Business

‘Shen New York’ at Morse Court: Women’s Clothing Shop Opens Downtown

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An independent women’s clothing designer with a long and successful history in Manhattan is opening up a shop in New Canaan. Shen New York, Carol Shen’s eponymous lightweight, travel-friendly women’s wear and accessories store, soft-opened last week at 1 Morse Court in the bright, 800-square-foot space that for three decades had housed Dance Corner Plus. Shen, a Fairfield County resident and Fashion Institute of Technology graduate who creates all of the clothes she sells, said most of her customers are New Yorkers with homes in towns such as New Canaan, Greenwich and Westport. “I am very familiar with these towns, I have been a shopper here and I come to these restaurants, too, and I have always found this town extremely charming,” Shen said of New Canaan on a recent afternoon. Shen said she likes New Canaan’s small-town feel and finds its residents refreshingly unpretentious and sophisticated in their tastes.

Business

Dance Corner Plus, Walter Schalk’s Iconic Dancewear Shop on Morse Court, Closes after 30 Years

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By the time Walter Schalk opened a retail dancewear shop on Morse Court some 30 years ago, his famed dancing school—launched in 1959 with classes held in Ponus Ridge Chapel—already was well established in New Canaan. In fact, Dance Corner Plus at 1 Morse Court never was designed as a money-maker, Schalk said: He just wanted ready accessibility to dancewear for students in his popular program. Yet in recent years, with the rise of Internet shopping and big box stores that have connected with once-exclusive suppliers, that accessibility has become far easier for consumers. And that has prompted the new owner of Dance Corner Plus, Sarah Duffy, to shutter the store, for decades a fixture near the corner of Main Street. “The Walter Schalk School of Dance has been in business for 59 years and it’s been a tremendous success over the years, and I want to thank everybody for their support, including those who have supported Dance Corner, now closed after it was sold to Ms. Duffy,” Schalk told NewCanaanite.com.