'Lady in Red' Resale Shop Founded on Fashion

A new shop coming to North Avenue is about one woman's love of fashion, and of shopping, and of sharing her frugal finds with the world.

Her first business venture, Lady in Red resale shop, is a celebration of her belief that anyone can dress well and look good – really good – without spending a fortune.

LaDonna Telford is never impressed when people tell her how much they paid for shoes or a dress.

She's proud to say how little she paid.

"I'm just the best shopper," Telford said. "If somebody tells me, 'Oh, I paid $150 for these boots,' I'm like, 'Well, I got these $150 boots for $50, how about that?'"

Telford piles coupons on top of discounts on top of sales until she's walking out with a wardrobe for pennies on the retail dollar. Her proudest moment came in a Mayfair Mall department store.

"I got $880 worth of clothes for $70," Telford said. "The cashier was even impressed. She said, 'You just paid the taxes on all this, that's all.'"

Now, Telford is planning to share her shopping prowess with Wauwatosa – and at the same time settle a little domestic rift. Her husband, Frank, thought that frankly, she had too many clothes.

A basement full of fashion

Lady in Red will open Dec. 1 at 7219 W. North Ave., just a couple of doors down from the North Avenue Grill and across from Fattoni's. On day one, Telford estimates, "Half of what you'll see came out of my own collection – shoes included."

Telford and her husband have a blended family totaling 10 children, although his are all grown now. He's retired from We Energies, and she's a nurse. She grew up in Milwaukee, but they settled in New Berlin for the schools. There, she claimed the basement as her own.

"I'd be down there, playing music, and he'd think I was 'working' but I was really just trying on clothes. I'd buy things just to give them away – you know, 'Look at what I found for you.' But I did keep a lot, and a lot of it I never wore.

"As a nurse, I don't get to dress for work, I wear scrubs. And I don't buy or wear last year's, I keep current. So a lot of what I have had never even been worn. And he came down one day, and he said, 'What are you doing with all this junk? You've got to get rid of some of this stuff.'"

Telford gave it some serious thought – it really was too much, and being beyond its fashion-overdue date, she never would be likely to wear it. She decided to sell it off, but not in a lot, not through some faceless transaction. What fun is that?

Opening a business was not something Telford had ever attempted or anticipated, but she set out to do so and five weeks later, her shop was ready to open – except that she had worked so fast she outstripped the city's permitting process.

"I did not know that I would need a special resale permit on top of the others," she said. "But that will come in November."

Selling something for everyone

Telford plans to do things a little differently than most boutiques.

"I have the large sizes rack right up in front, right inside the door," she said. "Most places, it's way in back. I want women of all sizes to know that they're welcome here.

"I got my fashion sense from my mother, and she was a large woman. But she always wanted to look fabulous, she wanted to wear the best. But it was so hard for her to find things."

Besides her own collection, Telford has stocked her store from Craigslist and other sources, and she does plan to take consignments. But she'll also continue working the sales, and turning those pieces around at only a small markup.

Among her goods are items that still have the sales tags on them, not even "gently used" but in fact never worn at all.

In her vintage section at the back of the shop, there is one dress with Marshall Field's tag still on it.

"That's kind of cool," Telford said, "because of course there is no Marshall Field's anymore, but people remember it fondly."

So, you can expect to find brand new, never-worn fashions, some as current as this week's catalog, some classic, at a fraction of the retail price – because Telford has done the work for you. Yet you still get to experience the thrill of the hunt, reaching among the racks for that perfect look.

But you won't experience it on Mondays.

"I will be closed on Mondays," Telford said. "That's my shopping day."