Relish

Relish was founded in 1996 by Nancy Pearlstein, who started the boutique in Chevy Chase, Maryland before relocating to 3312 Cady’s Alley NW in Georgetown. The move to Cady’s Alley placed Relish in the courtyard that has become Georgetown’s design-destination retail concentration, where the furniture and home design showrooms that anchor the alley share the space with specialty fashion addresses. Pearlstein built the boutique’s identity around a specific curatorial approach to European designer women’s fashion before retiring; the current ownership under Lindsay Rieling continues the sensibility that more than two decades of the business established.

The designer selection at Relish represents the European fashion tier that operates at the intersection of design seriousness and wearability: Dries van Noten, whose Antwerp-trained design sensibility has produced some of the most visually complex printed and embroidered garments in European fashion for four decades; Martin Margiela, whose deconstructive approach to tailoring and construction turned clothing into a philosophical statement before the term was applied to fashion broadly; and Massimo Alba, the Italian designer whose washed fabrics and relaxed tailoring have become a touchstone for the customer who wants Italian craft in a format that does not require formal occasion. The American additions to the selection, including Marc Jacobs, provide a domestic design voice alongside the European primary focus.

The Cady’s Alley address is the physical context that suits the boutique’s curatorial ambition. The courtyard is accessible from M Street through the passage that opens between the main commercial block, and the design showrooms around Relish give the alley the character of a destination that requires a deliberate visit rather than a walk-by discovery. The customer who arrives at Relish has typically come specifically, which is the appropriate format for a boutique whose designers require attention and conversation to appreciate fully.

The Georgetown customer for Relish is the woman who has been following European fashion seriously, who knows the Dries van Noten pattern language, who owns Margiela pieces from previous seasons, and who wants a Georgetown address where the selection reflects a buyer who shares and has shaped that knowledge. The boutique is not for the shopper who wants recognizable luxury logos; it is for the customer who wants the most considered fashion available in Georgetown.

The boutique is open Tuesday through Saturday from 11am to 5pm. The phone is (202) 333-5343. The boutique relationship that Relish maintains with its designers is closer than the wholesale relationship of a larger multi-brand retailer. The buyers know the seasonal collections at a depth that allows them to represent the work to customers in a way that communicates the design thinking rather than just describing the garment. For the customer who wants to understand why a specific Dries van Noten print works the way it does, or what the Margiela construction decision in a specific jacket is about, the Relish conversation is where that education happens. The Cady’s Alley address is open Tuesday through Saturday from 11am to 5pm. The phone is (202) 333-5343.