Hem & Her Bridal, at 4004 N. Stone Ave., will close its doors for good at the end of business May 31.
The shop has 600 wedding gowns and 5,000 tuxedoes and quinceañera dresses to sell. All wedding gowns and quinceañera dresses are marked down to $300, to clear inventory. Accessories are being sold at half-price. Tuxedos aren’t on sale yet but will be marked down to $129 apiece during the last week of May.
The shop was opened in 2000 in a renovated 1920s farmhouse by Joyce Feickert and her husband, Marvin Kirchler. “We take pride in the fact that we’re not in a strip center and bought our land,” Kirchler said.
“I’m Hem and she’s Her,” he said of the business name.
Closing this chapter of her life is bittersweet for Feickert, who previously owned A Tailor Tuxedo and Bridal on North Campbell Avenue, north of Grant Road. “I feel sad,” she said. “I’m going to miss everybody in Tucson, all of my loyal customers.”
People are also reading…
Feickert started out small, just offering tailoring services, before expanding into tuxedo rentals and dress sales. In the early 1980s, one of the biggest jobs was narrowing the lapels on suits that men wore in the 1970s so they could continue to wear them into the next decade, she remembers.
She has seen Tucson’s families grow up over the years. “I would do a little girl’s dress and now they come in because they’re getting married,” she said. “It floors me to see them growing up. Generation after generation, I’ve seen this town grow up.”
Hem & Her also worked with interns from the Art Institute of Tucson who wanted to learn about fashion design and marketing. Its program coordinator, Elizabeth Heuisler, said she’s sad to see businesses like this close because they’re the ones who help the students in all aspects of the industry — from visual merchandising to alterations and fashion design.
But the tailoring end of the business isn’t the same as in years past, when customers would buy a suit and wear it for 20 years, Feickert said. “I used to tailor for a lot of older people that have passed away. And the economy isn’t where people have their stuff tailored anymore. It’s a throwaway economy,” she said.
Hem & Her had enough repeat business to press on. But Kirchler was offered a job in Phoenix he couldn’t pass up, and his wife is ready to move on after more than 30 years in business. She wants to teach others how to sew. “They don’t even have home economics in school anymore,” she said.
She said she has known since January that she was going to close the shop, but “I waited till I could get all my promises fulfilled.”
“Tucson has been good to me,” she added.
