Oakland’s Broadway has operated since before the pandemic.
Jay’s clothing, which she dubs as “elegant comfort,” is designed and sewn in Oakland, where she lives. Her relationship to clothing formed as a teen growing up in Southern California where she’d haunt thrift stores in search of classic, one-of-a-kind pieces.
It was a natural progression toward becoming a clothing stylist — and then later opening her own store in Southern California. She found inspiration when customers would buy an outfit and return with friends, talking about the memories they’d made in the clothes. It motivated her to start her own clothing brand.
“I was building something that was greater than just selling some clothes that I bought from someone else,” Jay said. “It was different and special, and I felt it.”
Her brand also took inspiration from a time when Jay gained weight in a short period of time and realized most clothing wasn’t designed with every body in mind.
“I just wanted to create a brand of pieces that worked with a woman’s body no matter she was going through due to my own personal circumstances with my own personal body and size and image," Jay said.
Her clothing came in a variety of sizes that all women could fit into — in fabrics that were soft, comfortable and forgiving.
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There was another significant landmark in Jay’s young life that would also shape her direction. She became pregnant at the age of 14 as the result of sexual abuse. She had a daughter who is now 31 and works in Jay’s stores.
“So my collection is a lot deeper than people realize,” Jay said. “It’s all about feeling good about yourself and feeling confident — and overcoming certain things is a big deal for me from the core.”
Jay eventually moved to Oakland and started a pop-up store with a friend to sell her clothing. After renewing the pop-up multiple times, she signed a lease to open a full-fledged store in the space on Broadway — just before the pandemic shut everything down. It became a fight for survival and forced Jay to pivot. She began making and selling face masks.
“They were really colorful, really unique,” Jay said. “We even had Prince Harry wearing our mask which was cool.”
Jay’s store survived where others in the area folded and closed. In an effort to expand her growing brand, she opened a second store in Oakland’s Rockridge neighborhood but soon closed following a series of burglaries and a slump in business.
“It just wasn’t a success,” she said. “We had to make the hard decision to close that space even after being open less than a year.”
But Jay licked her wounds and carried on, pouring her passion and creativity into her Oakland store. She organized a photo op with customers dressed in her clothes crossing an intersection in Oakland’s Chinatown. In a literal expression of retail therapy, she hired therapists to hold an in-store panel on how to hire or fire a therapist.
“I knew that I had a lot to give,” Jay said. “And I just had a lot in my heart and my head and in mind.”
When San Francisco launched its Vacant to Vibrant program to lure new businesses to Union Square in exchange for temporary free rent, Jay jumped at the opportunity. Over the holidays, she decked out her new shop in under a week and is constantly working on strategies to bring more people into her store, which sits a block from Macy’s.
Inside her store, she showed off her London Jumpsuit, and a skirt that converts into a top — all in soothing earth tones. In between customers, Jay stared into an iPad, fine tuning the store’s systems or plotting new additions to the business, which will include a new exterior sign.
Her ability to overcome the hurdles of business and life seem perfectly in sync with the needs of Union Square, which has seen a number of major retailers close their doors since the pandemic. It’s almost as if she was Taylor-made for the task at hand.
“Statistically my life should be a lot different than it is,” Jay said in a rare moment of downtime. “So I’m very grateful and thankful to the people that believe in what I’ve been able to offer.”
