Valerie Touya, owner of Valerie Boutique, 217 East 83rd Street, standing beside her designs!

Valerie Touya opened Valerie Boutique at 217 East 83rd Street in February 2026.

Touya, who is originally from France, travels to Paris every month to find gems for the store, but her most special pieces - her own designs - are both very French, and very local.

“Here in New York,” she says, “my own brand, Milré, is made of silk and lace.” Those pieces are manufactured right here in the Garment District.

Here’s how Valerie’s unique Franco-American design and production process works:

Step 1: “We have a big lace company called Solstiss that is based in New York, where I can get some lace from Calais.” Valerie explains.

Step 2: “The silk is from Mood Fabrics, which is a very famous supplier.”

Step 3: “Our tailor is based on 37th Street. He has very strong expertise in sewing silk, in pattern making, even if we have our own patterns that are made in our workshop in France.”

Step 4: “We make small batch production, and we can define a special color or a special style for a customer.”

Already customers have come in with requests. “We have one skirt that was a little bit too short,” Valerie says, “so we added some centimeters of silk to make it perfectly for the customer. We can also change the color of the lace, if somebody wants a different hue.”

That spirit of customization and collaboration, working with each individual customer, is what Valerie enjoys most about running her shop. “It’s really the relationship,” Valerie says.

Because each customer is unique, she notes, “I am trying to get a lot of different styles and different shapes for every woman to feel good.”

Valerie says the neighborhood lends itself to the way she runs her shop. She notes that 83rd Street in particular, where her boutique is located, “has so much charm” that her boutique “could be a store in Paris, it’s so lovely.”

“I even tell people Bonjour instead of hello,” she adds, “because I feel like I’m in France.”

–

Say bonjour to Valerie at 217 East 83rd Street.

Listen to our full interview with Valerie Touya below!