Indie Inc.: Sarah Lerfel

By now the story is somewhat legendary. The mother wants to open a store with her daughter. Coincidentally (or not), there's a store for rent in the neighborhood where they live. They rent the space and name it after the mother, Colette. Mother and daughter Sarah (Lerfel) have been making retail magic in their Paris boutique ever since.

Colette has become a go-to destination for its diverse mix of high and low: Yves St. Laurent and Nike, CDs, a restaurant and water bar, and an Ed Templeton art exhibit with works for sale -- it's the hipster happening, ever-changing, one-stop shopping experience. The windows are curated every week, and the stock rotates as fast as Lerfel's eye can see it and get it in the store. Blink and you'll have missed it, especially now. "We are doing some renovation work this summer, something we never did. We kept doing some little change all the time but we never closed," says Lerfel. "It's a little scary in a way, because the shop works the way it is now, and if we had something else in our life, I suppose we would not make the change. But it's really part of the story, and we keep on changing."

Lerfel studied art and interned at Purple magazine and art galleries. By 1997, change was in the air. No one had done a store like Colette, but the concept resonated. "People traveled and everyone liked the same music," she says. "At the same moment, everybody in New York, Paris and London were talking about the same thing. I think that was new. Before that, New York was ahead of other cities. And more and more it was easy to explain that we would bring the best of the things we like. We would bring Kiehl's, which was only in New York and nowhere in Paris. And we would bring Pucci. It would be the best of different worlds, like a mini-department store with editing."

At Colette, the worlds of art and commerce live in harmony. Take the art gallery, for example. "I always had an interest both in a new young artist and a new pair of sneakers. We always worked more like a magazine and we would consider this gallery like a portfolio page, a space to introduce someone we like [in] the same way we would introduce a new young fashion designer." As cool as the products and the art are, what really makes this space unique is its ability to fit high fashion into the picture. But maintaining a balance between haute and pop is a shifty business. "At one point it was a problem. We had lots of stuff from Prada. We couldn't see the young designers in the middle of the big names. We worked on this. Now we have a very good balance."

In the global arena, the journey from concept to knockoff is just a flight away. There are the originals, and then the others who come along, improve the concept and sell it for less. "Everyone has an idea, and others see the idea and try to copy it. But they don't live it," Lerfel explains. "Some shops have been inspired by Colette -- they write on a piece of paper everything we have and open six months later. Of course we are completely different six months later because we keep renewing. We keep changing and no one can follow this rhythm."

As part of her duties, Lerfel logs many frequent flier miles looking for the perfect something. Cruising the surface of pop culture, she's curious and interested in so many things that she's an expert in none, doing what she's always done: "To be intersted both in the latest camera and the latest toy or artist. I am really a specialist of the moment, the now."

But a trendsetter? Never. "I don't try to make a trend," she says. "I just put together things I like so if something in Colette becomes a trend, I would be the first to be surprised and happy, and soon we would stop because it will be everywhere and we would not like it anymore."

Though Lerfel swears she will never sell out to a bigger company in order to open more stores, there's always a project in the air to go along with the parties, openings and dance classes that have become a regular kitsch highlight. Most immediately, there's a pop-up store in Beijing during the Olympics and one with Gap in Manhattan opening in September.

Photograph by The Cobrasnake

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