Bringing Bond Street to the Bay

Bringing Bond Street to the Bay, we meet MAGGIE & SARAH

Maggie Dawson and her daughter Sarah Williams run Maggie & Co, a much-loved haven for luxury fashion brands that brings the elegance of Paris and London to Torquay.

Maggie Dawson’s life sounds wonderful; she spends lots of her time on fashion buying trips to London, Paris and Milan to bring back luxury designer collections to Maggie & Co in Torquay. is morning we are chatting from the comfort of two enormous and rather glamorous armchairs towards the back of the store. Maggie & Co is much bigger than it looks from the outside – a long, elegant space – perfect for the catwalk shows that are regularly held here.

I admire a stunning evening dress by Italian designer Sara Roka. Maggie tells me, “It’s a new brand for us – an experiment as the pieces are really quite dierent.”

We are now making a tour of the thirty-four collections that Maggie & Co currently stocks. We waft past pieces by Diane von Furstenberg, Marc Cain, Amina Rubinacci, Chiara Boni, Belsta, Burberry, Ralph Lauren, Moschino, Escada and many more. Maggie explains, “You have to stock global brands which sit along side each other before you are accepted as a stockist. e rst question we are always asked is ‘What are your other labels?’ For example, we only got Diane von Furstenberg because we had Armani at the time. We only got Burberry because we were stockists for Armani, Cerruti, Hugo Boss, and DKNY.”

I am wondering how they manage to attract enough customers to sustain sales of these exclusive, high value brands. Maggie tells me, “ere are a lot of wealthy people in Torbay and of course we have the marina with fabulous yachts that people use as their second (oating) home and others who own holiday homes in this lovely Bay.” Maggie & Co also has customers who come from far and wide purely to visit the store. One customer arrives by helicopter and is chaueur driven to the shop, leaving with a large number of the distinctive Maggie & Co shopping bags.

It’s Maggie’s 46th year in the business and she just loves Torquay. She tells me that she was born in Scotland in a village called Penicuik near Edinburgh but later moved to England. She left school at sixteen when she saw an advert seeking a position for a junior at a high class fashion shop Hammells and applied. Two candidates were given a trial period of one week and the shop’s sta were asked to choose, which girl would get the job. ey chose Maggie

and this was the start of a successful life in designer fashion. She tells me, “e manageress was quite erce but took me under her wing. She took me on buying trips to London and taught me everything I needed to know about the business including merchandising and display.” Both Maggie and Sarah are very fair with blue eyes and striking looks. is, no doubt, was the reason Maggie was selected at the tender age of 16, to be Hammell’s house model. She carried out the role for four years, appearing regularly in the shop’s weekly newspaper advertisement as well. She tells me, “Hammell’s was a very posh shop and in those days customers often wanted to see the clothes modelled before deciding whether to try them on.”

Before long Maggie met her rst husband Max, who came from Torquay and they went on to have two children Samantha and Sarah. Maggie tells me, “When Sarah was four years old - that’s when it all started.”

A friend took a unit at Pink & Blue, a newly opened fashion store run as concessions in Fleet Street. (His girlfriend had promised to run it but didn’t show up after the rst week so Maggie was asked to step in, taking over the tiny business after a few months. She sold ladies clothes from good brands like Katharine Hamnett, Antony Price (who dressed Roxy Music) and Gentlefolk Jeans. After a year, she was oered another shop, becoming established as Maggie at Peanuts (Peanuts sold menswear). It went well but then, as Maggie remembers

sadly, “ey knocked down a beautiful row of Victorian shops and created Fleet Walk – Maggie at Peanuts was a victim of that awful change.”

At the time, the Pavilion had been refurbished, so in 1987 she opened Maggie & Co there. After only 6 months she took the lease on the current premises on e Strand and ran both units until 1992. After this Maggie decided to keep e Strand premises and has been there ever since. She tells me, “My vision was to present Torquay in a similar way to Bond Street; we bought top brands from the start. We made it feel like Bond Street by oering really good service and making people feel special. As well as oering worldwide brands, we are careful to make sure no one chooses anything that doesn’t suit them perfectly. We’ve still got customers coming in from our earliest days.”

As if to prove this, a customer called Marilyn Tomlinson pops over and tells me that she has been visiting from South Wales 6 times a year for the last 34 years and loves the place.

ese days, daughter Sarah Williams is the face of Maggie & Co and Head Buyer with Maggie operating more ‘behind the scenes.’ Sarah started at the shop when she was 20, after gaining experience in London and Hong Kong, and has now been working here for 30 years.

Sarah tells me, “our success is all about trust; we price honestly and give good advice - customers can walk out

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Maggie & Co also has customers who come from far and wide purely to visit the store. One customer arrives by helicopter and is chaueur driven to the shop... “

with condence – that’s why Marilyn came back at 9am on the rst day of her Torquay visit.”

Often, Maggie & Co’s customers come in alone looking for ideas. Sarah says, “We are very diplomatic - it’s essential that customers look their best as they are a walking advertisement. We don’t sell clothes, we sell a whole lifestyle and this means we have 65% repeat business, which is very high.”

Many Maggie & Co customers travel all over the world but prefer the Torquay store’s shopping experience. Sarah provides a free and highly popular Personal Shopper service and often furnishes a client’s entire wardrobe. As well as a large local customer base, clients who live in Paris and London regularly shop here.

However there is no need to feel that the place is too exclusive to visit. Sarah tells me, “Everyone is treated the same. e secret of our success is that everyone is valued and feels important.”

Some 20 years ago a lady who is now aectionately referred to as “e Lady of the Lake” as she lives in Windermere, came in wearing somewhat scruy shorts, a t-shirt and trainers. After spending an hour trying things on she bought a simple t-shirt. She was welcomed and looked after like every other customer. Next day she came back to say that her earlier visit was a test and went on to spent £17,000.

Maggie tells me that her biggest achievement is that

they have raised over £100,000 for local charities since they opened, via fashion shows held at the Imperial, Palace or Grand hotels. ey attracted audiences of three hundred people at the evening shows and could raise over £7000 per night. ey also hold regular in-store fashion events. Customers love them and say they feel like a private party with champagne and goodie-bags, sometimes a rae to win an outt. ere’s a VIP list (which you can join) oering tickets a week before they are released to the general public.

After all these years, Maggie still loves Torquay and is thrilled that she came. She is married to Michael and loves gardening and visiting garden centres when not buying beautiful clothes. ey have two Yorkies called Archie and Bodie and enjoy dining out at No.7 Fish Bistro and e Elephant. She tells me, “I feel very privileged to be living in such a beautiful place. I loved it when I rst came and the excitement of living here has never left me.”

Sarah’s partner is Nick and her daughter is Chloe. ey also adore living in Torbay. She tells me that when people rst discover Maggie & Co they often exclaim “Gosh what a gem!”

Maggie & Co is another good reason to shop local right here in the Bay – who needs Paris, London and Milan?   maggieandco.co.uk