Bringing the Clothes to the Kids

Ezra Dabah is a New York City retailer at heart. And now, as founder of the upscale children’s retail chain RUUM American Kid’s Wear, he is back where it all started.
“This is where we grew up,” Dabah said in a recent interview. “This is where we worked throughout our lifetime. We design our clothes here in Union Square.”
Dabah began as a stock boy at a five-and-dime store on 14th Street before opening a family retail business nearby. He began specializing in children’s clothes as an owner of Gitano, the clothing manufacturer, and later was CEO of the prominent New Jersey-based national chain The Children’s Place. He left in 2013 to launch RUUM, which is pronounced “room” and is now in two dozen locations in 11 states.
This fall Dabah pivoted away from what has been RUUM’s typical mall-store setting to open two boutiques in Manhattan, one on the Upper East Side at 1153 Madison Ave. and the other in Tribeca at 138. W. Broadway. Both shops are tailored to reflect their affluent neighborhoods and partner with their communities. So far, reviews from families have been positive.
“I think it’s organized, and simple, especially for a mom. It’s not fussy. I love it,” said Yani Beach, an Upper East Sider who was shopping at RUUM the other day with her son, Clark. “For the Upper East Side, it’s urban enough. It’s not your cookie-cutter store.”
At RUUM, things work a little differently than in the typical kids’ clothing store. A clerk brings out each piece of clothing in the child’s size while families can sit or browse in the showroom. No pawing through racks or shelves looking for the right color or size. Dabah said the store, which offers boy’s and girl’s clothing for sizes 2-14, as well as shoes, is the first retailer in the city with this personal-service model in the kid’s market.
“Unlike many retail stores that you go into where you would find the merchandise kind of piled up with each other or squeezed into fixtures, here we show only one piece of each,” Dabah said. He said RUUM is a play on the phrases “room to grow” and “room for style.”
Dabah said he knows from being a parent and a grandparent that it can be tough to drag kids to go clothes shopping. So RUUM is full of toys, paper dolls, RUUM buttons, bracelets and even a photo kiosk to help keep kids entertained.
Customers said the high-end clothes are nonetheless good value because they are high quality. “I like it, I like the prices,” said Louise Klyap who shopped with her granddaughter Addison at the Madison Avenue location.
Michael Rothleutner, the store manager on Madison Avenue, said the clothes are especially popular with celebrity families, such as Sean “Diddy” Combs and his daughters, and Sarah Jessica Parker and her twins.
But Rothleutner said the store has been embraced by many other local parents, too. “We definitely feel like part of the neighborhood in this location. We see a lot our regulars every week, multiple times a week when they’re walking to school, just stopping to see what’s new or taking a photo in the photo booth.”
The stores are partnering with neighborhood schools through the RUUM Give Back Program. Moms with kids at participating schools can shop at a 20 percent discount, and RUUM will donate an additional 20 percent to the schools’ Parent Teacher Associations.
“We’re looking do everything we can to let the community know we’re here and that we’re here for them,” said Dabah.
Dabah has plans to open the RUUM boutique concept at five more New York City locations in the upcoming months. He’s also expanding an exclusive line of New York City clothing for the newest RUUM stores.
“We are making some very special things just for the New York stores,” he said, pointing to a colorfully-patched jean and jacket set that has already been released in Tribeca. “So you’re going to see more and more of that.”