Citing a change in the consumer base at the Fairmont Hamilton Princess, fashion store Calypso has closed the doors of its 40-year-old hotel branch.

"The hotel's shift from targeting the high-end vacationing tourist to becoming a city centre business hotel has had an inevitable impact on our ladies retail business there," Hornbug Calypso general manager Pierre Dutoya said yesterday.

While Mr. Dutoya said the company enjoyed its partnership with the hotel, he said rent conditions - such as remaining open seven days a week - were "too restrictive" and made the shop unprofitable.

And he said although men purchased from the store from time to time, it was nowhere near the rate of female patrons of the past.

"Thirty-five years ago, Calypso at the Hamilton Princess was a glamorous shop full of vacationing women.

"Now its a glamorous shop full of men. You cannot sell a skirt to a man," he said.

And he added, the expansion of the city caused competition between Calypso's hotel branch and its Front Street store.

"Before the Princess was located on the outside of town. Now it is in town."

However, Mr. Dutoya said business at the Fairmont Southampton Princess was continuing to do well.

"We have two shops there. Business is doing well there because you have tourists who stay there.

"Plus, you have locals who do not go into town and go over to the Southampton Princess to shop, especially in the winter," Mr. Dutoya said.