The store tells its own origin plainly. Viromia Matti came to Detroit as an immigrant, spoke no English, and could build formalwear by hand, so she opened a custom dress business in Oak Park. Her daughters, Donna and Ranee, were still teenagers: they translated for their mother and spent hours hand-beading gowns. The two of them eventually took the business over and turned it from a custom sewing operation into a boutique. That is the family still behind the counter, one city west of where it started.
The address is on Southfield Road a short way north of Ten Mile, in southeast Southfield, Oakland County. Knowing how that road works saves you a wrong turn. The Southfield Freeway (M-39) ends at the Lodge in Southfield, just north of Nine Mile, and Southfield Road keeps going north as an ordinary surface street, crossing I-696 at Eleven Mile before it eventually finishes at Maple in Birmingham. So from Detroit’s west side, Dearborn or Downriver, you ride M-39 up and simply stay on the road after the freeway part quits. From Berkley, Royal Oak, Oak Park or Farmington Hills, you drop off I-696 at Southfield Road and go about a mile south.
Two miles south of the shop, at Eight Mile and the Lodge, is the empty ground where Northland Center used to be. It opened in 1954 as the largest shopping mall in the world, closed in April 2015, and was demolished in 2021; the city bought the site and sold it to a developer for $11.1 million. Gown shopping at a mall in Southfield is no longer an option, which is worth remembering when you are deciding where to spend a Saturday.
Who is walking in
Southfield Public Schools runs one comprehensive high school now: Southfield High School for the Arts and Technology, created in 2016 when Southfield High and Southfield-Lathrup merged. The Lathrup building on Twelve Mile went to the district’s University High School Academy and younger grades. Within a short drive there is Oak Park High just east, Berkley and Ferndale past that, Groves over in Beverly Hills, and the whole northwest side of Detroit straight down the freeway. Those proms land within a few weeks of each other in late spring, and the racks here get picked over in that window.
Brands confirmed on the designers’ own store locators
- Jovani
- Terani
- Alyce Paris
- Clarisse
- Colette
- Dave & Johnny
- Jasz
- Jessica Angel
- Tiffany Designs
The floor is broader than nine labels — those are the ones verified through the labels themselves. The store’s catalog also runs quinceañera (Alyce Paris and Vizcaya by Mori Lee), pageant, plus-size, bridesmaid and mother-of-the-bride, and the sisters say they added tuxedo rentals because prom shoppers kept asking for them. They also claim styles carried on an exclusive basis in Michigan, which is their word, not something a shopper can check from outside.
Timing your visit
Hours move with the calendar. From February through May the store stays open until 8 p.m. Monday through Saturday. The rest of the year it closes earlier in the evening. It is closed Sunday year-round, so a weekend trip means Saturday, and Saturday in April is the busiest the place gets. Call before you drive if you need alterations turned around on a deadline.
They ship orders beyond the store as well. Donna and Ranee describe most of that business as domestic, with Canada a substantial piece of it, which tracks with sitting a short run from the Detroit–Windsor crossings. FOX 2 filmed a homecoming segment inside the store in October 2017.