Filene's Basement in Towson to host bridal gown sale

Daily Record, The (Baltimore), Jun 25, 2004 by Andrea Cecil

For three-month-old Filene's Basement in Towson, hosting an event that continuously garners immeasurable attention for its flagship Boston store is sure to be a marketing success.

The store, which opened in late March in the Towson Place power center on Putty Hill Avenue and Goucher Boulevard, will host July 9 a bridal gown sale originated by the original Filene's in Boston.

There, hundreds of women line up in the wee hours of the morning to literally run into the store and grab $249 and $499 wedding gowns off the racks in a frenzied shopping excursion. The dresses normally sell for anywhere from $850 to $9,000.

The Boston event started in 1947 and is held twice a year, garnering the attention not only of brides across the country, but the likes of CNN.

I think anytime you open a new store, the key to it is publicity around it, and lot of times retailers will focus on grass-roots publicity, said Scott B. Krugman, vice president of industry public relations at the National Retail Federation in Washington. You can get national bang to promote a single store. That becomes a coup for a retailer, especially one that has stores in multiple cities.

The company decided to allow the Towson store to host the event because it's been incredibly well received, said Patricia Boudrot, spokeswoman for Filene's in Boston.

I think because it's sort of an iconic event for us - it sort of demonstrates the kind of deals Filene's Basement is know for, she said.

Aside from the Boston location, stores in White Plains, N.Y., Schaumburg, Ill., Washington and Atlanta also will host bridal gown sales later in the year.

Meanwhile, personnel at the Towson store are preparing to rearrange the layout to prepare for the anticipated chaos of the big sale.

I've probably seen it 25 times and, by the way, my jaw drops every time, Boudrot said.

It's impossible to predict how much the Filene's in Towson will sell July 9, she said.

I don't know if the behavior will be like the people in Boston. I don't know how many brides-to-be there are in the Baltimore market, Boudrot said. We sell more dresses in a day than anybody else that sells bridal gowns, that's for sure.

Mary Gambradella, owner of Gambradella bridal boutique in Towson, said she wasn't sure what to expect.

It's really not going to affect me any particular way. It's for the person who wants to buy something off the rack. So it has to be the right size, the right color. But some of the dresses are pretty worn over, she said. I'm a full-service bridal. Most of my customers want to be pampered for nine to 10 months.

Still, the Filene's sale will boost the bridal market in the area, Gambradella added, and that's always welcomed.

A lot of my customers have told me that they've seen [the sale advertised], she said. More than likely my customers won't buy anything because it's not what they want.