Kelly Sopel opening Chicago boutique

HTT Staff -- Home Textiles Today, 7/8/2011 2:53:48 PM

Hinsdale, Ill. - Kelly Sopel - wife of NHL Stanley Cup champ Brent, a player for the Chicago Blackhawks - plans to grand open a luxury home shop later this summer in this upscale Chicago suburb, home to the state's wealthiest 1%.

The business soft-opened in May but will officially grand open in late July or early August.

"Business so far it has been great. We're busier every day," Sopel told HTT.

Sopel started working with was a seamstress about five years ago when she first began selling custom decorative pillows made from her ample collection of current and vintage designer scarves.

"I did this for my own home. I would take my vintage Louis Vuittons or any of my scarves - I must have 300 to 400 in my collection - and I'd make them into decorative pillows or I'd fame them and hang them in my house instead of art. They were the art on the walls," Sopel explained.

Now, with a 500-square-foot, three-room store, which she compared in look and feel "to a Parisian apartment," she is offering both finished and custom-made designer scarf decorative pillows. Her line currently numbers somewhere between 50 to 100 styles, she said, and includes a separate collection of her favorite kind of throws - cashmere.

Guests invited to the exclusive grand-opening event later this summer will get a preview of the new furniture line and the private label program, which will include dec pillows, throws and a candle collection.

A revamped e-commerce website - www.simpleprivileges.com - is also in the works and expected to be up and running by this fall.