Havaana & Co. Signs Lease for Modest Streetwear Shop at Uptown Row

A new kind of streetwear

Uptown's retail mix is gaining a boutique that does not fit the old mold. Havaana & Co., which specializes in hijabs and dresses, has signed a lease at the Uptown Row development at 1221 West Lake Street, framing modest fashion as streetwear with a point of view — a category that speaks directly to a clientele the corridor's traditional shops have often overlooked.

The signing was announced by the property's owners, who called the boutique a new and exciting addition to the building. For a development trying to lease up its ground floor, a distinctive tenant with a clear identity is exactly the kind of anchor that draws shoppers.

Reflecting who shops here

A modest-fashion boutique on this corridor is more than a niche retail bet; it is a recognition of who actually lives and shops in the surrounding neighborhoods. The Lake Street area is home to large, diverse communities, including many Muslim residents, and a shop built around hijabs and modest dresses meets a real demand that mainstream retailers rarely serve well.

Framing that offering as streetwear, rather than as something apart from fashion, is itself a statement. It positions modest dress as current, stylish and mainstream — part of the corridor's broader retail conversation rather than a specialty tucked away from it. That framing can broaden the shop's appeal while affirming the identity of the customers it centers.

Modest fashion is fashion. We're not a niche off to the side — we're part of the street.— the positioning behind Havaana & Co.

A tenant for a new building

Havaana & Co.'s home at Uptown Row reflects the model planners hope will define the corridor's future: new mixed-use buildings with active, leased ground floors. A development is only as lively as its street level, and filling it with a distinctive, community-relevant boutique does more for the block than a generic chain would. Each such lease is a small proof that new construction can attract tenants with genuine local resonance.

For the corridor, that pairing — a new building and a culturally specific independent shop — is close to ideal. It adds density and street-level vitality at once, and it signals that Lake Street's diversity is an asset developers can build around rather than overlook.