Jewellery shop to close after 30 years
The Christmas rush is jewellery shop owner Margaret Lusty’s favourite time of the retail year, and she has just one to go.
Lusty and husband Brian have owned the Lusty’s jewellery shop in Invercargill’s Esk St for more than 30 years, but are closing down the business on December 31.
The shop was always busy and fun at Christmas and she would miss that part of the year the most, she said. ‘‘Christmas with retail jewellery is fantastic, it’s fun seeing people buying for people they love.
‘‘I will really miss it next year
. . . It will be a very different Christmas.’’
The Lusty family, beginning with Ivor Lusty in Winton and followed by his son Brian, have owned jewellery stores in Southland for more than 70 years.
However, with the $200 million Invercargill CBD retail redevelopment to kick off next year, Brian and Margaret have decided to retire and close their Esk St shop before demolition begins.
If Lusty was 20 years younger she would have loved to have opened their store in the new development, as it was a ‘‘great thing for Invercargill’’, she said. ‘‘It’s just a bit late for us.’’ She believed the city should be ‘‘very grateful’’ to the HW Richardson Group for getting behind the development and doing something for the city.
‘‘But it’s going to be very messy in the next couple of years. We will just go motor-homing instead.’’
For Margaret and Brian, who repairs the jewellery in the workshop, the hardest part of closing the business would be letting go their five staff members.
One, Tania Hill, has worked for them for 30 years and another, Janet McDonald, 16 years.
‘‘They have become work mum and dad,’’ McDonald said.
‘‘We have become extremely close in and out of work, that’s going to be the hardest thing, not having contact every day.’’
Lusty said most of the store’s jewellery was purchased from wholesalers in Australia and New Zealand; and the biggest selling products were Pandora charms and jewellery, diamonds and watches.
Three generations of the same Southland families had purchased jewellery in their Lusty stores down the decades, she said.
‘‘I guess that’s what being a family business is about.’’