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 YOU’RE INVITED TO AN ALL SEASONS EXCLUSIVE EVENT For the Joys of Independent Senior Living