Wanna work at Maggie's Farm?

Even Dylan might have wanted to work at this Maggie’s Farm. Although his lack of customer banter would have fared badly compared with the friendly team at the Dunfermline fashion store.  Named after the Dylan song, the shop was opened by Laurissa Drysdale in December 2012.

Conversational skills have helped in social media as well. In just over a year she has 8,000 followers on the Dunfermline Facebook page and, as she points out, it’s taken her over three years to acquire the same following for her Dundee store. Her style of posting customer, staff and friends outfits, clothes and make up is now being copied by other retailers. Photos on facebook and twitter of stock arriving in store result in customers reserving items before they even hit the shop floor.

With only enough money to pay two months rent Laurissa, then 23, signed a three-year lease on her Dundee shop. At the time her mother was worried about her giving up her job as a style adviser with Top Shop in Edinburgh and Laurissa herself admits she learnt a lot from her mistakes at her first shop. 

It’s paid off in Dunfermline; ‘the shop is really busy even during January and I didn’t need to do a Boxing Day sale’. However, the location of the shop was carefully considered – Laurissa looked at neighbouring towns such as Kirkcaldy and Glenrothes but felt there was more investment in Dunfermline. ‘And the presence of high street chains such as Starbucks and Primark shows confidence in the market.’

Laurissa added a beauty salon and hairdressers at the back of the store, completing the ‘getting ready to go out at the weekend experience’. Two hairdressers, Denise Sharp who has worked on London Fashion Week while she was with the London salon Rush and Megan Davies who used to be at Charlie Miller in Edinburgh, are both busy at the New Row store. Stacey Whittaker, a make up artist who also works for Colours in Edinburgh and has been published in Vogue, provides a full make up including false eyelashes for £25.

So what’s next for the fashion business graduate? – Laurissa got a First from Heriot Watt University – ‘I’m building a website so that I can sell online as well and I’m hoping to launch the website in April 2014.’