LAKEVILLE — Colleen Kopec’s skin glows, which is perhaps the best advertisement for Skintastic, her skin care salon. The salon, which has had several locations, has been settled comfortably for the past few years at 336 Main St., across from the post office. It shared the space most recently with the Shine hair salon, which closed last fall. That gave Kopec the opportunity to expand — and she needed the extra room.Although she considers skin care and skin rejuvenation the focus of her business, Kopec offers many other salon and grooming services, including waxing, manicures and pedicures, makeup application (she works with many bridal parties) and even airbrush tanning. The expansion gives her (and her clients) more room to stretch out and be comfortable. And she now has room for massage therapist Leslie Eckstein. Eckstein does sports massage, pain management, trigger-point therapy and Swedish massage. Her clients range from teenage athletes to retirees who are recovering from knee replacement surgery to regular folks with work related injuries, chronic headaches, arthritis and stress injuries.Though they each do their own bookings, Kopec and Eckstein can easily coordinate their schedules for clients who want to indulge in a day of beauty and take advantage of a variety of services.Kopec has been in the skincare business for more than 10 years. After working as a medical aesthetician in Dr. Ari Namon’s office she opened Skintastic in 2003. Kopec has been caring for others, in some capacity, for her entire working life. In addition to having an aesthetician’s license, she is also a licensed nurse practitioner and used to work in the Alzheimer’s unit at The Kent retirement center. “I’m still taking care of people, but in a different way,” Kopec said of her new career. When Kopec learned she would be able to expand the salon, she decided immediately to find a massage therapist whose work she felt was in sympathy with her own. She views beauty, health and wellness as intrinsically connected. Although she considered several massage therapists, she chose Eckstein not only because of her reputation as a therapist but also because of her generosity and her willingness to be available seven days a week.Eckstein has only been practicing since August 2010, but she has quickly developed a following. Many people have come to know her through the work she donates at events such as the Tri-State Trade Festival and the annual Sharon Classic Road Race. In addition to her hours at the salon, Eckstein works out of her home and makes house calls. “I get so much from working with people, helping to relieve pain and injury,” she said. “If someone calls at seven at night with a problem, I take care of them. I’ve never turned anyone down.”Eckstein is a single mom, the mother of four children under the age of 15. Doing massage therapy allows her the flexibility to take care of her children and her clients. “When I became a mother I realized how much I enjoyed the nurturing aspect. It’s therapeutic for me, too. I might be going full bore and then I start a massage and it calms me down, too. In a hectic world, it’s a very calming place to go.”Eckstein can be reached at 860-364-1633. Skintastic is open Tuesday through Saturday, by appointment; walk-ins are welcome. Call 860-435-0546.
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Greg Fricke and James Boehmer, co-owners of Peggy Mercury in Kent, recently launched their first fashion line, “Imaginary Concerts.”
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Fricke and Boehmer are not there to stock their shelves with the same products customers find at standard makeup retailers. They’re there to help customers find what works for them. That usually means asking customers about themselves and learning about their beauty habits, skin, style and the way they like to present themselves. Fricke and Boehmer believe it’s their job to help customers bring out the qualities that suit them and determine what works best for their look.
So much of the Peggy Mercury world is about emboldening people to become more creative, and possibly bolder, versions of themselves. Some of this comes through the store’s creative collaborations with artists, designers and stylists.
It’s part of an ethos that encourages them and their friends to use the shop as a kind of laboratory, trying out new creative experiments without knowing how they might turn out. Whether in fashion, painting, fiber arts or photography, the projects almost always turn out marvelously.
A line of sterling silver charms they sell started as a small project by their friend Nolan Percival. In the beginning, the pieces were for close friends and loved ones. But Boehmer and Fricke encouraged Percival to get a little more serious about the project and create a whole line for the store. Today, it’s one of their top-selling collections.
Classic styles, bold colors, and creative concerts make up the “Imaginary Concerts” line at Peggy Mercury.Provided
“Imaginary Concerts” has the duo taking their own advice.
The project started as a way for Boehmer to connect with his mother, who had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. Taking old concert shirts from his own collection, Boehmer and his mother began cutting out the graphics with the idea that they would make a quilt together. Unfortunately, she died before they could complete the project in 2025. The pieces, which were ready for production, were put on the back burner as Boehmer and Fricke dealt with their loss and the whirlwind of projects that never seemed to cease at Peggy Mercury.
But the harsh winter of 2026 presented an opportunity to take some time and focus on themselves. Part of that meant revisiting and redefining the concert T-shirt project. This time, instead of looking to the warmth and comfort of a quilt, they turned to another passion — fashion.
Taking a page from their own book, they wanted to create something that felt comfortable to them. They took two disparate loves — one rooted in simple preppy style, with clean lines and classic silhouettes, and the other in the nitty gritty worlds of punk rock and pop — and blended them together to create something entirely new. Pulling from the staples of vintage Brooks Brothers and Charvet collections, they applied the graphic elements with bold stitching reminiscent of punk jackets of the ‘70s and ‘80s, but with a much more sophisticated air.
But the remixing isn’t just the pairing of prep and punk. The pieces are not canon. They take liberties with the realities of concert tours, combining one band’s dates with another band’s logos, mixing them all up until the reality is lost and imagination is the only truth.
Shirts from Peggy Mercury’s first fashion line, “Imaginary Concerts,” hang on display.Provided
Adding to the mix is an element of perpetual creativity. Art can be messy, both figuratively and literally, and many of Fricke and Boehmer’s artist friends carry evidence of their work on them at all times. As a nod to these tireless creatives, the duo added haphazard splashes of bright color, giving the line an even more distinctive feel.
For them, “Imaginary Concerts” passes the “Peggy Test.” The mythical Peggy Mercury is a fictional figurehead for the company, a character who thrives on creativity and change. The name, much like the clothing line, is a mixture of interests: Mercury is a planet, a deity and an elusive, transformative element, while Peggy is the wonderfully stylish and boundary-pushing Peggy Guggenheim.
Everything Fricke and Boehmer put in their store has to pass this test: Would Peggy Mercury approve? For their first collection, the answer is a resounding yes.
Peggy Mercury is at 9 Maple St., Unit 2, Kent.
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