UPPER EAST SIDE, NY — Peress of Madison Avenue, an Upper East Side institution that offers “all the essentials Madame knows and loves us for,” will close its doors in August. The exact date is a moving target and could be the end of the month or as early as August 15.

“That’s the story, Morning Glory,” Herbert Peress, a fixture at the Madison Avenue boutique since the late 1970s, told Patch in an interview. “I’m 88 and it’s time.”

All items, including bathrobes, socks, nightgowns, pajamas and slippers for women and pajamas, nightgowns, underwear and socks for men, are 50 percent off.

The unsold inventory will be moved to Lingerie & Company at 1217 3rd Avenue, where Herbert says his son, Mark, will continue the family business.

From Fordham Road to Madison Avenue

Peress began in 1927 in the Bronx, on Fordham Road. The first store was opened by Henry and Elise Peress, Jewish immigrants from Iraq and Poland who had met in the melting pot of New York City.

From the Bronx, Peress soon moved to Washington Heights, then a working-class neighborhood of German-Jewish immigrants, the so-called “Frankfurt on the Heights.”

Here, in the “most beautiful shop in the world,” the young Herbert Peress began to learn the business, from pricing to wrapping gifts.

Decades later, Elise had the idea that Madison Avenue would become what it is today. She was indeed prescient and convinced Henry. The couple decided on a store on Madison Avenue at 64th Street, where they opened their shop in 1955.

The store flourished.

“They were a dynamic, powerful couple and they ran a beautiful store on the corner of 64th and Madison, a lovely little birdcage store,” Peress recalled. “They were very brave to come from Washington Heights to this new neighborhood,” he added.

The engineer became an entrepreneur

It wasn’t immediately clear that Herbert would take over the family business. He had trained as an engineer at Columbia University, where he graduated in 1959, and worked as a contractor on “top secret” projects for the federal government for nearly two decades.

“I had had enough, my mother was retiring, my father had died and I knew the business,” Herbert said. “All the excitement of running a real mom-and-pop business was in my bones.”

Elise handed Peress over to Herbert in the late 1970s.

“It blossomed and I was thrilled, it was very exciting,” he recalled. “We were really busy at the corner of 64th and Madison.”

You could say, from one kind of classified work to another kind of classified work.

Herbert dismissed the idea that specializing in women’s underwear as a man was “no big deal.” “But you can’t work without a woman; you need her eye and her savoir-faire.”

So says Mr. Peress and Bibi, a long-standing and trusted employee at Peress.

There goes the neighborhood

The neighborhood continued to change, however, and although Herbert enjoyed the foot traffic that came to his part of Madison in the 1990s with the opening of massive designer flagships—think Armani—he was ultimately forced to move.

“The big bad wolf came,” he sighed. “The landlord cleared out all the shops and who came in?”

Chanel.

“I was heartbroken and desperate,” he said. “But luckily we found a new location on the corner of 78th and Madison and were able to succeed there.”

The current location at 1070 Madison Avenue is the store’s fifth.

The cat’s meow

Although nothing compares to the joy of running Peress, Herbert, who has lived on East End Avenue for decades, is looking forward to retirement.

“I have a library a mile long,” he laughed. “I have the Y, I have the Metropolitan Museum and the Metropolitan Opera, and I have Carnegie Hall.”

Herbert has now entrusted his customer list to his son Mark.

“We’re doing great business,” Herbert said. “Our customers are amazing. They come from Park Avenue, Fifth Avenue, Palm Beach, Milan, Rome, Paris and all places in between,” he continued. “From Liberace to Mrs. David Rockefeller, Happy Rockefeller. How do you like the apples?”

Without Mr. Peress, Madison Avenue would not be the same.