When people leave here, I just want them to feel good about themselves.”

Elaine Felag

Elaine Felag has no interest in retiring anytime soon. She is the living embodiment of the expression, “if you love what you do, you’ll never work a day in your life.”

Felag has been doing the same thing, in the same place, nearly every day of her life for more than 40 years, and she still does it with pizzaz.

Felag is the owner of the small women’s clothing shop, Feminine Fancies, located across the street from Barrington Town Hall. As often happens in the most successful of small businesses, the owner and the business are inextricably intertwined. Customers could not imagine the business without Elaine in it, and many are fond of saying, “I’m going to Elaine’s,” as if they were stopping at a friends’s for a visit. In many cases, they are.

Anyone who has spent more than a few minutes in the shop has witnessed the remarkable hub of energy at the center of it all. Felag will often have three running conversations at the same time, while she buzzes around the small space, making suggestions, pulling out shoes to match with the dress one customer just slipped on, grabbing a few accessories to dial up the dazzle for another customer, and catching up on the latest sizzle in an old friend’s life.

She estimates she knows 80 to 85 percent of her customers, most of them by name, and they often behave like they’re at a friend’s house for a casual mixer. They chat, they laugh, they tell stories.

When one woman steps out of a dressing room to get Felag’s feedback, everyone in the store is likely to offer a comment or a compliment. The shop has its own vibe, unique from any other.

“Whoever comes in here, I don't care what you come in with, what you look like, what size you are, whatever. I am here to help you in any way I can,” Felag said. “It’s almost like the ‘Pretty Woman’ scenario. You just treat everyone equally. Whatever they want, I will help them.”

Felag has seen everything in her store, from the woman walking in last minute to buy an entire outfit, head to toe, and wearing it all as she rushed straight to a gala; to many who just need to get out of the house, away from husband and kids, for a few minutes of ‘me’ time. Elaine is happy to help all of them.

“When people leave here, I just want them to feel good about themselves, and they don't have to buy anything, they can just come in and look around to see what I have,” Felag said. “It's all about feeling good about yourself. You know, I mean with everything happening, no one wants to feel down in the dumps. It’s like, let’s do something about it and feel good.”

From bras to business

Felag grew up in Barrington, the daughter of a small business owner. Her father and uncle ran Barrington Appliance, which has since passed to a second generation in the same family. As a teen in the 1970s, Elaine got a job at the Cherry & Webb store (many will remember the beloved retailer), located in the Barrington Shopping Center. She worked in the lingerie department.

She knew she wanted to open her own business someday, but first she went to Providence College and started her adult life as a social worker.

“Eventually the job started to get very depressing,” Felag said. “Because there were only so many things you could do … I got to a point where I could go back and get my master’s degree in social work, so I could maybe work in private practice, or I could do something else. That’s when this spot became available.”

“This spot” is the little corner nook in the small plaza off County Road where she opened Feminine Fancies in 1982. In the beginning, hers was strictly a lingerie shop, featuring bras and underwear and pajamas and intimate clothing.

Felag was never afraid to bring the pizzaz to her business, Her “Men’s Night” events were extremely popular, with live models wearing some of the intimate fashions.

It was noticeable to see a lingerie store in the center of conservative Barrington, which at the time was a dry town — no liquor stores and no restaurants other than pizza shops.

“I actually think there was a need for it at the time,” Felag said. “It was nice just to run out and go right here. No one really wanted to go to a department store outside of the East Bay to get foundations or sleepwear.”

Learning the business

Felag felt right at home in her new business, right from the beginning. At the time, nearly every sales representative in the industry was a man. When she was building up her inventory, they would bring their wares to her mother’s house, spread the bras and panties and pajamas on the kitchen table, and try to sell Felag on the products.

As a young entrepreneur in the fashion industry, she of course went to New York for inventory as well. She laughed while remembering her early trips, when she flew to Newark and then drove back north to the city.

“I spent more time getting there than if I just drove straight there,” she said.

Asked if she felt intimidated as a young woman from Barrington stepping into the New York fashion scene, she said flatly, “No.”

“I always felt like I was in my element,” Felag said. “I was never an ‘in the box’ type of person. I grew up in Barrington, but I was never that preppy, preppy high school girl … I'm very trendy. I like trends, whatever the trend is. I am flamboyant, but in a good way, in a fashion sense.”

Felag likes to have fun, and since she loves her job, that makes it easy to have fun at work. That’s how she can buzz around a store full of customers and still laugh throughout the day.

“I can wait on five people at the same time and still give them each their individual attention, but that’s just who I am. That’s just my makeup,” Felag said.

Her foundation as a social worker also plays a role in the way she runs her business. Having seen thousands of women in their underwear, having spent tens of thousands of hours talking with many of them intimately, Felag interacts with her customers as part-therapist, part-saleswoman.

“They call me the bartender of fashion,” she laughed.

Staying young

Throughout the years, Felag expanded her shop slightly, taking over a small space next to hers that became available, and she’s expanded her product lines. Today’s Feminine Fancies has the same array of bras, underwear, pajamas and intimates, but it is also teeming with dresses, skirts, pants, tops, shoes, boots, jewelry, scarves, hats, bags, prom gowns — basically everything a woman might want or need.

Customers often walk in looking for a dress for a Saturday night gala and leave with no dress, two sweaters, a new purse and a pair of boots.

Asked how she stays current after more than four decades in business, Felag said it’s all about the attitude.

“I am so young at heart,” she said. “I work out all the time. I’m young in my thinking. I surround myself with a lot of young people who are very current with the trends. I mean, we record Tik-Toks, and we'll dance on camera. I just love that.”

Her regular customers run the gamut from young to not as young. “I mean, I do have some older customers who come in here, but a lot of my older customers don't want to look or feel old. Obviously a 70-year-old is not going to wear the same thing as a 15-year-old, but they want to be contemporary. They want to be on trend. Maybe I'll mix a classic piece with a trendy piece, so they feel like they’re current.

“And no matter what age you are, what matters more is how you feel. I know even if I’m 90, I’ll never feel 90. I'll always want to feel young.”

Facing adversity

Feminine Fancies has faced two crises in its 40 years. The first was a fire. The second was Covid.

The fire was devastating. When it ripped through the small retail building across from Barrington Town Hall, it destroyed everything in her shop. She lost 100 percent of her inventory. That was in October of 1999.

Felag remembers many people pitching in to help her. The late Dr. Romano, the podiatrist, had an empty space where he let Felag set up a temporary shop. “It was an empty shell. It had no lights, no heat, no anything. He let me use the space to receive my goods, while this space was being worked on. We took portable lights, portable heating. I would wear two coats, three pairs of pants, to receive my goods and get ready for the reopening,” she said.

She did reopen, in March of 2000. “So many people were so great to me, and when we reopened in March it was terrific. It was like it was the best feeling ever,” Felag said.

Tough as that was, it was nothing compared to the pandemic, however.

“With the fire, you knew you were going to open at some point. You had insurance money,” Felag said. “With the pandemic, when we were shut down, nobody knew what would happen. You thought you might never reopen again. So that was more scary, because we were in limbo. We didn't know how long we were going to be closed.”

Never one to sit still, Felag did anything she could to keep busy, and to stay connected to her business. “Even when we were closed down, I would do something in here. I needed to get out. I would take pictures of clothing for people. I would put on my TV. I just had to get out of the house. That’s my personality,” Felag said.

She actually thinks the business has been better than ever now that the pandemic is in the past. “Now that Covid has subsided, for the most part, people want to go back into stores. I’m finding they want to touch the fabrics. They want to try them on. They don't want to have to order 10 things and send them back,” Felag said.

She told an anecdote about a law school student who was shopping for a dress to wear to a wedding last week. “She must have tried on probably 10 or 12 items and she was so happy that she could find something,” Felag said. “She felt good about being able to try it on in a store. And she’s a young woman.”

The future

On her driver’s license, Felag is not as young as when she opened her store, but her physical age and her entrepreneurial energy are not aligned. She just hit 40 years in business, and she has no plans to stop doing what she loves. Expect to see her celebrating a 50th anniversary before you know it.

“I would love to go to 50 at least,” she said. “I mean, what else would I do with myself if I stopped working? I am a gardener, but what do you do in the winter time? I would be so bored with myself.”

As much as she loves the work, she loves the customers, too.

“What I really like is that people appreciate you so much. They say, ‘Don't go out of business. Please stay with us. I don’t know what I would do without you.’ So many people over the years have said that or have sent thank you notes, have called on the phone, have brought coffees, have sent flowers, just out of appreciation for what you do … People are so grateful and thankful that we are here and do what we do for them. But they also do it for us; they make us feel good.”

She remembers a bad accident once in the shop. She was alone in the store, standing on a stool to redecorate a centerpiece near the counter, when she fell and badly sprained her ankle. She kept working on crutches.

“A few days later, I got this big package delivered to me. I had no idea what it was. One of my customers heard that I had fallen. I opened the package and it was a beautiful step-ladder. She said, ‘I never want to see you standing on that stool again.’ She told me, ‘I wanted to get you pink but they were sold out.’ So little thoughtful things like that are just terrific.”

Felag said she still has the energy for another decade of women’s fashion in her vibrant, little corner shop. “I am so thankful for everyone, so thankful I’ve been able to do this for so many years. There are so many people, through the good times and the bad times, who have always stuck with me,” she said.

Ever the saleswoman and entrepreneur, she quickly added, “I appreciate all the new customers coming into the store, too! “We’re not going anywhere, so keep coming in!”