Rime is unique in quite a few ways. For starters, it is one of the only stores that deals primarily in athletic footwear on the Upper East Side, and it is one of the few such stores that sells women's sneakers along with men's. But what I appreciated most is that it is run by Susan Boyle, which, according to her staff, makes Rime the only store of its kind with a female owner on the eastern seaboard.
On my initial visit to Rime, I met two employees, David and Joe. They referred to Sue as "really open-minded" and "a cool person to talk to." I believed David and Joe, since they, too, were pretty darn cool. They spoke to me about how hard it is to be a hidden gem in the world of high-end footwear. Many people who find Rime on their own do not want to share their discovery for fear that new shoes will be bought out by friends before they can get to them. The result is that the most often repeated phrase of people walking through the door is, "I didn't even know you guys were here!"
Luckily, Rime is located in an area that gets a fair amount of pedestrians going by, as it is near the subway. Rime is also very good about reaching out to customers. In addition to having an active Instagram account and mailing list, Joe told me that he often has people personally text him to check if a certain size is in stock. He is very knowledgeable: both he and David graduated from the Fashion Institute of Technology where they majored in athletic footwear design. In addition to selling sneakers, they both continue to design them. When I spoke to Joe, he had just submitted something to Footlocker's design competition. "I can find the beauty in every sneaker," Joe told me, laughingly adding that it makes it hard for him to stop himself from buying them. Sue, he informed me, is very open to her employees' creative ideas and enjoys chatting about them.
"There's nothing like this around here," Joe told me, saying that for other sneaker stores like Rime, people have to travel north to Harlem or downtown to Soho. When I spoke to Sue, she confirmed that fact, and then shared how she has been in retail for over thirty years. In the early 2000s, she found herself working for a company owned by two brothers. One of the brothers branched off and opened Michael K, a street wear store, and Transit, a sneaker shop. Sue describes him as "one of the kings of sneakers." He invited Sue to join him because of her experience in apparel. She worked with him and learned about sneakers on the job. After five years, Sue decided that she wanted to do her own thing. She opened her first small store in Brooklyn in 2007, originally assuming that Rime would be a clothing store. On a lark, she applied to Nike to get permission to sell their sneakers, and was shocked when they agreed. Nike realized that Sue had chosen an area that had no athletic footwear retailers, and they were enthusiastic to have Sue sell their sneakers.
Sue had only just gotten her store up and running when the economy crashed, but she was able to use her experience in the industry to keep herself afloat. "I was a retailer: I knew how to handle my product." She focused on her Brooklyn store until 2012, when she decided to add a second location. By that point, Manhattan was cheaper than Brooklyn. Her reasoning for her choice of location is that she has always loved the Upper East Side and that "no one was touching that area." Sure enough, when she approached Nike, they mapped out the neighborhood and realized that there were no businesses selling their sneakers from 14th Street to 114th Street. They gave Sue permission to open the store.
"I work well in the city and I think it's because I'm a woman," Sue said. She finds it exciting being the "only one in the game." She elaborated, "It's like being in the boy's locker room. And the men embrace me really well – I'm like the sister, the mom, or the aunt." She believes that she has an advantage over other sneaker stores because of her gender. "I'm a mom and there are a lot of moms up here," she said, referring to the Upper East Side. Mothers are not afraid to ask her questions about shoes for their sons, whereas they can often be intimidated in other athletic footwear stores. "They can sometimes be like boy caves...like barbershops," Sue said, discussing the sneaker stores where women are not made to feel welcome and are often dismissed. Stores owned by men also do not often know how to cater to women, choosing to stock women's shoes in pink or not realizing that girls enjoy trying things on, unlike their male counterparts who often just come in and grab their size. Sue is able to do a lot of business in women's athletic footwear, which is unheard of in a sneaker store, because her store is so approachable and she knows how to cater to men and women alike. However, Sue laughed when sharing some of the comments she sometimes hears - "It's your store, not your husband's?" and "You can speak sneaker-talk?"
Sue is a great role model for women. "I'm not afraid to wear anything – I love it all," she told me. I learned that "all" includes bright red sneakers. "I've always been the girl who wears sneakers," she admitted, telling me about her personal eclectic collection including the new Rihanna sneakers. She is excited that people in the spotlight are drawing attention to the fact that women also like to wear flamboyant, dressier, hipper athletic shoes.
In addition to running her two shops, Sue contributes to the surrounding community. She mentioned that she had spoken on a panel at the Brooklyn Museum about women in the sneaker culture and that she has been reaching out to schools, offering discounts at Rime to students with good report cards. Overall, Sue hopes that more people will continue to find her. The store is filled with exciting footwear from Nike, Adidas, New Balance, and other well-known brands, as well as quality Canadian outerwear companies, including Canada Goose. It is clear that Sue's stores bring her personal joy, for as she admitted, "Every time I open up a box, I think, 'These just make me happy.'"
