By Cheryl Wischhover

Walking into Frank Stella (440 Columbus Avenue at West 81st Street) can feel like a throwback. Perfectly pressed tweed jackets and neatly folded sweaters line the walls of the store, as American standards play in the background. But owner John Hellings is running a thoroughly modern business. 

In his almost quarter century of being a steward of both the store and a rich menswear tradition, Hellings has weathered 9/11, the 2008 financial crisis, the e-commerce revolution, and a global pandemic. He’s seen law firms and the financial sector forgo suits in favor of sweatpants. Yet he’s managed to pivot through it all, and has outlived much larger chain-store competitors, like Banana Republic and Brooks Brothers in the neighborhood. The clothes have even shown up on TV.

Hellings, 61, credits much of Frank Stella’s longevity to customer loyalty and multi-generational shoppers. 

“I helped them pick out clothes to go on a date. And then we did their wedding suit, and then I sold them their son’s bar mitzvah suit, and then the high school or college graduation suit,” said Hellings. 

Frank Stella has been around since 1976, situated at various locations through the years. Hellings, with a business partner and small loans in hand, purchased the store in 2000 from couple Frank and Stella Jedda, who ran it with other family members. Although Hellings went to college to study international relations, he fell into a career in fashion retail, he said, because he “always liked clothes” and had worked in clothing stores since he was a teen. He joined a retail consulting company, working with stores of all sizes. Frank Stella became a client, and eventually Hellings, who lives near Lincoln Center, got tired of traveling around the country for his job and wanted to put down roots. The opportunity to buy the store came at the perfect time for him.

Right about the time Hellings bought the business, he says law and finance firms made big changes to their dress codes, no longer requiring suits all the time. That’s when Frank Stella started focusing more on corporate casual, or a look that he now describes as “updated classics.” Think blazers in corduroy, wool, and tweed; wool zip-front sweaters meant to sub in for jackets; Italian-made dress pants; and shearling leather jackets. (You can still buy a suit there, too.) 

Frank Stella’s client base, usually in the 35- to 65-year-old range, of course includes Upper West Siders, which is home to a population of musicians, actors, and theater people, as well as those in more traditional professions requiring an office. Hellings also dresses a number of celebrities who he declined to name on the record for privacy. Frank Stella provided some clothes for the show Succession. The store specializes in summer-weight linen and seersucker suits. A Succession fashion Instagram account once featured fan-favorite character Cousin Greg wearing one. Hellings said he sold tons of the suits because of the attention.

Frank Stella also has a substantial number of national customers, thanks to ads Hellings has been regularly placing in The New York Times and the Wall Street Journal for years. The store had a booming phone order business, and since launching e-commerce in 2017, that now makes up 30% of its sales. Because he couldn’t match the prices of popular national brands that people could find online or at department stores for cheaper, Hellings started stocking hard-to-find Italian brands like Mason’s and American heritage brand Relwen.  Frank Stella also has a private label line, which makes its merchandise mix unique. Many of the pieces in the store are made with Loro Piana fabrics, a luxury Italian company that manufactures its own line that retails for much more. Prices range from $295 for cashmere sweaters to almost $2,000 for a leather shearling coat. 

At one point, Hellings expanded Frank Stella to four stores — three in New York City and one in Boston — with aspirations of it becoming a chain. The last one outside of the UWS, in the New York Athletic Club, closed in 2021. The first two Covid years took a toll on the UWS shop, too, but the last two years of sales have been robust. 

“While they’re not going back to wearing suits in the office, they are dressing up better. They can’t go to work in Lululemon anymore,” Hellings said of his customers. 

Hellings seems zen and optimistic about the future. Mostly, he is grateful for the friends he’s made and the community he’s fostered, and he notes that he loves to be able to walk to work everyday. 

“It’s been a whole thing that really went from this just being a store to really being my life.”

Cheryl Wischhover is a freelance reporter who has covered beauty, fashion, fitness, and retail for over a decade.

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