Atlanta’s fashion and luxury retail community has been abuzz with the news of Jeffrey Kalinsky’s return to Buckhead, along with a variety of other upscale fashion destinations that are making Buckhead Village shine.
At 3070 Bolling Way NE, Jeffrey boutique opened on August 2. The native Charlestonian, designer, creative director, and fashion executive was originally inspired by his father, who owned a luxury shoe store. “He always carried designer footwear and designer handbags,” Kalinsky said about his father’s store.
After graduating from college, Kalinsky began working in fashion in New York before deciding to open his own store in 1990. “I just went for it,” he said. His first store opened in 1990 in Buckhead, followed by a store in New York’s Meatpacking District – one of the first fashion moguls to bring luxury retail to the area – and another in Palo Alto, CA. In 2005, Nordstrom bought a controlling interest in the brand and brought Kalinsky inside the corporate tent as a fashion director. That partnership ended in May 2020, when the retailer closed all three Jeffrey stores as the pandemic gutted luxury foot traffic. “The closing was out of my control,” Kalinsky noted. “I mean, obviously, it was not what I wanted, but it wasn’t my decision.”
It was a moment for Kalinsky to try something new, as he took a job as the chief creative officer and chief merchant at Theory and even dipped his toes into consulting. But during his hiatus, Kalinsky often asked himself, “What do I want to do? Do I want to lie on the beach, or do I want to work again? And if I work again, like what, what does that look like?”
That next step manifested in a return to Atlanta and a store in Buckhead Village. The newly minted location includes 3,000 square feet of retail space, with 1,000 square feet used as a styling lounge, and even has dedicated valet and on-site complimentary alterations. This time, the store is his. Kalinsky is operating independently — no corporate parent, no fashion-director title — and he chose the location before he chose anything else.
When asked why Buckhead Village, Kalinsky credited a Buckhead local. “I’ve gotten to know Buckhead Village because my friend Don Purcell opened a jewelry store there, and I’ve always frequented Le Colonial and Le Bilboquet, and the St. Regis is right there. It just seemed like the perfect location for a business like mine,” he said. Purcell actually served as GM at Jeffrey Stores USA Atlanta and New York locations for 25 years.
Jeffrey carries independent labels including Bergfabel, Sophie D’Hoore, Wommelsdorff, Christen, Dosa, and Dusan. And, of course, well-known luxury designers such as The Row, Celine, Phoebe Philo, Bottega Veneta, Gucci, and Tom Ford.
“With this opening in Buckhead Village, the Jeffrey brand comes full circle back to the Atlanta neighborhood where it first debuted,” said Michael Phillips, president of Jamestown, the Atlanta-based company that owns and manages Buckhead Village District. “Jeffrey is a long-time visionary in fashion who brings a fresh and discerning perspective to modern and classic style. He helped define Atlanta luxury retail once before, and we’re thrilled to have him write the next chapter of that story here in Buckhead Village.”
The Buckhead Village Boom
Kalinsky’s return to Atlanta is just one of many upscale debuts in the Buckhead Village District.
Read in sequence, the leases tell a story of momentum rather than a scatter of openings. Roche Bobois took the district’s largest ground-floor bay — 4,700 square feet fronting Peachtree Road — in the fall of 2025. January brought Maeve, Anthropologie’s in-house label in only its second standalone U.S. boutique, and Great Many, an 1,800-square-foot hair-growth studio in its first location outside its New York flagship. Hill House Home landed 2,200 square feet in early 2026; ME+EM, the British label favored by the Royal Family, took 2,170 square feet in May, the same month LoveShackFancy opened its 29th store in a 2,100-square-foot space built to look like a historic French townhouse. Bobbi Brown’s Jones Road Beauty opened 1,800 square feet on July 31, two days before Jeffrey unlocked its doors.
But that’s not all.
Three more luxury retailers – Roller Rabbit, Unsubscribed and TOM FORD Beauty – are slated to open. “We’re elevating Buckhead Village with brands that bring something truly distinctive to the Atlanta market,” said Adam Schwegman, Head of Retail Leasing at Jamestown. “These brands reinforce our commitment to creating a dynamic, walkable destination that offers our guests access to sought-after fashion, beauty, and lifestyle concepts they won’t find anywhere else in the city.”
Thirty-six years after he opened his first store, and six after a corporate parent closed the business that carried his name, Kalinsky is back where he started, working for himself again on a street where the man who ran his floor for 25 years now runs his own shop across the way. Unsubscribed opens at 3056 Bolling Way on August 12; Roller Rabbit follows. Whether the district’s run holds will be measured in renewals rather than ribbon-cuttings — but for now, the sign on Bolling Way reads the way it did in 1994.
