When Catherine Dyroff of Duxbury shops for clothes, it’s in a basement – but not the sort you’d associate with discount prices and bins of sweaters, pants and tops.
Dyroff, a lawyer, is particular about her choices, so she shops in Wendy Smith’s Duxbury basement, where clothing from the Etcetera line is shown by appointment a few times a year. They’re designer fashions sold not in stores but by consultants working from their homes. The experience allows greater privacy as well as personalized advice for the shopper, who pays boutique prices.
This type of clothing sale is not new, but appears to be on the upswing locally, with several direct-to-market lines of clothing, like Etcetera, available on the South Shore.
“Direct-to-market sales are growing at triple the rate of online fashion sales. It’s now a billion-dollar business,†said Marshal Cohen, chief fashion industry analyst for the NDP Group, a New York-based market research company.