Katy's Boutique closing after 50 years in downtown Glen Ellyn

Fitting rooms.

Cue the cringe, right? You sneak inside, bolt the lock and pray no pesky saleswoman starts asking about sizes from behind the door.

But at Katy's Boutique in Glen Ellyn, the fitting rooms are cozy and a sanctuary, with a soft glow from chandeliers on the ceiling and a sofa just outside. And that's exactly where you'd find owner Katy Balabinis.

"She would often be sitting there with a customer having coffee and cookies and talking to them," said Joann Hillebrand, a former Katy's regular turned employee. "She got to know their children, their lives."

Since 1965, Balabinis has helped women find prom dresses and gowns, labels from New York and Europe and confidence.

"If it didn't look good on you, she didn't want you to buy it," Hillebrand said. "It was always the best publicity Katy's had was for you to leave the store looking good in her clothes."

Balabinis has decided to retire and close her Main Street shop after 50 years in downtown Glen Ellyn. In March, she was diagnosed with her third bout with cancer, and Balabinis hopes to attend the start of a closing sale Thursday in between chemo treatments.

Balabinis, 74, treats it less as an exit and more as a celebration. Roughly 5,000 letters have been mailed to customers inviting them to the boutique.

"I love my clients. They love me. I cannot tell you," Balabinis said. "I'm sad that I'm closing, but I'm not going to lose contact with them. They're going to continue to be my friends."

In an era of online and big box competition, Balabinis has managed to foster the kind of loyalty that has three generations of women shopping at her store.

The first time one Katy's shopper, now a junior in college, walked through the doors was as a newborn during a blizzard.

"They thought I had to see her," Balabinis said of the girl's mom and grandma, also customers, who arrived with the bundled baby.

The boutique plans to hold a competition with points awarded for certain purchases or for coming to the celebration with the family, among other criteria. Prizes will be announced by Aug. 15 or sooner. Then the shop will close, ending a career in fashion that began with Balabinis arriving in the states from Greece at 19 years old.

Her mom sent her packing for what was supposed to be a brief visit with her sister in the suburbs.

"I'll see you in 40 days," Balabinis remembered her saying.

Instead, Balabinis, who already studied dress making under a fashion designer who catered to the Greek elite, decided to hone her craft. She learned English and attended the Ray-Vogue College of Design in Chicago.

In 1965, she opened a boutique of her own designs in Glen Ellyn and later added other labels, too. She would go on to start her own line - Katerina Ltd. - that sold in department stores and a New York showroom.

That business closed when she was first diagnosed with breast cancer in the early 1990s.

But she kept the boutique open, what she calls a "second home." She kept the basics, but "always searched for something different." And she offered in-house alterations and insisted that new employees be skilled tailors.

Her staff of six, including a seamstress, already is planning regular reunions.

"Yes it was a job," said Hillebrand, whose daughter designs the window displays. "We are employees, but we are like a family."