Linda Dresner, Luxury Retailer, 88, Dead

Linda Dresner, a former model who for four-and-a-half decades maintained a distinct voice in luxury retailing as a purveyor of some of the most advanced and edgy designers around the world, died peacefully at home Monday. She was 88.

With her Park Avenue and Michigan stores, Dresner sold such designers as Jil Sander, Maison Margiela, Yohji Yamamoto, Ann Demeulemeester, Claude Montana, Vetements, Dries Van Noten and Stella McCartney, as well as Zoran and LouLou Studio. But she was always out to discover new design talent.

“Linda was an inspiring and charismatic figure in the fashion world,” said Sander. “We developed a close and wonderful working relationship and she was a great supporter of Jil Sander. I admired her New York store and it inspired me with its design by JW Fred Smith. I then worked with his protege Michael Gabellini on my retail projects. Linda will always have a special place in my heart for all her accomplishments and taste level.”

“Linda was like a sister to me,” said Marion Greenberg, a close friend and publicist. “She was a constant source of inspiration, always curious and pushing the creativity envelope forward — from her groundbreaking, pure stores modeled after art galleries, to curating fashion designers with her signature artful taste. She brought so much heart, joy and great beauty to everything she touched and I will miss her deeply.”

Born in Detroit on Dec. 8, 1937 to Idabelle and Morris Varkle, Dresner began her career as a model before discovering her true calling as a retailer. She first got married at the age of 17.

In the 1970s, Dresner and a friend, Hattie Belkin, opened Hattie’s in Franklin, Mich., where they sold designer merchandise in a 300-square-foot space. They parted ways after six years and Dresner went out on her own and opened her Birmingham store, a modest 700-square-foot shop on the second floor of the Somerset Mall in Troy, Mich.

In 1983, Dresner took her vision to New York City by opening a second shop at 484 Park Avenue, by 59th Street. It quickly became a destination for fashion’s most discerning shoppers including socialites and celebrities. The store was known for championing obscure high-fashion labels and avant-garde designers years before many became household names. For nearly 25 years, the Manhattan boutique stood as one of the most influential independent fashion retailers in the country.

Over the years Dresner’s clientele included Gloria Vanderbilt, Carine Roitfeld, Wendy Murdoch, Uma Thurman and Scarlett Johansson. Jacqueline Onassis and her daughter-in-law Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy were also among the shop’s notable customers.

“Jackie felt the store was a calm haven for her,” Dresner once told WWD. “She used to sit quietly in the dressing room and have a little lunch. Then, in her wonderfully sweet soft voice she would look around and say, ‘Oh, it’s all so beautiful.’ She bought occasionally. She didn’t undress. She bought a very classic raincoat. She liked watching women trying things on and looking in the mirror and would say, ‘I wish I could wear things like that’ about styles that were a little more out there.”

Dresner operated her stores the old-fashioned way. She attracted customers through word-of-mouth, stayed clear of online selling and believed her clientele preferred personalized experiences. She kept her windows and selling floors minimal in display.

The Park Avenue store closed in 2008 due to rising rents and the Great Recession, as well as rising competition and widespread discounting by department stores. She decided to focus on her store in Michigan, where there was less competition, but a smaller audience. Still, the Michigan store always had panache and maintained its distinct positioning on the retail landscape. She decided to close that location in 2021. “This is bittersweet for me,” Dresner told WWD. “It’s been a long haul. Very happy times. People who have been coming in tell me they’re sad I am closing the store, and that there is nothing to replace it. Women were always the focus — women who wanted to be independent in style but not appear foolish.”

Dresner relocated her business to a three-level, 6,000-square-foot site at 299 West Maple Road in downtown Birmingham, though with the lease about to expire and business becoming more challenging through the pandemic, that store also eventually closed. “I have a happy husband. We will spend more time together,” she said.

She regarded her stores as “a big closet,” Dresner said. “I think about putting clothes together as I would wear them. I bought John Galliano in a younger more interesting way. Being early is one thing, but I also show the clothes in a particular way. I’d put a Galliano gown with shoes that don’t belong to Galliano and put a jacket or topper from another designer over the gown. I’ve mixed Margiela with someone more dressed-up like Balenciaga.”

But that wasn’t the case with certain other designers. “I rarely mix Comme des Garçons with anything,” she said. “Rei Kawakubo has a strong signature and is exclusive enough that it still seems pretty special.”

Many in the fashion and retail industries considered Dresner a visionary and part of a rare breed of female entrepreneurs, such as Martha Phillips and Sara Fredericks who also had established small, high-profile and influential Park Avenue boutiques, as well as Joan Weinstein with her Ultimo boutique in Chicago. All three are deceased. They were all out in front of the latest fashion trends and helped to elevate the profile of many emerging designers. High society ladies and celebrities flocked to their doors, especially for those exclusive trunk shows, afternoon cocktails and high service levels. The closing of Dresner’s stores underscored how several well-known, high fashion specialty stores had gone out of business years before, including Barneys New York, Charivari, and Henri Bendel.

Dresner was as committed to philanthropy as she was to fashion. She served as a trustee of the Detroit Opera and the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, where she and her third husband, Edward C. Levy Jr., were longtime supporters and devoted audience members. She was a longtime board member and Fashion Advisory Council member at the College for Creative Studies, where she endowed the Linda Dresner Chair in Fashion Design in perpetuity. She also served on the board of directors of the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit and was honored in 2016 by the Barbara Ann Karmanos Cancer Institute. Together with her husband, she cofounded the Edward C. and Linda Dresner Levy Foundation, which funds scholarships for American students studying in Israel.

She is survived by her husband Edward, as well as her sons Mark and Steven; her sister Tisha; grandchildren Samantha and Lauren, and several great grandchildren.

A service honoring Linda Dresner will be held on Monday, 10 a.m. at Ira Kaufman Chapel, 18325 W. Nine Mile Road, Southfield, Mich. The family requests that contributions may be made to the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit.