After A Tragedy, The Frock Expands In Crown Heights
Image by Courtesy of The Frock
It was a sunny Sunday afternoon when I walked into The Frock’s pop-up shop. Set up in a corner space in Crown Heights, the light streaming through the windows, racks of clothes lined the walls.
By the time I had arrived, at around 2 p.m., the place was bustling; there were women pulling dresses off racks, women patiently lining up to pay; women heading toward the back to try on the clothes.
I bustled over to Chaya, one half of the sister duo behind The Frock, who was working the cash register. A woman in a hijab was paying for her dress. “It’s been like this all day. A lot of people from Manhattan came,” Chaya noted.
The sheer number of people at this pop-up is hardly surprising, considering the love fans have for this clothing brand filled with basics. The Frock, a clothing brand started by Orthodox sisters Simi and Chaya, has nearly 38 thousand followers on Instagram, and their brand of chic basics has been written about in some of the biggest fashion publications, including Vogue and Refinery29.
Earlier this year, The Frock sisters experienced an unexpected tragedy. Simi’s husband, Shua, fell ill and, just a few week later, on November 9, he passed away. While he was in the hospital, tens of thousands of Jews gathered together to pray for Shua’s health, with prayer groups, challah bakings, and commitments to doing acts of kindness — many of them feeling connected to the family, as loyal Instagram followers of the Frock brand.
After Shua’s passing at the age of 31, Simi seriously considered shutting down the business. She was pregnant and couldn’t imagine continuing the business without Shua’s help.
But then fans of the brand and the greater Jewish community raised over $1 million from almost 9,000 people on Charidy, the crowdsourcing fundraising site. “I know no one will be able to heal my broken heart, but at the times when I feel like I just cannot keep my arms raised any longer, your love and support are the rocks that hold them for me,” Simi wrote in an Instagram post.
Shua was also a big part of molding The Frock into a successful business. When the business began, he was an honorary CFO. And although he had just graduated and was poised to begin a career as a therapist, he was planning on working part-time for The Frock. “Because he’s like, guys, I’m making this huge,” said Simi. “Everything had to do with Shua.”
“Everything,” Chaya concurred.
“This business would have ended 20 times over if not for Shua,” said Simi. “There have been so many times over the years where if we had a bad month, or if we came up with a challenge which every business has — even Nike and Coca Cola — and if that would happen to us I’d be like, ‘Shua, I’m quitting. I’m quitting. We’re going to fail. We’re going to fail.’ And he’d be like, ‘Are you kidding? You guys are killing it, you’re mad. He taught me, business has to go like this [making hand motions indicating peaks and valleys]. If you don’t go down, you don’t learn, you’re not going to grow. He was our biggest supporter.”
Before the acquisition of this space, The Frock operated out of Simi’s living room. A spare bedroom in Simi’s 2-story apartment functioned as a glorified storage unit, filled with piles of inventory. The impetus for the move was both practical and symbolic: Just a couple of months ago, Simi’s third child was born.
The space will function primarily as an office. “We never wanted to do a full retail store, because during the day we’re busy: we’re working, creating everything for the business,” said Simi. “So this gives us the opportunity to have the space where we can open it for pop-ups.”
The Frock’s new office is on the corner of Rogers Avenue, framed by large windows on two sides to ensure maximum illumination. “We wanted the light, we wanted the street, we wanted to walk in and out,” said Simi. “It’s just easy, comfortable, it’s just bright.”
And while the sisters are excited about this move, Chaya felt a bit nostalgic leaving behind their more modest digs. “I’m going to miss a lot of things about Simi’s house, but we’re going to be so much more productive; no distractions. It’s like a real office, a big space. No children running around,” Chaya said with laugh.
Before The Frock became the popular clothing brand it is today, the company was a consignment shop. The sisters also provided a personal styling service for their customers. It was through personal styling that they realized something was missing. If a customer were to try on a blazer, the sisters would try to help the customer find something to wear underneath. And it hit them: “You need great layering pieces,” said Chaya. “You just need a good silk slip dress.” That slipdress was The Frock’s first foray into the world of design and production. And after realizing that there was a demand for their products, they dropped their consignment business and became a full-time design house.
And although their new office could technically double as a brick-and-mortar shop, there are no plans to operate a full-time shop.
“We’re not even doing open-by-appointment right now,” said Simi. “It’s just going to be advertised pop-ups. We might do once a month to launch a new dress, things like that. And we’ll open the space. And we’ll have other vendors to sell things like jewelry. We’ve partnered with an artisan in Brooklyn to make these,” indicating the twisted metal rings on her fingers, that spelled “ok.”
It feels apropos: The Frock, and, specifically, Simi, are going to be “Ok.”
Michelle Honig is the style writer at the Forward. Contact her at [email protected]. Find her on Instagram and Twitter.
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