Fashion

The Shop Salon & Style House brings fashion to Brookfield – Riverside-Brookfield Landmark

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3 hours ago

December 16, 2024

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The Shop Salon & Style House brings fashion to Brookfield – Riverside-Brookfield Landmark

When Kelly Obermeyer opened the Shop Salon & Style House at 3735 Grand Blvd. in January 2019, she knew she wanted the business to encompass both halves of its name. Five years later, she’s finally made that dream a reality.

On Dec. 1, Obermeyer hosted a launch party for the Style House portion of the business, a fashion boutique for women of all ages. In-person, the Style House takes the form of rows and rows of clothing inside the business on Sundays or at pop-ups in the area, but there’s also an online shop if that’s more your speed.

Kelly Obermeyer, her daughter Mia Obermeyer and her mother-in-law Kelly Stevens pose together at the Style House’s opening on Dec. 1. | Todd Bannor

Before launching the Style House, Obermeyer had run the Shop primarily as a hair salon, offering haircuts, blow-dries, hair dyes, highlights, extensions and even sparkly hair tinsel. She said the business got its start when her mother-in-law, Kelly Stevens, inherited the property, which was a run-down salon. Obermeyer, who had been a hair stylist in Riverside, joined her to tackle the hurdle of fixing the building up amid a personal tragedy.

“It had to go up to code, and that was a $100,000 loan. Then, we, all of a sudden, we lost, unexpectedly, a family member,” she told the Landmark. “My mother-in-law looked at me and she was like, ‘Do you think you can make this work?’ … We kind of all worked together, me and my mother-in-law.”

Obermeyer said the women in her family — namely her mother-in-law and daughters — inspired the ethos behind the Style House’s selection of clothing.

“We call ourselves the three gens, like three generations, so we want to make sure we’re always tailoring things that can go to all three generations of women,” she said.

She said she wanted the boutique to have something for women of all three age groups in her own family: teenagers, midlife adults and those 55 and older.

Obermeyer said another aspect driving her to grow her business is her appreciation for community development.

“I grew up going to that street, like after high school, going to the old Paisans,” she said. “I’ve always worked in downtown Oak Park, downtown Riverside, downtown in the city, and I just felt there was such a potential for Grand Boulevard.”

She said she put her faith in the Brookfield community to support the business when it was just getting off the ground.

“When I did first open, I actually had someone tell me, ‘You’re going to have people pay that much for hair here in Brookfield?’ I looked them straight in the eye and said, ‘The problem is with Brookfield that the residents are going to other towns to pay and have this type of service done in other towns elsewhere, but I’m confident that I have the clients to do that.’”

Since opening, she said the community has embraced the Shop Salon and, now, the Style House.

“What I knew to be true has just evolved what we’re able to offer. I have people that walk in [and say], ‘Oh, I never knew you were here. It’s so nice,’” she said.

Now that the Style House has opened, Obermeyer said she’s happy to have created a business where women can lift each other up and come to learn about working in beauty.

“I’m also really proud to provide a space where a lot of the women that work for me are single women or mothers of children. That makes me really proud, to be an employer to women,” she said. “That’s why I keep doing this. If I can keep networking people and people can grow out of that location, it keeps me very passionate.”