Spectrum-India, an imports store on Providence’s Thayer street, will close on May 25 after 59 years in business.
“There’s not a lot of places like this,” said manager Lisa Paquette. She has worked at the company for 40 years. “There’s so much history.”
The retailer was known in the seventies for bringing Indian textiles to American fashion. Since then, its location on Thayer street has been a destination for goods from incense to crystals to jewelry. Today, it is one of the oldest businesses on a street increasingly known for rapid turnover.
“You don’t usually see the oak trees of the street shut down,” said Katrina Kulesh, a master’s student at Brown who used to visit Spectrum India as a teen.
The closure is the latest in a broader shift on Thayer decades in the making—as a quirky shopping district has morphed into a strip of shiny fast-casual eateries and cafes.
“Thayer street used to be a fantastic place to shop,” said 92-year-old owner Jagdish Sachdev.
In 2006, there were 24 retail stores and 20 cafes/eateries on the main drag, according to data from the Brown Daily Herald. Today, there are just 9 retail stores and 28 cafes and eateries.
Without Spectrum-India, the retail stores on Thayer decrease to just eight: Sneaker Junkies, The Brown Book Store, City Smoke Shop, Warby Parker, Urban Outfitters, Pleasant Surprise, Metro Mart, and CVS.
WHY SPECTRUM IS CLOSING
Spectrum-India has had trouble making a profit for a number of years, according to Paquette. Sachdev said he hasn’t taken a pay check from the business in over 10 years. Revenue goes to overhead and employee pay, he explained.
When asked why he continued to run the business without a profit, Sachdev said, “It’s exciting. It’s pleasurable. It keeps me busy, keeps my mind occupied and thinking.”
“What I love about the place is the people who come, we don’t treat them as customers, we treat them as guests. They’re giving us an honor by being there,” he added.
Sachdev was known for giving peacock feathers and bangles as gifts to store visitors.
Paquette said that the installation of parking meters in 2016 was the first major blow to business.
“We have people who say, ‘I came by three times in a week and there was no parking, so I just kept driving,’” said Paquette.
And as other retail left the street, foot traffic dropped, she added.
The past few years, the store has come on especially hard times. Paquette estimated that the closure of the Washington Bridge in December of 2023 caused sales to drop 40 percent. Then, the deadly shooting at Brown wiped out the critical Christmas sales season. To make matters worse, February’s giant snow storm, and the accompanying parking ban, further impacted sales.
“And then you know, [it’s] rent time and the landlord wants a bit more. He’s been very kind to us through the years. But… we just can’t do it,” said Paquette.
A DIFFERENT THAYER
As the importer prepares to close its doors, many Rhode Islanders feel nostalgic about Thayer street’s bygone character.
“It was the place to be,” said Peter Jett, co-owner of Rockstar Body Piercing. “And then eventually it kind of developed slowly into the Brown University Food Court that it is now.”
Some of Thayer’s small businesses have decamped to other neighborhoods.
Rockstar Body Piercing operated on the street from 2002 to 2016. After seeing their rent double, Jett and co-owner Ryan Murphy sought a larger space on Wickenden Street in Fox Point, where the business still operates today.
Julianna Fonseca, co-owner of Geoff’s Superlative Sandwiches, says her business also had to move because of rent hikes. Her father and co-owner Julio Fonseca bought the shop in 1999, and the family operated the store for about eight years on Thayer street.
“The trend on Thayer Street was to get in bigger businesses with bigger bank accounts, and so they raised the rent,” said Fonseca. “We got pushed out with the prices. We’re a small business, so our margins are tiny.”
Today, the sandwich shop operates on South Main Street.
SPECTRUM’S LEGACY
Jagdish Sachdev started Spectrum-India in 1967. He and his staff of Rhode Island locals would design American silhouettes and patterns, and then send their ideas to India to be manufactured.
“In Rhode Island, we were the largest importer after Toyota,” Sachdev said. “A whole village [in India] used to do printing for us.”
In addition to the boutique on Thayer street, Spectrum-India had a wholesale business supplying 12,000 stores across the country, Sachdev said.
“The fabric was fabulous,” said Sachdev. “But the garment shapes were American.”
For example, a traditionally Indian skirt would be long with a lot of gathered fabric, Sachdev said. But an American skirt would be shorter and less bulky. Sachdev said that one design in particular, called the Leah dress, was one of their bestsellers.
Business peaked in the late seventies and early eighties, but waned as more import competition flooded the market later in the eighties. At the time, the U.S. had a quota that limited the amount of clothing that could be imported from India.
Today, Spectrum-India is limited to its Thayer Street location and a small imports business based in Woonsocket.
NEXT STEPS
Although it’s the end of an era on Thayer street, Paquette and Sachdev have plans for the future.
Paquette, who has served as store manager and the company’s secretary, is planning on starting her own business. She hopes to carry on Spectrum-India’s reputation for carrying artisan and spiritual goods, but wants to open a larger space with room for classes like yoga and Reiki and services like astrology and tarot.
Now, after receiving Paquette’s support for the past 40 years, Sachdev is looking to return the favor.
“If she needs me, I’m on her command, on her call. She put it in a very funny way. She says, ‘You’ll be the Lisa and I’ll be the Jagdish.”
Paquette has yet to decide on the location of her venture.“I don’t know where it’s going to be, but it’s going to be exciting,” she said.
