Boutique
Encyclopedia
A boutique is a small shopping
Shopping
Shopping is the examining of goods or services from retailers with the intent to purchase at that time. Shopping is an activity of selection and/or purchase. In some contexts it is considered a leisure activity as well as an economic one....

 outlet, especially one that specializes in elite and fashionable items such as clothing
Clothing
Clothing refers to any covering for the human body that is worn. The wearing of clothing is exclusively a human characteristic and is a feature of nearly all human societies...

 and jewelry. The word is French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...

 for "shop", via Latin from Greek
Greek language
Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...

 ἀποθήκη (apothēkē), "storehouse".

The term entered into everyday English use in the late 1960s when, for a brief period, London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

 was the centre of the fashion trade. Carnaby Street
Carnaby Street
Carnaby Street is a pedestrianised shopping street in London, United Kingdom, located in the Soho district, near Oxford Street and Regent Street. It is home to numerous fashion and lifestyle retailers, including a large number of independent fashion boutiques...

 and the Kings Road
Kings Road
King's Road or Kings Road, known popularly as The King's Road or The KR, is a major, well-known street stretching through Chelsea and Fulham, both in west London, England...

 were the focus of much media attention as home to the most fashionable boutiques of the era.

It can also refer to a specialised firm such as a boutique investment bank or boutique law firm. The word is often used to describe a property in the independent section of the hotel market (such as The Rockwell in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

) in order to distinguish themselves from larger chains (such as Hilton Hotels
Hilton Hotels
Hilton Hotels & Resorts is an international chain of full-service hotels and resorts founded by Conrad Hilton and now owned by Hilton Worldwide. Hilton hotels are either owned by, managed by, or franchised to independent operators by Hilton Worldwide. Hilton Hotels became the first coast-to-coast...

). In such cases the establishments aim to convey the idea that the operation is elite and highly specialised.

In the strictest sense of the word, boutiques would be one-of-a-kind but more generally speaking, some chains can be referred to as boutiques if they specialize in particularly stylish offerings (such as New York City boutique shoe store Alife Rivington Club
Alife Rivington Club
Alife Rivington Club is a shoe store located in the Lower East Side of Manhattan. Alife Rivington Club sells newly released, exclusive and limited edition sneakers from companies such as Nike and Adidas....

).

Recently, the term "boutique" has started being applied to normally-mass-market items that are either niche or produced in intentionally small numbers at very high prices. This may be referred to as boutique manufacturing
Boutique Manufacturing
Boutique manufacturing is a method used for the custom production of certain products in limited quantities by hand or with a restricted level of automation. Products produced this way often include ceramics, furniture, amplifiers, yachts, boats, leather goods or watches and jewellery among others...

. For example, before the release of the Wii
Wii
The Wii is a home video game console released by Nintendo on November 19, 2006. As a seventh-generation console, the Wii primarily competes with Microsoft's Xbox 360 and Sony's PlayStation 3. Nintendo states that its console targets a broader demographic than that of the two others...

, a Time Magazine article suggested that Nintendo
Nintendo
is a multinational corporation located in Kyoto, Japan. Founded on September 23, 1889 by Fusajiro Yamauchi, it produced handmade hanafuda cards. By 1963, the company had tried several small niche businesses, such as a cab company and a love hotel....

 could become a "boutique video-game company", producing games for niche audiences, rather than trying to compete directly with Microsoft
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions...

 and Sony
Sony
, commonly referred to as Sony, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan and the world's fifth largest media conglomerate measured by revenues....

.

In the traditional luxury-watch
Watch
A watch is a small timepiece, typically worn either on the wrist or attached on a chain and carried in a pocket, with wristwatches being the most common type of watch used today. They evolved in the 17th century from spring powered clocks, which appeared in the 15th century. The first watches were...

 industry Scalfaro International is considered as the precursor in manufacturing and sale of bespoke watches. The Swiss company uses a highly flexible boutique manufacturing
Boutique Manufacturing
Boutique manufacturing is a method used for the custom production of certain products in limited quantities by hand or with a restricted level of automation. Products produced this way often include ceramics, furniture, amplifiers, yachts, boats, leather goods or watches and jewellery among others...

 site, which allows producing small series or even unique timepieces.

Although some boutiques specialise in hand-made items and other truly one-of-a-kind items, others simply produce t-shirts, stickers, and other fashion accessories in artificially small
Artificial scarcity
Artificial scarcity describes the scarcity of items even though the technology and production capacity exists to create an abundance. The term is aptly applied to non-rival resources, i.e. those that do not diminish due to one person's use, although there are other resources which could be...

 runs and sell them at unusually high prices.
In the early 1990s Selena
Selena
Selena Quintanilla-Pérez , known simply as Selena, was a Mexican American singer-songwriter. She was named the "top Latin artist of the '90s" and "Best selling Latin artist of the decade" by Billboard for her fourteen top-ten singles in the Top Latin Songs chart, including seven number-one hits...

 started manufacturing her own line of women's clothing. Opening two boutiques labeled as "Selena Etc.
Selena Etc.
Selena Etc. was a South Texas-based boutique, salon, and clothing store, which was built by Latin Superstar, Selena. Selena Etc. was built and finished on January 27, 1993 in Corpus Christi, Texas which was the headquarters building...

 Boutique & Salon" One located in Corpus Christi and one located in San Antonio, Texas. One was due to open in Monterrey, Mexico in 1995 but due to her death it was not opened. only the Corpus Christi Boutique is still open.

In late 1990s some European retail traders developed the idea of tailoring a shop towards a lifestyle theme, in the form of "concept stores", which specialised in cross-selling
Cross-selling
Cross-selling is the action or practice of selling among or between established clients, markets, traders, etc. or the action or practice of selling an additional product or service to an existing customer. This article deals exclusively with the latter meaning. In practice, businesses define...

 without using separate departments. One of the first concept stores was 10 Corso Como
10 Corso Como
10 Corso Como is a multifunctional concept dedicated to art, fashion, music, design, cuisine and culture 10 Corso Como was founded in 1990 in Milan, Italy, by gallerist and publisher Carla Sozzani....

 in Milan, Italy followed by Colette
Colette (boutique)
Colette is a concept store and the preeminent Parisian fashion and style boutique founded in March 1997 by Colette Roussaux and her daughter, Sarah Lerfel. It is located at no...

 in Paris and Quartier 206 in Berlin. Several well-known American chains such as Urban Outfitters
Urban Outfitters
Urban Outfitters, Inc. is a publicly traded American company that owns and operates five retail brands: Urban Outfitters, Anthropologie, Free People, Terrain, and BHLDN....

, D-A-S-H
D-A-S-H
D-A-S-H is a boutique chain predominantly for women. The Kardashian sisters Kourtney Kardashian, Kim Kardashian and Khloé Kardashian Odom own and operate the boutique which sells both clothing and accessories.-About the Boutique:...

, and The Gap
Gap (clothing retailer)
The Gap, Inc. is an American clothing and accessories retailer based in San Francisco, California, and founded in 1969 by Donald G. Fisher and Doris F. Fisher. The company has five primary brands: the namesake Gap banner, Banana Republic, Old Navy, Piperlime and Athleta. As of September 2008,...

, Australian chain Billabong
Billabong (clothing)
Billabong International is a clothing company traded on the Australian Securities Exchange since 11 August 2000. Billabong was founded in 1973 by Gordon and Rena Merchant....

 and, though less common, Lord & Taylor
Lord & Taylor
Lord & Taylor, colloquially known as L&T, or LT, based in New York City, is the oldest upscale, specialty-retail department store chain in the United States. Concentrated in the eastern U.S., the retailer operated independently for nearly a century prior to joining American Dry Goods...

adapted to the concept store trend after 2000.
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