On a crisp November morning, 89-year-old Terri O’Brien sits in a sun-soaked corner of her Reno boutique and opens a voluminous scrapbook overflowing with decades of memories.
Flipping through pages of black-and-white photographs, O’Brien points out pictures of her with a young Bob Barker, longtime host of “The Price is Right” game show, and with Nevada Governor Paul Laxalt. In other photos, O’Brien poses alongside Miss Alaskas, Mexican politicians and dozens of showbiz legends from a bygone era.
From working as a stewardess in Alaska to promoting fashion in Mexico, O’Brien’s career has spanned a dozen American presidencies. She’s spent the last four decades running her own store, now called Boutique Elegante, which has become a stylish destination for women’s clothing in the Reno-Tahoe area.
On Saturday, Dec. 2, O’Brien is inviting the public to a combined celebration of her 90th birthday and a “grand relaunch” of Boutique Elegante, located at 3350 Lakeside Court.
A fashionable life, from cargo planes to cruise lines
Born in Colorado in 1933, O’Brien’s interest in fashion began when she moved to Montana as a girl. At a coffee shop, she remembers eating an ice cream sundae when a beautiful woman sat nearby. O’Brien, learning that the woman did modeling work, asked how she herself might enter the industry.
“Don’t eat stuff like that,” the woman told O’Brien, indicating the sundae.
O’Brien later moved to Alaska with her husband where she worked as a stewardess in the 1950s on Douglas C-47 military transport planes and their civilian counterparts, the Douglas DC-3. During the 1967 Fairbanks Flood, O’Brien volunteered as a stewardess on supply missions to the impacted regions. A front-page article about O’Brien in the Anchorage Daily News reported how “the pilot and crewmen of the Alaska Air National Guard affectionately call her the Air Guard’s Florence Nightingale.”
It was in Alaska that O’Brien’s fashion career began. She started modeling for local stores and later became director of Miss Alaska pageants.
O’Brien moved to the Lake Tahoe area in 1969 and presented strolling fashion shows at Cal Neva and Kings Castle casinos. She spent the winter months in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, where she opened a boutique at the Playa de Oro Hotel and brought local folkloric ballet and mariachi ensembles to entertain cruise lines.
In 1985 she started her Reno shop, Boutique Casablanca, in Franktown Corners. O’Brien closed the store in the early 2000s because of rising rent costs, returning to Mexico for longer periods of time. In 2009, she reopened the store at 3350 Lakeside Court where it has remained ever since. O’Brien renamed it Boutique Elegante after the shop she had owned in Mexico.
Turning 90, celebrating Boutique Elegante in Reno
Boutique Elegante is located in an eclectic strip mall on Lakeside Court, neighbored by Swill Coffee, Lorraine’s Coiffures, Yarn Refuge, Williams Furs and a sports memorabilia store.
Touring the warm shop where she still works every day, O’Brien drapes a fuzzy scarf over a white turtleneck. She plays with a pair of jeans matched with a Christmas-themed sweater, cocking her head to make sure the ensemble looks just right.
O’Brien has remained dedicated to what she calls classic, timeless fashion. She’s never owned a computer or a cellphone and couldn’t care less about current trends. O’Brien fashions herself as a custodian of her clients’ good looks, still referring to the many customers she’s had over the years as “her ladies.”
“I never went trendy because my ladies did not appreciate trends,” O’Brien said. “I guess you could say I guarded their thoughts and ideas about fashion. My ladies were beautifully dressed.”
To O’Brien, fashion is all about composition, and the right accessory can elevate even the most basic look. She travels to Las Vegas twice a year to shop at clothing trade shows. Her customers are always in mind.
“When I do the buying, I visualize my ladies,” O’Brien said. “That would look great on Ethel. That would look great on Trudy. And this would look wonderful on Beverly.”
O’Brien’s aversion to the latest trends doesn’t mean she’s stopped growing as a fashionista.
“If I see a boutique or a store I like to walk in and see what they’re doing,” O’Brien said. “I’m still learning.”