Photography by Kevin A. Roberts
When Emily Elbert bought Byrd Designer Consignment Boutique (8825 Ladue, 314-721-0766, byrdstyle.com) last May, she was getting a store with quite a legacy. Former owner Julie Stotlar had worked with stars like Sharon Stone and Courteney Cox to sell their designer items on consignment. But the original location on Maryland Avenue in Clayton didn’t quite live up to its glamorous clientele. It needed an update.
So when Byrd moved to the Colonial Marketplace, Elbert brought in interior designer Jacob Laws, a senior designer with CURE Design Group. “We wanted it to feel like a really fantastic woman’s walk-in closet,” says Laws, who already had been working with Elbert on her house.
“I was looking for a clean, not very fussy look, because I wanted the clothes and the merchandise to really stand out,” says Elbert, whose shop sells gently used and never-been-worn clothes from the likes of Gucci, Dior, and Prada.
Today, white walls lend Byrd’s new location a gallery-like atmosphere, with a single work of art—an image of the installation piece Prada Marfa, a sleek, simple faux Prada store in the middle of a Texas prairie—opposite an oversize mirror. A chevron floor of black-and-tan striated tile resembling wood is made of the same industrial-strength flooring used in hospitals and high schools. And in the fitting rooms, where crystal-bestrewn light fixtures hang from the ceiling, the walls are charcoal gray. “Everybody looks good in a room that’s painted a darker color,” says Laws.
At the store’s new outpost, Elbert’s introduced even more upscale inventory: Tory Burch bags, Valentino shoes, and Chanel jackets mingle with items from Yves Saint Laurent, Fendi, and Rebecca Minkoff. “We’re getting a lot more in terms of quantity and quality of consignment,” says Elbert, “since having moved to this new location.”
