Waikato Business News April/May 2021
Waikato Business News has for a quarter of a century been the voice of the region’s business community, a business community with a very real commitment to innovation and an ethos of co-operation.
Waikato Business News has for a quarter of a century been the voice of the region’s business community, a business community with a very real commitment to innovation and an ethos of co-operation.
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WAIKATO BUSINESS NEWS <strong>April</strong>/<strong>May</strong> <strong>2021</strong><br />
11<br />
Vicki Dromgool with a Consew 230, still working<br />
perfectly decades after it was first acquired.<br />
flying out at 7am the next<br />
morning. Margaret was in bed,<br />
but told the woman she was<br />
welcome to pop around, pick<br />
up the key, head into town for<br />
the uniforms and return the<br />
key once she was done.<br />
And there was one man, a<br />
regular customer, who turned<br />
up at closing time on a Friday<br />
night to collect trousers that<br />
had been altered for him.<br />
“He picked his trousers<br />
up and away he went, and I<br />
picked up my briefcase and<br />
away I went and locked the<br />
grille downstairs. I got a<br />
phone call about half an hour<br />
later, and they said there was a<br />
man on the premises climbing<br />
up on the inside of the grille.<br />
‘You’d better come in because<br />
we can't get him out.’”<br />
It turned out the man had<br />
gone to the toilet on his way<br />
out, delaying him long enough<br />
that he was locked in, with<br />
no way of phoning anyone.<br />
In desperation he decided to<br />
scale the grille gate to try to<br />
get through a gap at the top,<br />
but got stuck while a crowd<br />
gathered outside.<br />
To rub salt in the wound,<br />
he ripped his trousers. Margaret<br />
mended them at no charge,<br />
and he remained a very good<br />
customer.<br />
“He took it in good part,”<br />
says Margaret of his ordeal.<br />
“He laughed.”<br />
In 1994, Margaret sold up<br />
and was finally able to take<br />
longer holidays without<br />
constantly having the business<br />
on her mind. The name stayed,<br />
however, and on <strong>May</strong> 9 this<br />
year Margaret Wallace Clothing<br />
Alterations marks 50 years<br />
in the city, on the same floor of<br />
the same building it started in.<br />
It does so under the ownership<br />
of Vicki Dromgool, who was<br />
an employee of Margaret’s<br />
when she sold and continued<br />
under Correna Kirby’s tenure<br />
before buying the business<br />
herself in 1999.<br />
The early ownership years<br />
were tough for Vicki, who<br />
inherited younger staff lacking<br />
experience, and she was<br />
busy. Things improved when<br />
she employed three “really<br />
good” staff members, Gail,<br />
Julie and Carol. Gail became<br />
Vicki’s mainstay, an “excellent<br />
seamstress”.<br />
Times have changed,<br />
clothing has got cheaper after<br />
import licences were removed<br />
in 1992, and the standard of<br />
tailoring is not what it was.<br />
On a sunny afternoon at Margaret’s<br />
beautifully kept Hamilton<br />
home, the two women<br />
swap notes.<br />
“Do you remember Thornton<br />
Hall?” Vicki asks. Margaret<br />
does indeed remember the<br />
New Zealand fashion label,<br />
which closed in 1997.<br />
“They were the most<br />
beautifully tailored clothes,”<br />
Vicki says. “They were<br />
lovely to work on but they<br />
were intricate. Whereas now<br />
you don't find stuff like that.<br />
We do quicker jobs now,<br />
because clothes are made so<br />
differently.<br />
“You can sew down a<br />
side seam right through the<br />
hem now. That's acceptable<br />
whereas you wouldn't be able<br />
to in those days."<br />
“Oh no,” Margaret agrees.<br />
“To put a zip in a pair of jeans<br />
now you could just about go to<br />
the Warehouse and buy a new<br />
pair,” she says.<br />
Vicki makes the point that<br />
at the other end of the scale a<br />
pair of jeans could cost $600.<br />
“Those are the things that I<br />
find that I'm doing, new zips<br />
in jeans that are expensive,<br />
new zips in suit trousers to<br />
keep them going.”<br />
They also remember staff.<br />
“The thing I realised is it's<br />
not only me that put me where<br />
I am. It was having good staff<br />
and we all worked as a team<br />
together,” Margaret says.<br />
Sadly, there have been bad<br />
experiences.<br />
The thing I realised is<br />
it's not only me that<br />
put me where I am. It<br />
was having good staff<br />
and we all worked as<br />
a team together.<br />
Both Margaret and Vicki<br />
have had staff steal from<br />
them. Margaret was also burgled<br />
five times, while Vicki<br />
remembers turning up at work<br />
one morning, when working<br />
for Correna, to discover the<br />
shop had been raided, with<br />
the burglars making their<br />
getaway by using cushion<br />
piping to lower themselves<br />
from the roof. The early Bernina<br />
is no longer in use, but<br />
other machines from Margaret’s<br />
time still are, including a<br />
blind hemmer, an overlocker<br />
and three plain sewers. However,<br />
they will soon be used<br />
elsewhere; on August 1, just<br />
over 50 years after opening<br />
for business, Margaret Wallace<br />
Clothing Alterations will<br />
end as Vicki follows Margaret’s<br />
footsteps and makes the<br />
most of her retirement.<br />
She has spanned more than<br />
30 years with the company, as<br />
employee and owner. And she<br />
has seen changes, not only to<br />
fashion but to the street.<br />
“Ward Street has changed<br />
in that time. It used to be the<br />
busiest little hub in Hamilton,”<br />
she says.<br />
Margaret, meanwhile, has<br />
outlived many of her former<br />
customers. One thing stays the<br />
same, however. “Even now, if<br />
I go to a funeral, I can pick a<br />
bad suit fitting,” she says.<br />
From left: Susan Rowlands, Vicki, Margaret, Jackie Gough and<br />
Jacqui Brown with Helen Sisson, front, wearing Lions jerseys<br />
after they added numbers to them for the touring team.<br />
Commercial Property<br />
Management & Valuations<br />
At Bayleys, we believe relationships are what businesses are built on and how they succeed.<br />
We understand that to maximise the return on your property you need:<br />
Professional property management<br />
Expert valuation advice<br />
A business partner that understands your views and goals<br />
Mike Gascoigne<br />
Branch Manager<br />
P 07 834 6690 M 027 430 8311<br />
mike.gascoigne@bayleys.co.nz<br />
Curtis Bones<br />
Senior Commercial Property Manager<br />
P 07 834 3826 M 027 231 3401<br />
curtis.bones@bayleys.co.nz<br />
James Harvey<br />
Commercial Facilities Manager<br />
P 07 839 0700 M 027 425 4231<br />
james.harvey@bayleys.co.nz<br />
Matt Straka<br />
Registered Valuer<br />
P 07 834 3232 M 021 112 4778<br />
matt.straka@bayleys.co.nz<br />
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