5 alive: Old Town Trader Celebrates Setting Up Shop
CHRIS CONNELLEY
Opening a new retail business is always challenging, but doing so today, in an age of online dominance, never having run one before and with only a basic handle on social media, is a brave gamble indeed.
Owner Nicola Amies outside Sea Whistle
Yet that’s what Nicola Amies did in February 2019 when she opened Sea Whistle, a children’s shop selling shoes, books, clothes and wooden toys on Courthouse Street in the Old Town, fulfilling a lifetime dream to be her own boss and share her love of good design.
Five years on, she’s still there, having survived the pandemic, four lockdowns and the cost-of-living crisis. She’s even managed to expand her business, scaling up from renting half the shop to take on all of it, before finally going the whole hog and buying it in 2023.
Nicola had wanted to design and make her own children’s clothes from her school days, but was persuaded to opt for a safer career path, training as a teacher and spending over three decades in early years’ education instead.The trigger for her new career came in 2019, when she designed a range of children’s clothes that sold at a limited range of outlets, including Charleston at Lewes and the Pop Up Emporium, a creative fair here in Hastings.
“A throwaway comment, ‘You should think about opening a shop’, got me thinking; then I began to literally pull a plan together on the back of an envelope,” she said.
“The shop ethos was to be sustainable and ethical and fill a gap in the market for a more personal shopping experience. “I also knew that I wanted to sell children’s shoes and that I wanted to fit them properly, so I enrolled on a six-month training with The Society of Shoe Fitters.”
This £5k training was a wise investment that keeps professional shoe fitting alive on the high street now that brands like Clarks have largely disappeared.
And it is no surprise that her bestselling line is the footwear-related cult brand, Barefoot shoes, which come with flexible soles and wide toes, and are “the way to go for comfort, improved balance and healthier feet.”
“It has been the greatest privilege to serve so many wonderful loyal customers over the past five years and to see so many young children grow up with the shop. I have the best job ever and here’s to the next five years.”
Happy Birthday, Sea Whistle. A career change business with attitude that has had a baptism of fire and survived, and proof that you should never give up on your dreams.
Sea Whistle is at 23a Courthouse Street, Hastings TN34 3AU
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