Veteran Melbourne retailer Clegs Fabrics keeps kicking on in Brunswick
It’s been 90 years, but well-known Melbourne fabric store Clegs is still standing — even if it is in a literal pile of rubble.
Amid Lygon Street’s apartment boom, the Brunswick store has found itself surrounded by jackhammers and mounds of gravel from construction works for the five-storey apartment building going up next door.
And the devastating disruption to business has Clegs’ owner Ken Maxwell hanging on by a thread.
The 79-year-old has put all his efforts — and his superannuation — into keeping the business alive after shutters were pulled on his city store in 2015.
But since the end of January, sewerage works have cordoned off his entire shop frontage, with many customers assuming the store had shut up shop.
“We’re massively down because of that, probably like 60 or 70 per cent down,” Mr Maxwell said. “We’re trying hard to hang on, but the bank overdraft’s running out.”
The building next door to Clegs, which is being turned into apartments. Photo: Pat Scala
Mr Maxwell is seeking legal advice on compensation for loss of sales, but it is unclear which authority is to blame. Yarra Valley Water and the developer say they do not have control over how and when such work is administered, Moreland City Council did not respond to requests for comment.
Keeping Clegs alive is a labour of love for the grandfather, who started in the stock room at 14. Told by his mother he didn’t have to return to school in rural Victoria if he found a job in the city, a chance stroll past a “shop boy wanted” sign set his life on a course that would eventually see him take over the business from the family of Cleg Jones in the ’90s.
That was the golden age for Clegs, as business boomed at the massive Elizabeth Street store. But as rents increased and some of the shop’s frontage was lost, sales started to head south and Mr Maxwell began to regret signing a long lease.
“It was either a matter of go broke … or sell the lease — so we sold a surrender for the lease to Woolworths and paid off all our creditors,” he said.
The old Clegs shop in Elizabeth Street which closed down in 2015. Photo: Supplied
Taking operations back to the long-held lease in Brunswick, Mr Maxwell hoped fortunes could be turned around. And the loyal clientele found him, with interstate customers specifically travelling out to Brunswick on their trips to Melbourne. The traditional European clientele of Brunswick stayed true, while a new wave of modest dressmakers became faithful patrons.
But in the age of fast-fashion, demand for fabric isn’t what it once was.
Change is clear in Brunswick too, a neighbourhood now unrecognisable from when Clegs opened its doors during the mid-’70s. Store manager Christine Hill said when she started in 2001, there wasn’t a coffee shop in sight on Lygon Street. Today there are at least three within 200 metres of Clegs.
Apartments towers have sprung up and younger people have moved in, bringing with them a lively new atmosphere to the old industrial strip.
And with the change all around him, Mr Maxwell hopes the next generation’s dynamism and creative passion will breathe new life into Clegs.
“That was the idea of coming here,” he said. “It’ll come good, I’m sure of it.”
[An earlier version of this article incorrectly described Yarra Valley Water as a subcontractor]
