Bett's Boutique Set To Close After 43 Years In Highland Park

HIGHLAND PARK, IL — A fashion fixture in downtown Highland Park will be permanently shuttered unless it's purchased by a new owner. A store closing sale began Monday at Bett's Boutique and B2 Contemporary, 678 Central Ave., and it will last until everything is sold, its owner announced.

Bett Barnett is retiring to Arizona after offering high-end women's apparel with a focus on her North Shore customers for more than four decades. Barnett said the store could stay open if someone comes forward who loves people, loves fashion and has the ability to run a business. She said her lease doesn't expire until next year.

"I would absolutely love to have someone take over the store. My customers are very upset about the closing," she said. "I have wonderful employees that would love to continue on, we just need somebody for the helm — to basically run the business and do the things that I have done."

Barnett first opened up shop as Bett's Leather in 1976 in a now-demolished historic building on Central Avenue near the former Highland Park Theater, she told Patch. For the first five years, she was based in the courtyard behind a photography studio, with all of her business coming from word-of-mouth, Barnett recalled. She then moved her boutique to Sheridan Road, across from a former doctor's building.

Before moving to her present location on the corner of Green Bay Road and Central Avenue 33 years ago, Barnett designed and produced everything she sold, which was primarily leatherwear, she explained.

"Amazingly enough, customers have been coming in and talking about the items that I made for them back then," Barnett said. "Some of them still have items from then."

In recent years, some of Bett's customers include the granddaughters of Barnett's longtime patrons, she said.

"Many of my younger customers grew up coming to my store with their mothers," she said, explaining how she opened the B2 section of the store in 2007 to cater to more youthful buyers while continuing to offer classic clothing at Bett's. "Basically, we've all grown up together."

In her time as the owner and operator of a local small business, Barnett co-founded Downtown Highland Park's Fashion Week, an all-volunteer effort that for about five years brought together a dozens of local businesses — from hairdressers to salons to jewelry stores to clothing shops to customers as models — to put on a runway show.

"Highland Park has always been one of the best shopping districts on the North Shore," she said. "We really wanted to highlight the fashion businesses."

Barnett also served on the city's Business and Economic Development Commission and the board of the local Chamber of Commerce, according to a release announcing the closure. Bett's Boutique outlasted "waves" of other businesses, it said, including such former competitors as Fell Company, Style Shop and the Bootery. Barnett also mentored college students from merchandising and design programs and spoke at career events for the nonprofit Fashion Group International.

Over the years, Highland Park has seen an increasing number of chain stores, more service businesses and a lower density of retailers, Barnett said.

"We have a few more corporate stores than we did then, with Anthropologie and Free People and Nic+Zoe," she said. "Basically, fewer entrepreneurs."

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In the release announcing her "blowout" going-out-of-business sale, Barnett said the relationships and memories formed with her clientele over the years will survive the closure of her shop.

"Over the last 43 years we have been able to create special bonds with our customers that go beyond the clothing. Helping women feel beautiful and find just the choice to wear for everyday or for an important occasion has been a joy. We have intersected with the important moments in our customers’ lives and shared tender feelings as we dressed them for Bar Mitzvahs, rehearsal dinners, class reunions or a first date," she said.

"Customers have flooded in with tears, hugs and well wishes about my retirement. The outpouring of emotion has struck a chord that goes deeper than the closing of my long-standing business. I have heard people say, 'You may be closing the store but you’ll live on in my closet.'"