•John Lyndon, head of Apple Retail, warns The Fool that
they will be excluded from all clothing work rooms if
they do not stop taking garments without payment (Schultheiss
205).
•John: Anyway, Yoko came up with the idea of giving all
the Apple stuff away (McCabe/Schonfeld p. 106. For the
Record).
•Paul: "Our main business is entertainment, communication.
Apple is mainly concerned with fun, not frocks. We want
to devout all our energies to records, films, and our
electronic adventures. We had to refocus".
•All of them left with some choice merchandise [from
the boutique's free giveaway], except for Ringo Starr,
who lamented to Rolling Stone that he had been unable
to find anything in his size (Granados, S. Those Were
the Days. p. 48).
•Paul: "Originally, the shops were intended to be something
else, but they became like all the boutiques in London.
They just weren't our thingy. The staff will get three
weeks pay but if they wish they'll be absorbed into the
rest of Apple. Everyone will be taken care of".
•Paul said that Apple tailoring isn't closing down and
they are leaving their investment because "we have a moral
and personal obligation to our partner, John Crittle,
who is now in sole control".
•Apple Boutique Press Release (Paul): "We decided to
close down our Baker street shop yesterday and instead
of putting up a sign saying 'Business Will Be Resumed
as Soon as Possible' and then auction off the goods, we
decided to give them away. The shops were doing fine and
making a nice profit on turnover. So far the biggest loss
is in giving things away. But we did that deliberately.
We came into the shops by the tradesman's entrance but
we're leave by the front door".
•To their credit, The Fool were undeniably creative,
even if they were expensive; at one point going on a ten-day
shopping expedition in Morocco for items for Apple (Flippo,
p. 250).
•Outfits like designer Harold TIllman's see-through chiffon
tuxedo that seemed very hip in the summer of 1967 looked
quite out of place on the cold streets of London during
the winter of 1967-68, and, for the most part, remained
unsold (Granados, M. Those Were the Days. p. 22).
•To compliment the Apple Boutique, Apple Retail set up
a second operation called Apple Tailoring (Civil and Theatrical)
in a shop at 161 King's Road. Established on 2 February
1968 and officially opened on 23 May, the shop was a partnership
with John Crittle, the highly respected designer, who
was a director of the enterprise along with Apple's Neil
Aspinall and Apple accountant Stephen Maltz (Granados,
M. Those Were the Days. p. 23).
•The £10,000 in merchandise that was given away by the
boutique was still subject to purchase tax laws by the
Inland Revenue Service.
•The Boutique paid The Fool £100,000 for the store- front
design and displays.
•In seven months the Boutique lost a reported £200,000
($2.5 million in '99).
•On July 30 '68 the cashiers at Apple Boutique began
to inform customers that they would not be charged for
the merchandise they select. The Boutique also gave away
merchandise to the public on July 31 before closing (Schultheiss
215).
