Ssshhhh… Don’t look now, but Peter Elliott is taking over the Upper East Side. The small, elegantly tweedy men’s haberdashery at the corner of 80th Street and Madison Avenue has suddenly spawned numerous cousins across the street, down the street, and around the neighborhood.

Who is Peter Elliott? A fictitious name, alas, but one that fits perfectly with the clubby English atmosphere of the eponymous shops. In reality, the stores are owned by an energetic and creative fellow named Elliott Rabin, who with his sister Eileen Sorota has created a mini-merchandising empire.

Mr. Rabin’s enterprises now include his original Madison Avenue shop, which sells the kind of clothes favored by the owner – beautiful, colorful cashmere socks and sweaters, rich corduroys, and traditional hounds tooth sports coats. Clothes that would be snapped up in Mayfair, for example.

His sister runs a women’s store across the street, which sells a wide range of clothing, including the very best “Three Dot” cotton T-shirts, extremely expensive jackets and suits by Kiton (carried at Barney’s and only a few other places), and the store’s recognizable quilted jackets in bright colors.

Down the street, Mr. Rabin has opened the first freestanding Barbour store in America. “Peter Elliott Barbour,” which has been successful enough to encourage further collaboration. The Barbour Company, which makes iconic English oilcloth outerwear worn by generations of country gentlemen, has given Peter Elliott leave to open five more stores around the country, so certain are they of Mr. Rabin’s taste and judgment.

The family also owns an outlet store on Madison, which effectively frees up floor space in the shops by selling sales merchandise. The latest venture from Mr. Rabin, opened last November, is Peter Elliott Blue. This store on Lexington Avenue specializes in navy blazers and accessories, in a younger, hipper atmosphere.

The unifying theme to these stores is taste and quality. That may also be the unifying theme to Mr. Rabin’s varied career, which has spanned numerous decades and disciplines, mostly in the apparel industry.

Mr. Rabin comes by his interest in the retailing business naturally. His father, a New Yorker, started out as a traveling salesman for a suit manufacturer and scored a great coup by convincing his firm to sell on credit to a struggling new outfit called Barney’s. Eventually he moved to Charleston, S.C., to marry, and before long started a retail apparel business.

His shop carried traditional high quality (sound familiar?) menswear, serving the local upscale clientele. However, over time, the neighborhood changed. Eventually, the store was remaking its line to appeal to the area’s new middle-class black population.

Fashions for this group were hipper, more colorful, trendier. For this his son has long been grateful, since it encouraged him to break out of the monotonous colors and fashions long prevalent in menswear.

Elliott Rabin’s own path to retail begins with graduating from the Citadel, of all places, and then a stint in the Army. While posted in Germany, he discovered the opportunities of buying fashionable goods in lira-denominated Italy and then reselling them in Germany, where the solid deutsche mark made everything more expensive. A trader was born.

Ultimately Mr. Rabin became an assistant buyer for Bloomingdale’s, at a time when that store represented the apex of merchandising genius. A pivotal moment in his career occurred in 1970, when the disgruntled buyer in his department, to spite management, failed to order any spring merchandise. Disaster loomed.

Frantic, the store asked Mr. Rabin if he could help. Happily, he turned to the manufacturers who had long supplied his father’s stores and sweet talked them into shipping emergency goods to fill the empty shelves. The items were flashy, tailored for the hip black men of Charleston, but sold well to the many gay customers of Bloomie’s “Saturday’s Generation” department. Mr. Rabin’s career was launched.

After numerous adventures in the apparel industry, Mr. Rabin tired of working for other people. Seizing an opportunity, he teamed up with a fellow named Peter Lonergan to open a store on Second Avenue at 80th Street, calling it by both of their first names, Peter Elliott.

The partnership lasted only two months, but Mr. Rabin was off and running. He bought out his partner with his last $25,000 and desperately sought a way to stock the shelves. For a couple of weeks, he placed a ladder with a can of paint in a visible place, moving it every now and then to simulate renovation.

Finally, he came across some Indian merchandise that was interesting and different (and inexpensive), and loaded up. He created a controversial window by displaying some hunting trophies of a friend, and showing a gun-toting woman with her foot on a lion’s head, with the husband taking the photo.

Happily, an animal-rights advocate became unhinged by the scene and tossed a brick through the window, ensuring much publicity, as well as success for Mr. Rabin’s first retail venture.

What’s next? Mr. Rabin has more ideas than administrative capacity, most likely. He would like to launch a store exclusively for little boys and maybe a store for teens. He sees many opportunities for devoting more concentrated space to some of their better lines, such as Kiton or Belvest, a luxury Italian maker.

If his energy level is any indication, it may not just be the Upper East Side that is being colonized – midtown may be next.