Sharon Miller of Kansas City, Kan., owns the Gown Gallery, a bridal and evening wear boutique at 1901 Main St. This conversation took place at the store between bridal fittings. How did you get interested in fashion?
I grew up watching my mother (Ernestine Watson). My mother and her friends dressed up all the time. My mother also sewed, so she made my clothes. There was a fabric shop on the corner of 10th Street and Minnesota Avenue across from the Katz Drug store, and my mother and I spent hours and hours in there looking at fabrics. You’ve brought a folder of photographs of your mother and her friends dressed in beautiful formal dresses.
I inherited my passion for evening wear from her. This is her with her social club. They did activities throughout the year, but once a year they had a ball. What was the name of her social club? The Young Sophisticates.
Did you study fashion in school? No. I was in banking for 17 years. I am not a dressmaker. We have wonderful professional seamstresses here. What gave you the idea, after a career in banking, to start an evening wear business?
I started out with a home-based business called “Worth Repeating” in my apartment. We started out doing gown rental, just like men’s tuxedo rental. How did that work? Clients would call to make an appointment and I would see them one-on-one. I got women ready for any kind of black-tie gala.
Did you keep inventories of gowns in your apartment?
I did. That’s when I learned, women will shop. If you have what they want they will come to you.
How did the business evolve to include bridal?
My customers who had bought debutante and cotillion dresses from me all started to come back when they were getting married, wanting me to help them find a gown.
Where do you find the gowns you have on display here?
We go to market — mostly in New York and Chicago. You can find all the leading bridal designers in New York.
How did you grow from the apartment to your first storefront in Waldo?
We waited until the client base was large enough, because when you open a store, you need people coming in the door fast. We changed the name in 1995 to the Gown Gallery.
Three years ago you had a devastating fire at that store. What happened that night?
On February 16, 2007, I got a call that the building was on fire. I immediately started calling our dry cleaner and our insurance and our designers, still thinking we might be able to salvage something. Then I got a call that the firefighters were going into the roof, and I knew everything was lost. We started calling our suppliers, letting them know we were losing everything and for everyone to be on alert. All of our brides had picked up their gowns for the weekend except one.
Do you remember her name?
Breanne Orth. She was a schoolteacher in Kansas City, Kan. We still had our phone lines and she called and said, “My gown is in the fire.” It was a Friday and her wedding was the next day.
What did you do?
We had already called the designer, Paula Varsalona, who is from Kansas City and now makes gowns in New York. We had all our computer files backed up, so we had all our records. Paula stopped production on everything and made Breanne’s gown that day and flew it in overnight.
We went to the hotel where she (Breanne) was staying, the Marriott on the Plaza, and set up the sewing machines. When Breanne’s gown arrived, we got her fitted, and we had her walking down the aisle at 4 p.m. that day.
Why did you move downtown?
We fell in love with this building because of the floor-to-ceiling windows. Since we are on the second floor, those windows are like a giant billboard when we fill them with our gowns. You can see the windows from a long way away.
What are the trends today in wedding gowns?
Sheaths are very popular. And draping of silk organza into rosettes.
What else?
Strapless continues to be very popular, and one-shoulder gowns.
What about white versus off-white?
It’s about 50-50. Over the last 10 years, you’ve seen a shift to a kind of diamond white ivory, but now you’re even seeing bridal gowns with color. For Fall 2010 and Spring 2011, you’ll see colors like sherbet, a soft orange. And you’ll see blue linings with tulle and silk organzas over it to give just a subtle hint of blue.
Do brides tend to come in with a preconceived idea of what they want, say with pages torn out of magazines, or do they come in just to look at what you have?
We see both. There is so much more information available to brides. All the designers have websites that brides can printout and bring in. That is helpful because it gives us an idea of what the bride is after.
Can you tell when a woman walks in the door what type of wedding gown will look best on her?
Oh, sure. Yeah.
Is that ever at odds with the style of gown the bride says she wants?
Sometimes. You just have to listen to what they say and then go pull gowns you know will look great on them.
Does the bride usually come in alone, or does she have someone with her?
In most cases she brings her mother, her sister or her best friend.
Does the groom ever come along?
Not very often. Most grooms don’t want to come. They say, “I just want to see her when she walks down the aisle.”
Does the bride ever gain weight at the last minute and need to be refitted, or does that only happen in the movies?
(Laughs.) It happens. Usually they schedule a final fitting just before the wedding because they know they’ve got that last 10 pounds to lose. Sometimes they do and sometimes they don’t.