The story of Fabulous

Fabulous St Ives was started 17 years ago in a tiny little fishermans cottage on Fore Street, back then it was called “Fabulous kids”. From a young age I’d always wanted a shop. As a little girl I loved playing shops at home and used to borrow my sisters clothes. My dad called me “second hand Sarah” which made everyone laugh.

I am a people person and enjoy socialising, so turning my dream into a business came more natural to me than I thought it would. My first career was teaching, and then I had children so I fancied a change. I wanted to do something that was for me, something flexible that could work around my kids.  

I’ve always loved shopping and when my kids were little I use to buy clothes for them from JoJo Maman Bebe and Great little trading company and I thought to myself.. “Do you know what I can do this! I’ll get a premises and stock it with unique products, a bit different from the norm that St Ives doesn’t currently have”. From that, I created a mood board. I started to pull out products that I loved, giftware, toys for kids and brands I wanted to sell.

We then came across the little shop In St Ives, borrowed from the bank (you could back then!) and “Fabulous kids” was born!

We started off with just toys and kidswear, I found lots of different quirky brands including the Cornish company Frugi, I've actually stocked Frugi since they started and I love them!   I wanted a shop that focused on quality products that people loved, most importantly products that weren't “everywhere”. A few years later the stock room in our little shop was bursting at the seams, customer pushchairs filled the shop space downstairs so we decided it might be a good time to expand!

We branched out into a larger shop, with bigger toys and more gifts and found brands like Rice ,Le Toy Van & Moulin Roty.   As the shop grew we decided to cater for mums by selling clothing & accessories, including brands like Estella Bartlett, Katie Loxton and lots of Cornish makers. We also found some local ones from St Ives including Marlo, Frose studio and wild origin. Suddenly we had more variety of products to offer to our customers and renamed the shop Fabulous! We spent 16 years on the main shopping street in Fore Street and then two years ago decided to move to St Andrews Street.

The location is great and is a little bit more chilled than the main stretch which creates more of a bespoke shopping experience. Fabulous St Ives has lots of unique products, a great local following and lots of customers who order via Facebook & Instagram. We are currently in the process of updating our website with our best selling gifts, which will soon include a new well-being range! Follow us on Facebook & Instagram for all the latest products and offers including regular Facebook live events which are a lot of fun!