I’ve gone on and on about Nau over the last six months, thinking it was the best thing to come along since sliced bread. It’s my opinion their “webfronts,” Nau’s trademark term for stores where you can purchase their product at an internet kiosk instead of bring it home from the store, getting an extra 10% to do so and helping to reduce a brand’s overall carbon footprint, were or are the cutting edge of retailing.

It’s where many retailers need to take their next step, and do so responsibly. As I’ve commented before, Nau’s business model is one for the text books, so I just don’t think this is Nau’s final curtain, or maybe I’m just in denial. Maybe I have more in common with Hillary Clinton than I think. Hang in there till the bitter, bitter end.

Ian Yolles, Nau’s vp of communications, says they were not immune to this nasty economic environment and investors became jittery; that just says to me they have the wrong investors; they need some Seventh Avenue guys used to eating nails at breakfast and concrete for lunch.

You don’t go down until the fat lady sings and in Nau’s instance, we’ve only just taken our seats before we were told the theatre was going dark. How is this happening that one of the greatest ideas to hit retailing in years is shuttering its doors and windows as we speak. So Wal-Mart can have a run on recycled t-shirts? Pull-ease.

I’ll refer you to TreeHugger’s obituary for Nau, they wax much more poetic about it than I and manage to give them their proper due at the same time.

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