Accessories Store Opens on Mt. Auburn

Daiba Rai beams in front of a row of shiny jewelry at the newly-opened Fast Forward Accessories, and praises Helen Zoltanski, a student at the Kennedy School of Government (KSG).

“She’s...why we are here,” he said. “She did everything for us.”

Daiba Rai, who was working in the two-week-old store, should know.

He said Zoltanski was instrumental in bringing Fast Forward Accessories, a store brimming with colorful necklaces, purses, butterfly clips, bracelets and sandals to its Harvard Square location at 99 Mount Auburn St. between Wordsworth Books and Tower Records.

Zoltanski said that on a trip back from a Kennedy School-sponsored career conference in Washington, D.C., she stumbled upon an accessories store in New York City. After buying some of the wares for a business she owns with her five sisters in Utah, she struck up a conversation with the owners and suggested they open a store in Cambridge.

“We had something in common,” Zoltanski said, referring to the fact that the owners of the store were funding a college in eastern Nepal, which spoke to her own interest in public service. “Their work is very sincere.”

Co-owner Keshab R. Rai said that his goal in business is to help people in his native Nepal.

“I would like to make good money to help people in my country—I want to work for them. I’m trying to do good,” he said.

Keshab Rai, who has three stores that sell similar merchandise in New York’s Chinatown, said that Zoltanski played an important role in the opening of the Harvard Square store.

“I’m successful because of her,” he said.

Zoltanski, who will graduate from the KSG this spring, not only helped name the Cambridge store—the N.Y. stores are called Sourap Jewelry—but also picked out the storefront and negotiated the lease.

“[I served] as an advocate in negotiating a good price,” she said.

After its first two weeks, Zoltanski said that the store had been “doing better than anticipated.”

“[It’s] happy merchandise, springlike. [It attracts everyone] from teenagers to grandmothers,” she said.

But on two separate visits to the store there were no customers.

Daiba Rai repeatedly pointed out items in the store that were popular in New York but seemingly not in Boston.

“These are very hot,” he said referring to enormous earrings, and later to button necklaces. “If they know it’s here young ladies will come.”

Zoltanski attributed this lull to the fact that it was exam period. She said that the store was particularly popular during the weekends and that she was certain that the store would be a success.

“There isn’t a particular shop [like this] in the Square devoted to the young market,” she said.

Fast Forward Accessories opened on April 30 in a spot previously occupied by Little Russia, a store that sold dolls, beaded jewelry and decorative boxes.

Building manager Alan Shapiro said that he was pleased with the new tenant since its merchandise was similar to that of Little Russia.

Daiba Rai said that Fast Forward Accessories is open from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. throughout the week.

—Staff writer Joseph M. Tartakoff can be reached at tartakof@fas.harvard.edu.