There are many members of the LGBTQ community in Miami Beach who would love to claim this title for themselves but there was, and will always be, only one Queen of Lincoln Road.

The diminutive IRENE WILLIAMS cut quite a figure for about 40 years wearing her home designed and made outfits in an array of shocking bright colors.  Every day she made the short walk the length of Lincoln Road, the Beach’s fashionable shopping street, from her apartment at Michigan Avenue to her office where she had a healthy business as a stenographer in those pre-computer days.

She loved being noticed and one of her fans who very quickly became a very fast friend was Eric Smith a New York designer who was visiting in the winter.  It was the 1980’s and for the next 2 decades until she died in 2004 the pair of them had the most unlikely close friendship.

This is  very evident in the short documentary that Smith made that not only captured Irene in her full bloom but showed the extraordinary bond the two of them developed.

Irene Williams was an eccentric genius with a real zest for life and an infectious good humor that seems too rare this days.  Kudos to Smith for capturing the true essence of this remarkable woman that we so wished we had been able to meet in person.