Fashion Notes: Norfolk style maven, boutique owner dies

NORFOLK

Shirley Woolfit, known around Norfolk for her eclectic taste, hats and boutique, died unexpectedly Thursday morning, her husband, Robert, said today.

She was trained by Rose Cory, world-renowned milliner to celebrities and the late Queen Mother. In 2008, she took over the former Melange boutique on Shirley Avenue in Ghent and renamed it eclectique Melange. It offered her signature hats and shoes and accessories plucked from around the world. The boutique later expanded to offer apparel, but closed in January. A scaled-down incarnation of it recently opened as Melange inside Mystic Mermaid on 21st Street. On Tuesday, she and the shop's revival were among the subjects of this writer's Between the Seams style column.

Woolfit was 63. Funeral arrangements are pending, Robert Woolfit said, but she will be buried in Indiana, where she has family.