
“You’re not going to bring a boa in here,” Ms.

She doesn’t remember the big hair days of Glamour Shots and mostly keeps a no-90s policy at her store in Staten Island. Eng to cover his $12,000-and-up monthly rents, which he said he was currently trying to negotiate down.

The average sale at his stores is around $500, compared to $100 for typical stores in the ’90s.

He traveled all over the country, advising stores to ditch the old wardrobes, offer boudoir sessions and business headshots, take full-body photos and emphasize a more luxurious, more expensive spa experience. Eng, the owner of the two remaining New Jersey locations, was the go-to guy for Glamour Shots modernization in the early 2000s. About five years ago, with 30 to 40 stores left, a popular Groupon promotion provided a fleeting burst of new customers before technology almost completely wiped out Glamour Shots altogether. Then Apple and Samsung equipped every cellphone with a quality camera. The remaining stores wilted in failing malls that charged steep rents. And I thought we kind of crossed that threshold.” ( Mr. One of the guys was talking about giving Glamour Shots gift certificates as a joke. “We did one focus group in North Carolina. “It just became passé,” said Bob Eveleth, the first Glamour Shots licensee and owner of nearly 50 stores at the company’s peak. While the portrait studio business overall remained stable - census figures showed modest growth in the industry from the late ’90s until the 2008 recession - many of the 350 Glamour Shots stores folded by the end of the 20th century, unable to escape their association with the outdated style. “It became about flat irons and straightening.” “Makeup and hair got very stripped down,” he said. By the late ’90s, said Jimmy Paul, a well-known hair stylist, grunge had gone mainstream, and looks shaped by Helmut Lange and Prada ushered in the minimalist era. In 1996, Glamour Shots was seeing $100 million in sales and had 6,000 employees, according to estimates from The Wall Street Journal and The Oklahoman at the time.īut the brand was based on a fashion trend that had already crested. Olympic figure skater and ’90s icon Tonya Harding visited a studio in her Oregon hometown multiple times, according to The Vancouver Columbian. The company didn’t take off until he opened a store in Dallas that went by Glamour Shots.Īds with before-and-after photos landed in almost every local newspaper. His original location in Oklahoma City had the name Fantasy Faces. Counts was already owner of a photo finishing business called Candid Color Systems in 1988 when he learned of a store in Hawaii that offered a makeover with a photo session. Jack Counts Jr., the Oklahoma City entrepreneur who started the company, described the filtering and makeover method that allowed customers to see a touched-up version of themselves as a precursor to Instagram but “in a real way.” After the photo session, customers viewed their pictures on a video screen - immediately, thanks to proprietary technology - and selected their favorite looks. They used camera filters that smoothed out wrinkles and blemishes. The photographers shot only from the waist up.
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Eng said the mall ownership was not being flexible on rent. Eng in Rockaway, N.J., closed just last week. “We got malls everywhere.” Another Glamour Shots store owned by Mr. The secret to their endurance? “We’re in New Jersey,” said Cliff Eng, the owner of both. Two stores remain at malls in Bridgewater and Freehold, N.J.
