Balliets marks 75 years

Founded by Edna and Fred Balliet in 1936, the store first opened downtown in the Skirvin Tower Hotel. It moved to 50 Penn Place in 1973 under the ownership of Leo “Buddy” Rodgers.

Bob Benham and his wife, DeDe, purchased the store in 1991. In summer 2010, they moved the store again, this time to the swanky Classen Curve shopping center near the Chesapeake Energy Corp. corporate campus.

Wherever the store went, fashionistas followed. There are current customers who have been shopping at Balliets since it was downtown. And buyer/sales associate Lolly Sweeney, 86, has worked for the store since she was a teenager.

“We had all the big names,” Sweeney reminisced. “I've always loved clothes, so I'm right in the middle of beautiful clothes and accessories.”

The transformation to Classen Curve was a big risk and a balancing act of maintaining the longtime, mature customers while developing a younger generation of shoppers, Benham said. The store added a contemporary department with lower prices and trendier clothes, such as designer denim. And the logo was redesigned, dropping the apostrophe in the store's name, signifying a progression from the store Mrs. Balliet founded, he said.

“We're really a specialty department store now. We're not a boutique,” Benham said.

With Whole Foods Market opening soon across the street, as well as Anthropologie, a women's clothing retailer, Benham's daughter, Lisa Shinn, said she looks forward to the increased traffic more development will bring. She had a big part in persuading her dad to move to Classen Curve.

“I feel like we are in our future in this store,” she said.

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