Dressing For Success Stefanie Lyon’s La Jolla shop features Nicole Miller designs

Stefanie Lyon at age 27 already has the career of her dreams. She owns and manages a high fashion retail shop on Prospect Street in La Jolla that features mainly night, career and sportswear by New York-based designer Nicole Miller.

Lyon discovered Nicole Miller, credited with the modern day version of “the little black dress,” while she was a high school student in Carmel. She bought her first Nicole Miller design, a prom dress, while visiting in Boston. Soon after that a Nicole Miller shop opened in Carmel.

Lyon attended St. Mary’s College in Moraga, Calif., on a tennis scholarship. After college, where she studied anthropology and archeology, she returned to Carmel and took a job as the buyer and manager of the Miller outlet there. Six months or so later, when she was 24, she and her husband started their corporation, Stef & KC Inc., and opened their La Jolla store. Her husband is director of training at a Del Mar gym, as well as her partner in the clothing store.

She says she has liked the Nicole Miller style of clothing ever since she discovered it, adding, “and I like the ethics of Nicole Miller, too.”