Sweetest Sin owner Angela Courtney is doubling the size of her lingerie boutique on White Street. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
With their eyes on growth, four established Red Bank businesses are seizing opportunities to expand their presence downtown, redbankgreen‘s Retail Churn has learned.
Among them are three retailers who have found ways to survive online shopping, the coronavirus pandemic and other challenges that have crushed so many in their sector.
Vance Valente at Quicksilver Handcrafted Jewelry on Saturday. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
This edition of redbankgreen‘s Retail Churn might be titled “keeping churn to a minimum.”
Because while we’re reporting the closure of a downtown shop – due to retirement, not the economy – the change comes with a significant real estate deal aimed at keeping small shops alive.
The new rooftop deck at Teak, with the onetime borough hall in the background, is the setting for a fashion show featuring stylings by downtown shops. (Photo by Life as Fine Art. Click to enlarge)
Downtown Red Bank will be the scene of its first open-air fashion show in recent memory next month.
The aim of the event is to “showcase that retail is very much alive in our amazing little city,” said Angela Courtney, owner of the Sweetest Sin lingerie shop on White Street.
Well on its way to earning the label “Red Bank tradition,” the fourth annual cancer awareness-raiser Go Naked and Check Yourself took over the Downtown Sunday evening, offering raffles, entertainment and eyecandy for a cause. redbankgreen was there, naturally. We’ve got more photos after the jump… (Photos by Susan Ericson. Click to enlarge)
It was nippy outside Sunday evening, but at Red Bank’s Red lounge, it was a place to Go Naked. Dozens came out to the third annual Go Naked and Check Yourself fundraiser and (ahem) educational event held to raise awareness about skin cancer, breast cancer, testicular cancer and other detectable ailments. Once again, Red Bank’s Sugarush cupcakes and Sweetest Sin lingerie shops put the bounce in the event, which had previously raised more than $20,000 for health-related charities. (Photos by Peter Lindner. Click to enlarge)
Waitresses passed around food, cocktails, and minicupcakes. Lingerie and underwear models, in various states of undress, sold raffle tickets. But partiers werent there for the models, of course: they were there to learn how to check themselves for detectable cancers of the skin, testicles and breasts.
Models make their way through the crowds at the inaugural Go Naked and Check Yourself awareness-raiser in 2011. This year’s edition takes place Sunday. (Click to enlarge)
By REBECCA DESFOSSE
The presidential race may be over, but theres still one more election this month: Elect to Check, the theme for this years Go Naked and Check Yourself cancer fundraiser and awareness raiser.
Red Bank’s Sugarush cupcakes and Sweetest Sin lingerie have teamed up again for the second edition of this popular and slightly risqué event that helps build awareness about detectable cancers.
Local folks gathered Thursday at Red Bank Family EyeCare to support their efforts for helping Haiti’s eyes.
By DANIELLE TEPPER
RED BANK Thursday, October 4: Red Bank Family EyeCare Open House
Tyrone Choate, optical manager at Red Bank Family EyeCare, spent all of July volunteering at Cap Haitian Eye Center in Haiti, where he was inspired to apply what he learned at home before turning around and bringing something right back.
The doctor there really impacted me, said Choate. He wasnt doing it for the money, but out of the goodness of his heart.
The CHEC operates solely on donations, so Choate worked together with Dr. Erin Curtis to organize last week’s open house. Their goal was to raise at least $2,640, which is what it costs to sustain the Haitian clinic for one month. The night raised $2,000 from over 150 people and a portion of all eyeglass sales will be donated throughout the month of October to reach the grand total needed.
The cause was cancer prevention, and the nearly naked male and female models were there for educational purposes swear!
Go Naked and Check Yourself, a soiree thrown together by Red Bank’s Sugarush cupcakes and Sweetest Sin lingerie, drew some 250 partiers to Teak Restaurant on Sunday, all there to learn how to check themselves for detectable cancers of the skin, testicles and breasts.
Miss New Jersey 2012, Michelle Leonardo of Tinton Falls, added some tiara power. redbankgreen was there, too, naturally, to capture the flavor and flashes of flesh. Hey, it’s our duty.
Sweetest Sin Boutique hosted a Valentine’s lingerie show at Taste in Red Bank Thursday night, and photographer Peter Lindner got the hot pix for redbankgreen.To enlarge the photo display, start it, then click the embiggen symbol in the lower right corner. To return to redbankgreen, hit your escape key.
We’ve said it before: the ‘Hip City/Hippest Town in New Jersey’ designation for Red Bank has got to go. It’s so rusty it creaks. Even the folks at Red Bank RiverCenter steer clear of it in marketing the town, they tell us.
Ah, but hips, well… they can stay. After all, they’ve only just arrived, in a sense, and they’re doing their, um, parts to help give the town some renewed sizzle as a destination for fashion-conscious women.
How recently? redbankgreen readers may recall that it was just over a year ago that Red Bank had its first-ever lingerie fashion show, or the first one in recent memory, at least. Sponsored by lingerie retailer Sweetest Sin Boutique and held at the now-shuttered Ashes Cigar Club, the packed-house event brought a flash of sexy to a downtown that’s better known for family-themed doings.
A bustier-clad model gets an appreciative welcome to kick off the show.(Click to enlarge)
Aficionados of sexy women’s undergarments packed the second floor of the soon-to-be-renamed (and already smoke-free) Ashes Cigar Club Wednesday night for what may have been Red Bank’s first-ever lingerie fashion show.
The free event, hosted by Sweetest Sin Boutique on White Street, saw a handful of models in g-strings and little else strutting to throbbing music along a velvet-roped catwalk.
Angie Courtney in her new shop on White Street. (Photo by Dustin Racioppi)
By DUSTIN RACIOPPI
An ideal night for Angie Courtney usually goes something like this: Hitting the town for dinner, drinks, and then a couple hours of lingerie shopping. And she suspects that’s the case for a lot of women in the Red Bank area.
And so Courtney is bringing sexy back to Red Bank.
The 28-year-old maven of unmentionables this week opened Sweetest Sin Boutique, a seller of lingerie and other items she hopes will prove popular with lace-loving shoppers in the area.
“People are walking in and they’re excited,” said Courtney, of Aberdeen. “They’re like, ‘We’ve been watching, we’ve been waiting for you to open.'”