Ooh La La Boutiques in Babylon closes
Shoppers Sara Seaquist, of Bay Shore, Nicole Armyn, of Babylon, and Caroline Crowe, of Babylon, try on new dresses at Ooh La La Boutiques in Babylon, April 2021. Credit: Debbie Egan-Chin
The last brick-and-mortar Ooh La La Boutiques on Long Island has closed up shop.
Owner Jenny Montiglio announced last month that her Babylon store will no longer exist, but that Ooh La La will continue as a website. In a social media post, she called the closing of the Babylon store, “the end of an era.”
“I just need time for life,” says Montiglio, 45, citing her two young children, ages 7 and 5 and a full-time job she also holds down. “The website is a strong percentage of our business, so it's really just to simplify.”
She called her decision a positive one. “I’m in my 20th year of business and pretty darn proud of all we have accomplished,” she wrote in her social media post, adding that, “for now, I’m hitting a pause button.”
The space will be taken over by women's retailer Everly & Co., which is slated to open this month. The owner of that store also previously bought Montiglio's former Sayville store.
At the height of her two decades in business, Montiglio owned six stores — in Long Beach, Huntington, Sayville, Rockville Centre and Fire Island’s Ocean Beach in addition to Babylon. She also created a private fashion label. She called her customers “young professionals to moms to grandmas” and clients had included Jill Zarin of Bravo’s “Real Housewives of New York City” and Dina and Aliana Lohan.
She closed the flagship store in Long Beach in February of 2020. “We’ve been struggling the past few years. I’ve tried my best to hold on but it’s just gotten too much,” she wrote then. It turned out to be a great decision, she says, because the pandemic shutdown began the following month.
Beth Whitehouse writes about families, parenting and great things to do with the kids on Long Island. She’s been a Newsday editor and shared a 1997 Newsday staff Pulitzer Prize for coverage of the crash of TWA Flight 800.
