Men’s Fashion Center on H Street NE, once the choice outfitter for local legends like Chuck Brown, shuttered its doors in 2012 after six decades. Ben Crosbie and Tessa Moran’s vérité documentary, Fate of a Salesman, chronicles the store’s final year with wonderful, gentle curiosity and wistful imagery. Laid-back owner Jerry Goldkind, whose immigrant father opened the business, and manager Willie Carswell, whose demeanor is as colorful as his wardrobe, emerge as fully fleshed-out figures, pondering the future of Men’s Fashion and men’s fashion. Aside from brief potshots at the neighborhood’s whitewashing (hello, H &pizza), Crosbie and Moran wisely keep their focus on the store: the uncertain old-world Washington, in miniature.
Fate of a Salesman
Oct. 10 at Atlas Performing Arts Center