THE READ
Retail, Marriage, and the Room
Book One of The Room Series
A memoir about the thirty-five-year partnership behind three businesses and one argument. The real asset is not product, price, location, or strategy. It is the ability to read the room before the data arrives.
ABOUT
Jonathan Saint Shapiro built three retail and consumer businesses with his wife Rene over thirty-five years.
In 1996, they opened Beautiful Girl, a women's boutique on a side street in suburban Long Island. They ran it for twelve years until the 2008 recession closed it. The next year, on a thirty-day buildout, they opened Mixology Clothing Company, a new concept built on speed, scarcity, instinct-driven buying, and constant rotation. It became a multi-store chain across the Northeast. They sold and walked away in 2019.
In 2020, they founded Mindset Wellness, a mood-enhancement consumer brand built from a kitchen table after thirty years of running too hot in retail.
Before retail, Jon performed as Jon Saint at CBGB and Don Hill's, fronting the rap group Universal Poet Society. He was media director for an independent record label. At Mixology, he created and built the company's private label program.
He lives on Long Island with Rene and their family. THE READ is his first book.
THE ROOM SERIES
Each book in the series applies the same operating lens. The ability to read the room before the data arrives, applied to a different mode of commerce.
Book One. THE READ. Retail, marriage, and the partnership behind three businesses. Forthcoming.
Book Two. THE FLIP. On resale, curation, and the secondary-market economy.
Book Three. THE DIRECT. On what direct-to-consumer founders gain and lose when they remove the room from the relationship.
Book Four. THE LABEL. On private label, identity, and what a brand actually is when you are the one building it.
PRESS
Forbes. Women's Wear Daily. Sports Illustrated. Hamptons Magazine. Purist. New York Post. OK! Magazine.
CONTACT
For media inquiries, speaking engagements, and rights requests. THE READ is forthcoming. Representation: To be added when signed.