How Pia and Jeff went BANG!
They were a Celtic Tiger poster couple: the model and the couturier who had it all. So how they end up in the High Court last week trying to save their family home from the banks?
DURING the Celtic Tiger years, Ireland’s cleverest and canniest flew high, lived fast and spent big. And while fashion/ interior designer Pia Bang might have been born in Denmark, she was, along with her model-turnedrestaurateur husband Jeff Stokes, one half of the original poster couple for those heady, hedonistic years. Their sons, restaurateur twins Simon and Christian Stokes, were the brains behind some of the social set’s favourite hotspots, among them private member’s club Residence and Bang. At one point, membership fees for Residence ran at €1,600 a year, and there was no shortage of glamorous Dublin denizens willing to pay them. Merrion Row restaurant Bang, meanwhile — launched when the brothers were 24 — was the acme of cool.
Just down the road, Pia’s eponymous store was one of the gilded jewels in Grafton Street’s crown, her tasteful minimalist designs making her a leading light in Irish interiors.
And for a while, the Stokes’ dynasty seemed as unbreakable as it was glamorous. Legend followed them wherever they went: rumours abounded that Christian — an ex-boyfriend of Christine Bleakley — once bought a Ferrari previously owned by David Beckham.
Jeff’s own restaurant, Unicorn on Merrion Row, established in 1938, was a sort of Ground Zero for the smart set during this golden age. The family mingled with regular patrons like Bono, Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Jeremy Irons and Liam Neeson. In terms of youth, charm and glamour, the family was in a league of its own.
Indeed, some stars shone brighter than others during the boom times, and for them, the bust brought them crashing back to earth. The country is packed with cautionary tales of Celtic Tiger excesses. Yet few could have foreseen an instance where the dashing restaurant owner and the aspirational designer would find themselves embroiled in a High Court battle to keep their home.
The Irish restaurant business — in Dublin in particular — is a fickle, cruel mistress. It always has been. But what happened to brand Pia Bang? How did such a timeless, esteemed fashion heavyweight fall from such dizzying heights?
This was, after all, a woman whose business survived since the 1960s with its reputation for innovation intact.
Bang’s interest in fashion reportedly started when she was a youngster in Denmark. Her mother was a dressmaker and, while still at secondary school, Pia herself elected to take an evening class in dress design. At 14, she won a sewing machine in a competition, and a love of crafting and design was born. ‘Handicrafts such as knitting and sewing were very big in Denmark. I used to make all my own doll’s clothes,’ she told a Sunday newspaper in 2004.
The family moved to Ireland when she was 17 and Bang attended secondary school at Alexandra College, Dublin for a year. ‘There was no school uniform and I didn’t know anyone so every weekend I used to scour the shops looking for scraps of fabric to make my own clothes. I got lots of things from Denmark too that were different.’
Friends who wanted to be as stylish got her to make clothes for them too. ‘I was different I suppose.’
Once she left school at 19, Bang approached a bank for a loan with the idea of opening her own business. When the bank refused, she sought help from her family.
‘I borrowed the money from my father,’ she is quoted as saying. ‘It was £400 but I paid him back within a year.’
Bang’s modus operandi was simple, yet frightfully effective. Channeling the vibrant and dynamic energy of London’s Mary Quant and Biba brands, Bang initially opened a small shop on Dublin’s Pembroke Street in 1966. She paid herself a reported £5 a week, and charged £8 for handmade dresses and £3 for shirts.
Back then, she recalls, ‘There was just me and Richard Lewis. I got trendy monochrome fabrics from Denmark. In today’s climate, opening up a fashion shop is not as easy unless you want to do children’s clothes or interiors.’
After a year, Bang moved the business to Johnstone’s Court, off Grafton Street. Her next move took her into the Powercourt Townhouse Centre. One newspaper report at the time enthused: ‘[Pia Bang] is a very continental style boutique and offers a great selection of continental styled trousers and sweaters’.
‘As the business grew it became impossible to make the numbers of garments needed,’ she told the Sunday newspaper. ‘We like to be different and we introduce new stock every month.’
Pia Bang then expanded to include a shop in Cork, but eventually she
At 14, Pia won a sewing machine in a competition
In one year, rent increased from €118k to €165k
closed it, concentrating her efforts on her Grafton Street store. In 2009, she moved her store to South Anne Street and decided on a different tack, concentrating on interiors. ‘All my life it had been fashion, and we had a little interiors shop upstairs on Grafton Street, so I was always very interested in that,’ she said, referring to her move into interiors. ‘But I felt the clothes got harder and harder. Back in the 1950s it was much easier. You could get your looks together, whereas now there are 100 different looks. ‘ But what really pushed me out was the rent on Grafton Street. It went up to €10,000 a week and you just couldn’t live with that. But also I needed a new challenge. The clothes shop was getting a bit bor. ing It had been fun and exciting to do, but in the end it became such a struggle. Now I look at people in clothes shops and think: “I’m so glad I’m not in that.”’
However, the career strategy proved a problematic one. Bang admitted the downturn that hit the retail trade had made the rent her company was paying no longer feasible. In one year, annual rent was increased on the South Anne Street from €118,000 to €165,000. In May 2009, and with a deficit of €775,756, a liquidator was appointed for Bancastle Ltd, the company behind Bang’s home furnishings store.
It wasn’t until 2011 that Jeff Stokes’ business started to suffer and it went into liquidation in March 2011 with debts of €2million. It’s thought that Stokes’ business ran up a debt after investing heavily in the ill-fated Il Segreto.
Il Segreto, which was beside Unicorn in Merrion Row, was operated by Springmanor Ltd, which Mr Stokes was also a director of. The operating company went into liquidation in March 2011.
The business was then taken over by another company called Vino Classico whose directors were Mr Stokes’ wife Pia Bang and Stokes’ then-business partner Giorgio Casari. This company went into liquidation in September 2011.
Stokes was then reported to have deliberately concealed the diversion of €63,000 from an insolvent company into another firm controlled by Bang so he could continue to operate Unicorn, the High Court heard.
It was claimed at the time in court that Christian and Simon were managers of the Il Segreto restaurant and had control of a portable credit card machine, which was used to divert the funds.
At the time, Mr Stokes denied that what he did was fraudulent and that it was a response to a very difficult trading situation.
For now, a business consortium is planning to develop a mixture of shops, restaurants and apartments on the site that now includes the Unicorn, which is under new management.
The group of investors led by Ray Cotter reportedly paid in the region of €3.5 million for the Unicorn Restaurant and the adjoining retail premises fronting onto Merrion Row.
Then, last week, the couple came to an agreement with Dunbar Assets, formerly Zurich Bank, over their €12million debts.
As part of the settlement, the couple avoided bankruptcy and had their debt written off in exchange for a one-off payment of €145,000 (€290,000, once fees and creditors were paid).
The relieved couple were told by the court that they can also keep their €800,000 home in Enniskerry. There is a €680,000 mortgage on the house. The High Court-approved debt write-off will free the couple from their non-mortgage debt, which was linked to business and property investments.
The bulk of that money will go to Dunbar Assets, which is owed almost €9million, and to Revenue.
Ms Bang told one newspaper, ‘We are very relieved and very happy it’s all over.’
And no wonder. The couple’s protracted, multiple brushes with court come hot on the heels of the twins’ own court battle.
In 2014, the brothers faced a €14.7million judgment being entered against them arising from various loans and guarantees.
In 2012, the High Court had ruled that the brothers could not be company directors until 2016.
It was revealed the year previously, via analysed credit card statements, that even as the brothers’ businesses were going under in 2008-2009, they spent €146,000 of company money in 18 months on designer shopping sprees, five-star holidays and sumptuous Michelin-starred meals.
It’s safe to say that the entire Stokes family have endured dark times. They may be bloodied, but they’re certainly unbowed. The
The Stokes may be bloodied, but they’re unbowed
Stokes twins are now, under court rules, allowed to operate as company directors again.
Simon has kept a hand in the family business, and is now working as operations manager for Borlottie, a pair of sandwich/salad bars operating in Baggot Street and the IFSC in Dublin.
Meanwhile, Christian has a new interest in ‘all you can eat’ travel, with the new aviation company SurfAir, through which clients pay to travel flexibly on executive jets.
‘SurfAir is going to change the way you think about travel in Europe,’ Stokes writes on his LinkedIn profile. ‘We have had a hugely successful three years since our launch in 2013 in California, where we now have over 3,000 members and up to 90 flights per day.
‘I have worked for myself for over 20 years, helped create some of the best customer experiences in Dublin,’ he adds. ‘I have experienced the positive and negatives of being an entrepreneur but it has helped shape who I am as a person today and for my future.’
Meanwhile, their parents are no doubt plotting their next moves, although their plans are as yet unknown.
‘A lot has been said in the media but only a handful of our good friends know the real story and I am grateful for them to have been there for us through this,’ Pia told a newspaper just last weekend.
‘We now just want to move on with our lives.’
Whether they can conjure up the panache, creativity and glamour that brought them so much success first time around remains to be seen.