BEAUTIFUL DESIGNER CLOTHING
Koast is one of the largest independent children's clothing stores in the UK, stocking European children’s clothing for boys and girls from newborn to age 16 years.
Children’s clothing and shoe brands include Frugi, Hatley, Hype, Inch Blue, Joules, Kite, Lelli Kelly, Mayoral, Startrite shoes ,Vans.
Koast is truly a one-stop store, offering a fantastic selection of designer brands and affordable childrenswear brands under one roof.
THE KOAST STORY
If you have a dream…I say follow it! It takes just a few seconds to change your life…just by saying yes and stepping forward to make a change.
The Koast story started when I was pregnant with my second child, Jaden. I had always wanted to set up my own business selling children’s clothes. My career had spanned 15 years in Marketing and E-Commerce across music retailing, radio and charities, but no clothing retail experience at all. What I had was a passion and drive to try something new and to make my business work. Four months into my pregnancy I decided this was the ideal time! No more corporate life and a chance to satisfy my ambition and to go for it… this was how Koast was started.
I found premises in Haslemere in Surrey, a large garage housing wedding cars. It was a huge space with no shop front and also down a side street… everyone thought I was mad…as if I didn’t have enough on my plate with a new baby! However, I had a vision to create something great, so I fitted a new shop front, created two departments 0-8 years and 9-16 years and filled the store with a fabulous selection of unique childrenswear brands and traded in Haslemere for 14 years.
The second part of the Koast story delves back to my own childhood. I remember building dens, spending hours outside in rural Yorkshire and decided I wanted my children to experience this too. My husband, Ciaran and I often went on holidays with the children to Devon and Cornwall and it was on one of these holidays that we made ANOTHER life changing decision… to make a lifestyle change and move to Devon, in fact, we even named our third child "Devon". This was many years ago now and I have never looked back. Living within fields of cows and sheep is heaven and it was a natural move for me to relocate my business to Devon too. We opened our new store in Okehampton, Devon, and have brought a fabulous selection of brands to the South West, which has been so welcomed. From all this passion and determination, I can now look back after being in business almost two decades and can say working in children’s clothing retail was the best decision I ever made.
Koast is now not only one of the UK’s largest independent stores but now online too, selling our gorgeous brands all over the world. I firmly believe in offering a proactive, personal, one to one customer service both in store and online. It is something that we are praised on in-store and I would like to make sure this is carried online too!
COME AND SAY HELLO
If you live locally to Okehampton or you are visiting Devon or Cornwall then please come in and say Hello, we look forward to seeing you at the Koast store soon. Happy Shopping!
Beverley Rafferty – Director, Koast Ltd.
Online and In-Store Services
