By James Hanlon
Leader Staff Writer
Just in time for proms and June weddings, a tux shop popped up in Downtown Oxford last week. It’s tucked inside Suite B of 18 N. Washington St. Although it is accessible from the main street, the main entrance is from the parking lot behind the historic building block, next to GravCap Brewing.
The woman behind the new business is Dawn Dowless, a former Oxford resident who now lives in Columbiaville. “This is a very central location, I’ve always loved this location,” she said. “People walk around, you have all the breweries, all the restaurants that are available here. They’re going to start doing the concerts in the park. A lot of good things starting to come back up and we really want to be involved with Oxford as well.”
The shop provides suit pants, coats, shirts and shoes. They offer personal fitting, minor tailoring and consultations. Tuxedo rentals start at $99. “Elegant, formal, we want to have a little bit of fun, we can set you up with fun. So, all different assortments of suits, suit rentals, and suit purchases is our main focus.”
Dowless was a manager for Main Street Tuxedo in Rochester, before it closed last year. She has organized fashion shows from large-scale events in Detroit to a tiny show in a soccer field. “I just wanted to,” she said about starting the business, “because this is something that I love to do. I love to make sure not only the brides are happy, but grooms have to be happy as well for their special day. So this is something that I wanted to do just for me and anybody who wanted to be put in a suit/tuxedo.”
There are no dresses, but Dowless will offer a suitcoat option for women, too, if they are interested. “A lot of times with women, we like to do tails. Suit jackets, tuxedo jackets, are something that women should be able to wear as well.”
Acknowledging different communities and gender identities, she wants to open up tuxedos as on option for all people. “It’s not only a man that wears a suit.”
The tailed suitcoat will be “long enough that it’s beautiful, it’s elegant, and she can go out, she can have dinner and doesn’t have to worry about it. It will be basically like wearing a dress, except it’s a tuxedo.”
Coming up, she’s planning to have live models show off the shop’s tuxedos during downtown’s Ladies’ Weekend June 4 and 5. “My plan is to just say, hey Oxford, we can do this locally. You don’t need to go to the mall, you don’t need to drive all the way out to Flint. We want to do it here. We want to keep everything local.”
Back Alley Tuxedo is open Tuesday to Saturday, 11a.m. to 7p.m.