After 33 years in business, Jean Watson will close her Sweet Repeats women's wear consignment shop in Lakewood on June 15.
“I will be retiring and therefore closing the shop,” Watson wrote to customers in a letter dated March 25.
Sweet Repeats is in the Lakewood Promenade shopping center at 1560 University Blvd. W., near San Jose Boulevard.
Watson wrote that the shop is closed temporarily due to COVID-19 and “will be re-opening as soon as it is prudent to do so.”
She said she will continue to promote and sell customers' consigned items but will not accept new inventory.
Watson will continue to make payouts the next several months.
Consignors may pick up their consigned items before the closing date with 24-hour notice so she can have them ready.
Upon reopening, the store will operate 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Monday-Friday and 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Saturday. Her shop number is (904) 730-7782.
From June 1-15, Consignors can visit the shop to pickup up final payouts and unsold consigned items. Watson will donate items left after that to a local charity.
“I am making every effort to keep the transition and closing of my business as seamless as possible,” she wrote.
“I appreciate you and am grateful for your support over the years.”
"I am eternally grateful to the wonderful customers and consignors that I have worked with over all of these years," Watson said in an email March 30.
"Their patronage to Sweet Repeats played such an important role in the success and longevity of my business. It has been my pleasure to outfit so many Jacksonville women during the course of my business. I will miss the daily interaction of the Sweet Repeats family that developed over the years between customers, consignors and my awesome staff," she said.
"There are so many great memories inside the walls of Sweet Repeats."
Sleiman Enterprises paid $24.5 million May 6 for the Lakewood Promenade open-air shopping center at the four corners of San Jose and University boulevards.
Winn-Dixie anchors the center.
Sweet Repeats leases a 2,472-square-foot space near the grocery store.
When Watson opened her first store in 1987 along Hendricks Avenue near San Marco, consignment shopping wasn’t a new idea, but reselling designer and better-branded clothing wasn’t common.
“I had to educate the public for a long time,” Watson said during a 2015 interview from the Lakewood store, where she moved in 1997 after outgrowing her first two locations.
Watson an accountant by training, modeled her store on one in her native Richmond, Virginia.
She refined the business to focus on upscale, current women’s clothing and accessories.
Brands found in Sweet Repeats included Armani, Prada, St. John Knits, Chanel, Gucci, Tory Burch, Kate Spade, Michael Kors, J. Crew, BCBG and Lilly Pulitzer.
Customers bring in clothing they no longer want or need and Watson inspects it. If she approves, she and her staff process, tag and display it on the racks. Watson uses her judgment to price it.
