Bittersweet closing for Main St. landmark

BY SETH MANDEL
Staff Writer

JEFF GRANIT staff Modern Maid Fashion Shoppe will close its doors next month, ending 53 years of the family-owned business that is known in part for its window displays and mannequin. When customers come into the Modern Maid Fashion Shoppe in Milltown, they look to owner Diane Starek Pietrefesa to find them a perfect match.

A dress, a hat or a sweater that fits both their tastes and their figures just right.

But Pietrefesa, who has worked in the shop for over 45 years, found her own match there.

“I met my husband here because of this store,” Pietrefesa said. “I used to see this person just walking by, driving by — we’d wave. In those days we didn’t speak to strangers. So eventually you’d have to see a person for a long period of time before you’d actually say ‘Good morning.’ ”

That “good morning” eventually came, and she and Pat Pietrefesa began to chat regularly.

“And then one day he stopped in and asked me to go out on a first date,” Pietrefesa said. “And we were married 43 years.”

Despite the many memories the store has brought her over more than half a century, Pietrefesa next month will close the shop, which has become a landmark in the borough.

“After 53 years, I just felt it was time to move on, do some other things,” she said. “Enjoy my home, enjoy the home at the Shore, and things I haven’t had time for in the past.”

Pietrefesa said she would like to spend time with her husband and son, Patrick, who lives in their Long Beach Island home.

“I’m not calling it retirement,” Pietrefesa said. “I really don’t want to call it retirement because it’s not that I want to do nothing. I do want to do something else. But first I want to do some relaxing.”

Pietrefesa’s mother, Mary Starek, was a seamstress who always wanted to open her own fashion shop. In 1952, Starek realized her dream and opened Modern Maid.

Pietrefesa was in high school at the time in Carteret, where she grew up.

After she married Pat, the two lived for two years in New Orleans, then moved to Franklin Park, when she went back to work in the shop.

The couple now lives in Cranbury.

Though she never lived in Milltown, Pietrefesa said its residents have made her feel as though she has always lived there.

“It’s my home away from home for so long,” she said. “But that’s the type of business. Everybody knew everybody. It was a very friendly atmosphere, and I’m going to miss that.”

Residents have come to enjoy the personal touch Pietrefesa offers her customers, but will also miss the presence of another sort of sales aid in the store. For years, the display window mannequin has been a fixture in the borough’s downtown.

Pietrefesa dresses the mannequin appropriately for each season, as well as for most major holidays.

Recently, a mother and daughter came in and offered to buy the mannequin. Pietrefesa did sell it to them, but asked why they would want a mannequin.

“And the mother said to me, ‘Well, we just want to keep it because it’s part of Milltown history,’” Pietrefesa said, adding that she intends to donate some items from the shop to the borough’s historical society.

Pietrefesa said she loves to dress the display window, and may continue such work. She has already received two offers to design other window displays.

Pietrefesa feels she has performed a service to the community in her time at the store. One customer, upon hearing the news of its impending closing, sent Pietrefesa flowers with a note thanking her for helping the woman always look her best.

“My customers are very sad that I’m leaving,” Pietrefesa said. “They just can’t believe it, and want me to change my mind. I can’t do that.”

Pietrefesa said she became familiar with her customers’ clothing preferences, and would alert them if a dress came in that she knew they would like.

“It’s a place that they can go to without going to the mall,” she said. “My customers don’t like the mall. They like to come here, and you know their taste after a certain period of time.”

Although the shop has been open for over five decades, Pietrefesa can revisit its early years any time she feels nostalgic. One of the store’s back closets serves as not only a storage unit, but a time capsule.

“If a dress didn’t get sold, [my mother] would put it in the back room of the closet that my father had made, and she just kept putting dresses back there from the ’50s,” Pietrefesa said. “In 1987, I remodeled the store, and I had to take everything out of the store for the carpenters, and when I opened those closets back there, they were filled with these 1950s dresses. I was overwhelmed.”

She sold some of them, but kept her favorites.

For the shop’s last month, Pietrefesa will put those dresses in the window display and dress the mannequin accordingly, and the store will finish its run with an homage to its early-1950s genesis.

Pietrefesa now knows what will become of the inventory and the beloved mannequin, but is deliberately unaware of the store’s future use.

“I’m not asking, because I really don’t want to know,” she said. “I’m sure the last days will be emotional for me.”

Pietrefesa said she has been asked why she isn’t selling the store. She responds that she never considered that option, wanting only to leave the Modern Maid name intact.

The last day of business is scheduled for April 30.

“Which to me sounds like I have about three days left,” Pietrefesa said, adding that everything in the store will be marked at a 50-percent discount for the final month.

Pietrefesa said she will miss the customers the most, and the unpredictability they brought to her life each day.

“It’s a very friendly atmosphere,” she said. “And just that door opening lots of times during the day, and just new faces coming in sometimes, or loyal customers from the past. It’s been a most enjoyable time, and I’ve enjoyed doing what I’ve done.”