Ask anyone outside the industry to picture a career in fashion wholesale and they’ll likely envision front-row runway seats and effortless glamour—and they wouldn’t be entirely wrong. But for Tanya Nachbar, the magic lives in the details. “When my daughter was little, someone asked her what her parents do for a living, and she said, ‘They sell boxes,’” Nachbar shares. “Which, fair, a lot of wholesale really is logistics, invoices, and shipments, but people imagine glamour. Mostly it’s not that.”

The Effortless Edit

For more than a decade, Nachbar and her husband, Ken, have run Bridge Showroom, a highly successful wholesale agency that introduces European brands to the U.S. market. After years of traveling the world, advising designers on fit, and watching collections perform across hundreds of stores, Nachbar felt the pull toward something more personal. In July 2025, she unveiled Sestra, her carefully curated retail space on upper Millburn Avenue.

Opening a brick-and-mortar boutique might seem bold, but for Nachbar, it was simply the next logical step. Living in town, she knew exactly what was missing from the local shopping scene. “We sit minutes from the Short Hills Mall, one of the best malls in the country, and that proximity is exactly the point,” she says. “Sestra is everything that the mall is not: curated instead of overwhelming; a relationship instead of a transaction; a place where the person helping you actually knows your name, your size, what you wore last time and loved.”

Sestra solves the daily puzzle of getting dressed. Aesthetics might get a customer through the door, but Nachbar is more interested in whether a garment works for three different occasions in a woman’s life or makes her feel confident on an off day. “Sometimes I strongly believe that not selling something is more important than selling it,” she says. “We only want our customers to carry the items from Sestra that they will wear, enjoy, and go back to time after time.”

European Sensibilities

Nachbar stocks the floor with European labels she has spent years nurturing, like Maison Hotel, Indi & Cold, and Summum. “What feels fresh about the European perspective right now is that these brands aren’t chasing trends,” Nachbar says. “They’re designing for a real woman with a real life—the woman who chooses better, has her own sense of style, and doesn’t need to be told what’s hot or trendy this season.”

Long before conscious consumption became a popular talking point, longevity was Nachbar’s baseline. She looks for brands that build a consistent design language rather than reacting to the internet’s mood board of the week. “I can pull a piece from Bitte Kai Rand from 2013 and wear it today and feel completely current,” she adds. “When something is built like that, it doesn’t become disposable—it becomes part of your story.”

Instinct Meets Inventory

Nachbar’s sharp perspective comes from an unexpected place. With an MBA, a stint in pharmaceuticals, and experience running international development projects under her belt, she treats retail like the business it actually is. “A lot of people in the fashion industry think with their eye first and numbers come second, if at all,” she shares. “I came in the other way around, and I think that’s exactly why Bridge works—and why Sestra does, too.”

While Nachbar constantly trains her eye by studying runways and stylists, she lets the data keep her grounded. “Every time I’ve assumed I know what a woman wants because it’s what I want, I’ve been wrong,” she says. “There’s a quote I love: ‘When your whole worldview becomes one point, you call it a point of view.’ How limiting is that? So I stay genuinely curious about the women who aren’t me, and I let the numbers, what’s actually selling, what’s coming back, what customers ask for, correct me when my taste gets too narrow. Instinct opens the door. Data tells you whether you walked through the right one.”

Connecting With Community

As Sestra celebrates its first anniversary, Nachbar is enjoying the community she has built right in her own backyard. She changes the boutique’s front windows every week, creating a visual dialogue with the women she sees at the local coffee shop or school drop-off.

While she has ambitions to eventually grow Sestra into a small chain, her current focus is on the women walking through her door today and the ones who haven’t quite made it inside yet. “A lot of people drive past Sestra every week and then tell me they’ve never actually come in,” she says. “If you’re one of those people, this is your sign. I promise I won’t try to sell you anything you don’t actually need—but I will probably try to convince you that you need a really good white shirt, because apparently that’s my m.o. Bring a friend, your sister, your daughter. We’ll probably end up laughing more than shopping, and honestly, that’s kind of the whole point.”

Photograph courtesy of Tanya Nachbar