18 | MAY 20 • 2021
A
fter 45 storied years,
fashion icon Linda
Dresner has closed
her Birmingham boutique.
Known for her timeless
pieces and dressing the best of
the best of Metro Detroit (and
beyond), Dresner, 83, felt it
was the right opportunity to
move on to the next chapter of
her life.
“It was time to stop,
” she says
a few weeks after her Linda
Dresner boutique shut its doors
for good. “I didn’t feel at my age
that I wanted to renew a lease.
”
While a difficult decision,
Dresner explains it was a nat-
ural one that will allow her to
spend more time with her hus-
band and children.
Yet looking back, Dresner has
fond memories of her incredi-
ble journey in retail, which has
also included operating a store
at Somerset Mall in Troy for 10
years and a store in New York
on the luxurious Park Avenue
for 25 years. For decades,
Dresner has been an interna-
tional hit.
“The women were everything
to me,
” she says of her clients.
“They depended on me and
wanted me to choose things
they would wear for years and
years, and I did that.
”
It’s how Dresner built her
business from the very start, by
helping women select outfits
that would make them feel
beautiful inside and out. That
was her business strategy.
She introduced new lines to
Detroit through the decades
such as Comme de Garcons and
Maison Margiela, which helped
solidify her role as a fashion
maverick that women could
trust. “I didn’t know exactly
[what I was doing],
” she says
of building her iconic brand,
“but I always liked fashion,
and I always wanted to choose
things for clients they could use
through the years.
”
It’s how Dresner curates
her own closet, even now. If
the clothes fit, she explains,
they’re timeless and chic,
despite when they were made
or purchased. “
As long as I can
zip them up, I still keep them,”
she says of her own personal
clothing collection.
Her unwavering passion for
fashion has been an important
part of her life since the very
beginning. As a young girl
growing up, Dresner would
dress her dolls and imagine
different scenarios for each out-
fit. “I always had a story going
on in my mind,
” she recalls.
“Fashion is just a thing you do
because you have a drive for it,
and you’re attracted to it.
”
FAMOUS CLIENTELE
Dresner’s long-running career
also comes with its own
remarkable stories. One mem-
ory above all that continues to
stand out over the course of 45
years is when former First Lady
Jackie Kennedy would shop at
her New York store.
“Jackie Kennedy would
come in and she would say
to me, ‘Do you mind if I just
had my tuna fish sandwich in
the dressing room?’” Dresner
recalls. Kennedy would lounge
in the room, watching different
outfits being tried on. “That
was a treat.”
Bette Midler shopped at the
boutique as well, another one
of many names on Dresner’s
star-filled clientele list. “They
all found something, and they
all liked to shop there,” says
Dresner, who also dressed
many women in Metro
Detroit’s Jewish community.
The clothes she provided loyal
clients were always accessible
and comfortable.
Along with her clients,
Dresner said she will also
miss going on buying trips.
“It was always hard work, but
it was very enjoyable for me,
”
she recalls. “It was a fantasy,
building the look for the store
every season. I’ll miss supplying
women with beautiful things.
”
She says though clients are
disappointed to hear news of
the store’s closure, they also
understand Dresner’s decision.
“I’m not a young girl any-
more,” she continues. “It was
time for me.”
Dresner might be moving on,
but the impeccable clothes that
she has hand-picked for her
clients, she says, will stay with
them forever.
OUR COMMUNITY
Linda
Dresner
JERRY ZOLYNSKY
Linda Dresner’s boutique
shuttered its doors, but her
clothes are forever.
Fashion
Maverick
ASHLEY ZLATOPOLSKY
CONTRIBUTING WRITER
“WOMEN DEPENDED ON ME
AND WANTED ME TO CHOOSE
THINGS THEY WOULD WEAR
FOR YEARS AND YEARS.”
— LINDA DRESNER
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