Every morning, before she unlocks the door to Saffron, Marianne Petrus calls her mom. It’s a sweet and traditional act.
But that’s the only thing traditional about Saffron.
Walk in and it's color and texture in every direction: bohemian, a little rock and roll, French jewelry beside handmade candles, a rack of things you won’t find down the street. "It's like an electric shock," she says. She built it that way on purpose. She wanted to appeal to a woman's sense of discovery, so she makes sure there's always something new on the floor: beautiful dresses, tees cut like nothing else on the rack, everyday pieces with a detail or a twist that takes them somewhere unexpected.
And appeal it does. Here’s what people say when they walk into Saffron: “This is my happy place." She hears it constantly, along with the other comment — “you're an artist” — which she shares with genuine bewilderment. “I am?” she wonders aloud. “I don’t know.”
Marianne’s path to Saffron ran through Wayne State, where she studied fashion design, shifted to merchandising, moved up the ranks to store manager of Anthropologie in Birmingham, and realized she wanted a store all her own.
Her father had a market in Detroit, made a living from it, sent his children to good schools. When she found herself in her thirties in what she calls limbo, it was his voice behind her: you have the experience, you know what to do.
She opened Saffron in the Washington Square Building in 2010, naming it for the spice that’s a staple in her mother’s kitchen. Saffron is also the most expensive spice in the world, because it’s harvested by hand and difficult to get.
That’s precisely Marianne’s buying philosophy at Saffron: one of a kind, handmade, and carefully curated.
"I want that one thing that speaks to me, that gives me that emotional connection,” she says. When something catches her at a showroom, specific customers’ faces often appear in her mind: Carolyn would love this. She’s been dressing some of these women for over a decade. "I'm changing too. But we're changing together, and we're still the same."
Saffron’s windows are worth slowing down for on Fourth Street. Marianne and a friend used to change them constantly, until it started to feel like a waste: all that work up for a month or so. Now the windows are seasonal. Summer’s bright and loud. Fall goes dark like her favorite fashionista, Stevie Nicks.
"I try to appeal to a girl that wants to be more free-spirited," she says. And freedom of spirit doesn’t have an age range: a mother and daughter can both find something at Saffron and leave looking nothing alike.
Marianne doesn't sell anyone anything; that's not her style. She'd rather read the room. So when someone new comes in, she lets them meander through the front first, because "it's a lot of beauty to take in at once."
Some women want help. Some want ten unbothered minutes among beautiful things. She can tell the difference, and she waits. Maybe Saffron isn't your style at all, she says, but maybe there's a soap or a candle you'll pick up on your way through. Or maybe you're one of the women who come in to outfit themselves before seeing a live show.
She knows the feeling from the other side of the counter. She was a teenager in the eighties when a cousin took her around New York, and in SoHo she found a two-piece outfit she wore until she wore it out. "I always loved finding that one thing," she says. "That's what I wanted Saffron to be.”
Ask what she'd save from a fire and she doesn't hesitate: the fur-and-shearling “Penny Lane” coat, the one from Almost Famous. Sixteen years of helping other women find the one thing, and she still has hers.
What would she be doing if Saffron didn't exist?
"I don't know. I would be so scared. I can't live without it. It’s my purpose.”
An artist would probably put it that way too. So would a rock star. Which may be why Saffron is a delightful combination of both — and why it’s so many other women’s happy place.
Saffron is at 308 W. Fourth Street in downtown Royal Oak, right near the Royal Oak Music Theatre. The shop carries handmade, one-of-a-kind women’s clothing, jewelry, accessories, candles, and gifts. For more info: (248) 565-3983 or @shopsaffron on Instagram.
"I always loved finding that one thing. That's what I wanted Saffron to be.”