“They’re like my friends. They come in here and they tell me all their worries and sometimes I tell them mine”
Professional bra fitter Margaret Gunton doesn’t need a tape measure – she uses her eyes to pick the perfect size for her customers. The Berwick woman told CASEY NEILL about marking 30 years at Lavender Lace Lingerie and working with women touched by breast cancer.
Margaret Gunton removes a sheer, sky-blue night gown set from a change room that’s packed with stock she can’t fit on the shelves.
She explains that Lavender Lace Lingerie’s previous owner, Glad McDonald, passed it on with the Dandenong shop and told her never to sell it.
“It’s over 80 years old,” Margaret says.
“Isn’t it beautiful?”
The Berwick resident is the sleepwear’s third custodian. Ms McNamara was the first.
“She was down in Lonsdale Street. She was there for about 20 years – this was only guessing – then she sold to Glad McDonald who worked for her,” Margaret explained.
She bought the store from Glad.
“I had been a fitter before that, over at Glen Waverley a long time ago,” she said.
“I measure with my eyes.
“I’d had many jobs since then.”
She was unhappy with her job at an electrical store, and Glad offered her a job.
Margaret thought about it, prepared a resignation letter and told Glad she wanted the role.
But she’d left her run too late and Glad had put the business up for sale.
“She said ’why don’t you buy it?’” Margaret said.
So she did. That was 30 years ago on Tuesday 17 October.
“I was over in Thomas Street, 171 Thomas Street, then the State Government came and took the building. I only leased that,” she said.
The acquisition was part of the ongoing Revitalising Central Dandenong project.
“My daughter’s got the shop Big In Black down the road,” Margaret said.
“I needed to be near her because she’d give me the fuller figure girls.”
A space in Vanity Court Arcade on Thomas Street was available, and Margaret bought it.
“It was a quiet arcade,” she said.
“It’s much, much smaller than I had before. I had a huge shop over there.
“My line of business has changed because I don’t have the walking past trade anymore.”
But she’s established Lavender Lace as a specialty fitter for “the fuller figure” up to size 32 and for women touched by breast cancer.
“There’s not many people who want to do (breast cancer fittings),” she said.
“A new client takes you anywhere from half an hour to an hour to fit.
“You’ve got to adjust and measure.
“I give them a week to go home, have a good look at it themselves, and then I’m happy to change it over.
“I ring them in a week and I write exactly what they say when I ring them on their file.
“Some people, when they come in here, they’re a little bit nervous.
“My daughter had breast cancer.
“I just put myself in their position, how I would feel.
“I want them to be happy and feel completely normal again.
“It’s as rewarding for me as it is for them.”
It’s a service she’s offered since taking on the shop.
“But I only had maybe two a month back then,” she said.
“Now I have anything up to five or six a week.
“They’re very young – 25-year-olds.
“When I first started, they were 70-year-olds.”
Local hospitals refer patients to Margaret, who goes above and beyond to care for them.
“If I find that they’re depressed, I would go to their home afterwards,” she said.
She also has reduced store hours to give her time to travel to nursing homes.
“Some of the dear old ladies can’t get out anymore,” she said.
“I do home visits for prosthesis, too.
“There’s only one of me so it’s a bit hard.”
But Margaret said that running the store kept her active – along with playing tennis on Wednesdays.
“It’s good here. They’re like my friends,” she said.
“They come in here and they tell me all their worries and sometimes I tell them mine, but not too often.
“If I can’t get something I hunt around until I find it for them.”
Margaret was a Dandenong Retail Traders’ Association business woman of the year – though how long ago she can’t remember – and contributes to the Rotary Club of Greater Dandenong, including fund-raising for a chair for chemotherapy treatment at Dandenong Hospital.
She said people travelled from Pakenham, Berwick and Leongatha for her services, and that one regular customer lived in Western Australia.
“She comes over every Christmas to see her mum and she gets eight to 10 bras,” she said.
Another lives in China.
“They were originally with me,” she said.
“When they’ve gone away they do without until they come back.”
Margaret will offer a 20 per cent discount to any customer who mentions this story.
