By Jessica Rettig

WASHINGTON – Through heavy gold and glass doors, down the complicated labyrinth of escalators and stairs two floors below, nestled at the core of Georgetown Park Mall rests a small t-shirt shop. The shop's clean, white walls trimmed in forest green mirror the facade of the classic building's inner sanctum. The twin glass storefront displays jut out geometrically anchoring Fit to a Tee in the same place it has stood for 26 years.

A foreign tourist curiously strolls into the store. The 66-year-old shop owner hops off his stool and heads towards the rack closest to the register. He holds up a t-shirt for the customer to see.

"Have you seen this one? One twenty oh nine, the end of an error!" he says smirking, reading aloud the words on a navy blue shirt, the White House on its front with the presidential inauguration date printed in the center.

The customer chuckles, yet his eyes wander elsewhere. He's not interested in buying.

As the national economy dwindles, far fewer people are, and not just those at Fit to a Tee. According to an October 15th Associated Press article, retail trade sales across the United States dropped 1.2 percent in September, the largest drop in three years.

Phil Walsh, the owner of Fit to a Tee, hopes that his store’s unique appeal will carry his business through the tough times ahead.

A former social sciences teacher, Walsh and his wife, Karen, took out a second mortgage on their house and cashed in their retirement fund to build their store in Georgetown in 1982. Throughout the eighties, the investment paid off, as the neighborhood was “the place to come” for the well-paid, well-educated shopper, according to Walsh.

"There was a time when I considered myself the luckiest man in the world," he says. "We had a business in what was then a recession-proof area. Things are a lot different now."
   
In their opening decade, Fit to a Tee, boasted the highest sales per square foot in the mall, surpassing higher-end brands like Ralph Lauren, which used to be located there, said Walsh. The couple had stores in Old Town Alexandria, Annapolis, and a branch in Detroit. They hired young managers to help them run the business, and even sent one through college with the store’s profits.

Now, the Walshes, married forty years this December with two grown children, are down to the one Georgetown store and one regularly-hired employee, a young man named Eric who acts as both clerk and t-shirt artist.

The couple trades off day-long shifts, from 10 A.M to 9 P.M., leaving only a few evening hours each day to spend together at home.

While the couple agrees that they are seeing the worst now in terms of the overall retail market, their business has been on the decline since the 1990s partly due to the failure of their location.

Walsh notes a number of administrative decisions that led to what he calls "the disaster of Georgetown Park Mall." City ordinances to tow tourists' rental cars during their night out shopping or dining, a failed validation system, raised prices in the parking garage, and the emergence of other local shopping centers are among the reasons the mall lacks business now. The notorious Washington crime rate in the early 90s also brought down essential tourist traffic, he said.

For Fit to a Tee, the change in popular fashion dumped on their sales potential, too.

"90210 preppified American youth," said Walsh. "T-shirts used to be a reflection of who you are, but excuse me, what does Abercrombie and Fitch mean to you?"

To survive the fall in t-shirt popularity, the Walshes try to keep current in the Washington area, mainly with their licensed Georgetown University gear and their political merchandise. Vietnam War protesters in their day, the storeowners make statements on their racks with anti-Bush and pro-Obama gear, but keep an ample stock of McCain shirts and pins for the happenchance Republican who pays a visit.

National political trends, even controversy, over the years often helped business. For example, after the Sept. 11 attacks, the store sold rolls of toilet paper with Osama Bin Laden’s face on it that read, “Wipe Out Bin Laden!” Also, Karen Walsh remembers an original design parodying the pre-Falkland War debate between Great Britain and Argentina being a particularly good seller. With images from then blockbuster movies, Star Wars and Evita, the t-shirt read “The Empire Strikes Back” and “Don’t Cry for Me Argentina”.

“People from the White House were coming in to buy those,” she says laughing.

Phil Walsh recalls the heyday of the Clinton inauguration, saying that changes in parties are good for business also. He thinks that while an Obama win might bring some business this January, he says the store’s profits have at times been hurt by the level of political partisanship in Washington.

"There are folks that come in and see some of our stuff and stomp out saying they will not spend a penny in our store," he says, shaking his head. He nods towards the shirt that reads "Dumb and Dumber" under portraits of the two Bush presidents. "There are an awful lot of people out there that don't think freedom of expression should be allowed in America."

Politics aside, the Walshes retain their humor and are looking for ways to reinvent their small business. More and more they travel around the country to math and science teachers’ conventions, setting up booths to sell Phil’s favorite category of t-shirt, academic humor. A shirt that says, “Support Darwinian Evolution. Kill a Weakling Today,” designed by their employee Eric, is a favorite among their conference customers. They also have a website in the works where people will be able to buy Fit to a Tee merchandise online.

Amidst recession, Karen Walsh confesses that even if patrons don’t buy anything, she wants them to have fun in the store. People often pass through laughing out loud at what they read on the merchandise.

Both the Walshes are proud that they have been able to keep the fun, unique, quality-based reputation of their family business alive through the years. Nevertheless, Phil Walsh admits, "It would be a lot more fun with two times as much money in the register."