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Globe and Mail
5 days ago
- Business
- Globe and Mail
Savvy businesswoman Sandy Stagg helped spark a hip Toronto scene
Running her Antique Clothing Shop on London's Portobello Road in the 1990s and 2000s, Sandy Stagg was particular when it came to the touching of dainty vintage garments for sale. 'This is a two-handed shop,' she would tell customers in no uncertain terms. 'Be gentle and put your bags down. If not, get out!' The rule applied to all, dames included. The great actress Maggie Smith entered the store in 2002 in full film-star disguise: hat, silk scarf and huge sunglasses. When she pawed one-handedly at a rail of Victorian blouses, Ms. Stagg read her the riot act. To which Ms. Smith lowered her shades, uttered 'Indeed!' and walked straight from the shop. 'Sandy was so impressed she laughed for hours,' said her friend, Jo Headland, a seamstress and salesperson hired by Ms. Stagg. 'Sandy was infamous for being rude to her customers, in a way that only a fabulously dressed Englishwoman could be.' Ms. Stagg, from London's working-class neighborhood of Shepherd's Bush, had come to Toronto in 1968 with a lot of nerve, a sewing machine and a Canadian husband who would not be her partner for long. She would establish herself as a savvy restaurateur, pioneer trader in second-hand garb, model and beautiful muse of the General Idea arts collective, cutting-edge scene starter, skilled gardener, pale gamine about town, dog lover, enthusiastic party person and patroness of the arts. She returned to Shepherd's Bush in 1988 to look after her ailing mother, whose landlord wanted her out of a rent-controlled flat. Ms. Stagg was having none of it. 'I'm here and we're staying,' she told him. Ms. Stagg stayed until 2008, when she sold the Antique Clothing Shop and returned to Toronto to live out the rest of her life. She died from the effects of a stroke at Toronto Western Hospital on May 28. She was 84. Ms. Stagg was different things to different people in Toronto. Some shopped at her popular Amelia Earhart Originals, a small vintage clothing store on Charles Street off Yonge Street (and later in Yorkville). Others dined and hung out at her hip restaurants: Peter Pan (which helped spark the Queen Street West art and music scene of the late 1970s and early 1980s) and Fiesta. The grooviest people did both. 'She dressed a lot of the people who came to eat at her restaurants,' said artist AA Bronson, the last surviving member of Toronto's groundbreaking General Idea trio. 'I don't think one can simplify Sandy, but above all she was interested in people and helping people make things happen.' When the General Idea artists would throw ideas around the dinner table, Ms. Stagg encouraged and facilitated their audacious notions. 'Next thing you knew, you'd find yourself in Vancouver or New York or on top of the CN Tower doing something,' Mr. Bronson said. 'Sandy was a magnifying glass. She took whatever was going on and blew it up into something bigger and more interesting.' At her clothing boutiques in Toronto and London, Ms. Stagg elevated second-hand attire to high-fashion status. She had a magpie's eye for lovely, discarded things and the entrepreneurial flair to exploit the finds. While in London, she would visit Toronto on shopping trips. Once, she found a disassembled dress at a boot fair that was made by French designer Madeleine Vionnet. Ms. Stagg purchased it for $13 and took it back to London where she and her assistant, Ms. Headland, pieced it back together with traditional couture stitches and vintage silk thread. The reconstituted garment graced the cover of a Doyle Auctioneers & Appraisers catalogue and sold for $35,000, according to Ms. Headland: 'It was typical Sandy, saving something and building it back to money-spinning glory.' The reclamations of Ms. Stagg extended to cool eateries. She and two partners took the Art Deco greasy spoon Peter Pan Lunch, got rid of the grease and updated the spoon. The Globe and Mail restaurant critic Joanne Kates praised the just-opened place in 1976 for its rare marriage of trendiness and friendliness and its 'intelligently limited' culinary aspirations. 'It has obviously been very carefully put together by people who understand that the best way to exploit nostalgia is to avoid exploiting it,' Ms. Kates wrote. Though Ms. Stagg enjoyed vintage objects, old fashions and retro culture − she jitterbugged with the best of them − she hardly lived in the past. 'Sandy read about history for research purposes, not pleasure,' said her one-time romantic partner and longtime friend, the architect Paul Oberst. She not only listened to the new sounds of the day but supported and befriended the musicians. Ms. Stagg danced to disco, vibed to new wave, was pals with Rough Trade's Carole Pope and dated singers from influential Toronto punk bands the Diodes and the Viletones. 'She was interested in whatever was going on,' Mr. Oberst said. 'We went to see Roxy Music, Bob Marley and Elvis Costello, all at Massey Hall, I think.' The New York art rockers the Talking Heads were introduced to Ms. Stagg and the Peter Pan crowd through two influential Toronto modern art hubs, A Space and Art Metropole. 'Sandy took us under her wing and made us feel part of that world – a crazy and wonderful world that sadly no longer exists,' Talking Heads singer David Byrne said in a statement to The Globe. 'A reminder that a person, or just a handful of people, can be a catalyst that enables all sorts of people to come together and interact − at least for a while. What she did was special." In her later years, Ms. Stagg was a 'feisty old lady' devoted to her backyard garden, according to artist and close friend Charles Pachter. 'Sandy would beam and talk about her roses and peonies and the birds in her garden,' Mr. Pachter said. 'It made her happy.' Ms. Stagg cultivated scenes, friendships and flowers with a maestro's touch. Though a style icon, she believed that fashion should not be considered separate from food, furniture, music or politics. 'She takes an interest in observing how fashion functions as a code of being,' The Globe's David Livingstone wrote of her in 1984. 'Glamour, as a thing of the spirit; style, as a matter of soul.' She was born Sandra Penelope Newton on Oct. 3, 1940, in Dorset, England, at a manor converted to a maternity hospital for evacuated Londoners during the Blitz. Her parents were theatre carpenter Thomas Newton and seamstress Dorothy Newton (née Burke). They raised their only child − a much older stepbrother died in 1960 − in a rented flat in London that had a bomb shelter and a lemon tree in the backyard. Her dad was an air raid warden near the end of the Second World War. 'That is why they had a telephone, and she was always very proud of having one of the first telephones in Shepherd's Bush,' Ms. Headland said. 'Also, she loved sitting in the basket of her dad's bicycle and being taken to see the bomb sites.' She attended Godolphin and Latymer School, an expensive private day school for girls in Hammersmith, West London, that in 1951 became state-supported and ceased to charge fees to pupils. By 1960 she was married, in a gown she had made with her own hands, to John Stagg, a friend of her father's. 'He was much older and she only married him to keep her dad happy,' Ms. Headland said. They lived in the parents' flat in Shepherd's Bush until Ms. Stagg left her husband after four years of marriage. Though she would go one to enjoy a glamorous lifestyle, Ms. Stagg took pride in her gritty British upbringing and looked up to John Lennon, a lowly Liverpudlian who as a member of the Beatles became a celebrated person in a class-conscious society. Without him, she told The Globe in 1984, 'I would not be who I am today.' Though she is not known to have crossed paths with Mr. Lennon, the anti-establishment figure who released Working Class Hero as a solo artist was an inspiration to many of her generation. 'The world had changed somewhat in the 1960s,' Ms. Headland said. 'A working-class Brit could make their way in the world and not be ashamed of their roots.' In 1966, Ms. Stagg met and married a Canadian in London, Bud Petersen. Two years later, they moved to Toronto, where their suburb-dwelling marriage would dissolve. She headed downtown to begin her eclectic career. She made costumes for the maverick Global Village Theatre company and created one-of-a-kind shirts for the Brick Shirt House. At a flea market outside the Church of the Holy Trinity, now surrounded by the Eaton Centre, she sold clothing brought from London or bought cheaply at Salvation Army thrift stores. 'She could look at a huge mound of old clothes and spot a designer number from 50 yards,' General Idea's Mr. Bronson remembered. Gravitating to the city's nascent avant-garde art scene, she was a fashion designer for General Idea. Her image appeared in many of their projects. Ms. Stagg had a flair for the theatrical gesture. Intending to move her Amelia Earhart Originals boutique from Yonge Street to the ritzy Yorkville shopping neighborhood, she was informed by a city inspector that a bylaw prohibited the sale of second-hand goods in the former village of Yorkville. 'Sandy quickly made an appointment with the boss of the bylaws and went to his office on the 10th floor of City Hall,' Mr. Oberst recalled. 'She marched straight from the door to the plate-glass window, turned dramatically and said, 'I may as well throw myself through this window if I can't keep my business!' The stunned bureaucrat saw to it that the bylaw was changed. Her vintage clothing shop in London drew celebrity fashionistas John Galliano, Jean Paul Gaultier, Stella McCartney, Alexander McQueen and model Kate Moss. Fashion designer Paul Smith was chased down the road by Ms. Stagg as he left with his purchase. Because his credit card didn't work, she grabbed back the bag containing a pair of men's brogues. 'He had to send someone the following Friday to pay and pick them up,' Ms. Headland recalled. 'I think he was terrified of Sandy.' In her final days, Ms. Stagg, who had no children, was looked after by a group of friends − dubbed Team Sandy − that included Mr. Oberst and Erella Ganon. One of the visitors was the great Toronto singer Mary Margaret O'Hara. 'She came to the hospital and the two of us sang songs to Sandy at her bedside,' Ms. Ganon said. 'It was beautiful.' You can find more obituaries from The Globe and Mail here. To submit a memory about someone we have recently profiled on the Obituaries page, e-mail us at obit@
Daily Mail
6 days ago
- Lifestyle
- Daily Mail
Fed-up Notting Hill residents have painted their colourful terraced homes black to get rid of selfie-taking influencers
Fed up Notting Hill residents have painted their famous colourful houses black in a bid to stop 'rude' selfie-taking tourists and influencers from posing outside. Homeowners on Lancaster Road - located just metres away from Portobello Road Market in west London - say they are constantly swamped with people taking photos in front of their properties. They claim influencers stand right outside their doors to get the perfect shot with some even undergoing multiple outfit changes. Meanwhile, it's claimed that brazen tourists will enjoy lunchtime picnics on their doorsteps and often peer through their windows 'forgetting that people actually live there'. As a result, two houses on the road have ditched their previous bright exterior - in the hopes that black walls are 'less Instagrammable' - and will therefore stop people coming there. Previously, a purple and pink home sat either side of an already-black house but now they have joined forces with their neighbour. A 'quiet zone' sign has also been put up - and one property further down the street has even strung a rope across their front steps. One resident, who did not want to be named, said: 'Our house was actually originally black and the others weren't. 'But the other two decided to join us a couple months ago as we all agree that black houses don't look good on social media. 'I understand why people take photos - because of how it looks - but it just gets so packed. 'We can have hundreds of people on the street at once and it's a residential road - we're not able to cater to tourists. 'I think people just forget that people live here. So the hope with painting the houses black is that tourists will relax a bit. It's been working a little bit so far, to be fair.' The resident said he didn't expect the remaining houses on the street to also ditch their colourful paint but said it might be necessary if the problem continues. He said: 'We obviously want our neighbours to do whatever they want, but if this doesn't work, and we all have to go one colour to get it to stop, then hopefully as a street we can join together and do that.' Another resident, who also wished to anonymous, said: 'My family moved in about a month ago and the previous owner painted it black just before because they were fed-up with how many people stop out front. 'It gets crazy. People get on the steps and take loads of photos. On the weekends, there can be hundreds of people. Tourists taking photographs on Lancaster road where Notting Hill residents paint famous colourful houses black in bid to put off influencers and stop 'disruptive overtourism' 'It's not Londoners, it's mainly tourists. But it just gets stressful. I know my parents hate it. 'The hope with the black houses is that it's less picturesque. They basically want to attract less attention.' A resident in the third black house did not want to talk today explaining that the point of the colour change had been to 'get rid of the attention' and 'not draw more people here'. Two tourists who were on Lancaster Road today were Clancy Carroll and Georgia Densley, who were visiting London from Australia. They said the decision to paint the houses black was 'a downer'. They said: 'I mean people are drawn here because of the street being iconic and colourful, right? 'It's a tourist spot and surely tourism is good for the local economy. It's a bit of a downer to paint the houses black. We're not fans of that. 'But to be honest, it probably won't work. If the rest are still colourful, people will come here - and if they all paint their homes black, it will become: 'Let's go see the street of all black houses'. 'It hasn't stopped us.' Residents are now campaigning to try and get other colourful properties on the street to follow suit. A letter circulated among homeowners urges them to 'consider' repainting to discourage tourists and influencers. Titled 'Addressing tourist impact on our street', it reads: 'As many of you have noticed, our section of the street has become an increasingly popular spot for social media tourists, drawn by the vibrant colours of our homes. 'While it's great to see appreciation for our street, the constant crowds, noise, litter and lack of privacy caused by people sitting on our stairs are starting to take a toll on our daily lives.' The letter goes on to claim that 'disruptive tourism' has meant residents have faced 'rental challenges' - and 'estate agents have confirmed it is negatively affecting the price of our properties'. It continues: 'As a possible solution, three households, nos [redacted] have decided to repaint their homes this spring in more neutral tones to help reduce the visual pull for tourists. 'If more of us consider collectively doing the same, we may be able to restore some peace and privacy to our community.' Meanwhile, other homeowners explained that they had previously painted their houses more neutral colours, also in the hope of becoming less appealing to tourists and influencers. George Hencken, who has lived in Notting Hill for 29 years, said: 'Our home used to be pink but we painted it grey around seven years ago. 'The point was to be an unphotogenic colour. 'But the thing is, and something those who have painted their homes black will soon find out, is that even if people aren't using their house as a photo backdrop - they'll still be here. 'They'll be having their picnic lunch in their doorway, sheltering outside when it's raining, and even changing outfit on their front steps. 'And Instagram and TikTok are having this effect all over the world. I know that there's a cafe in Japan, with a backdrop of Mount Fuji, which has had to close because of it. 'And over the years I've only had one tourist say to me, 'You must get so sick of it'. 'With lots of the others - there's just this sense of arrogance and entitlement.' Ms Hencken explained that what frustrated her most was that none of the tourists or influencers seemed to have any idea of Notting Hill's history. She said: 'This area used to be a proud rebel corner in west London. Yes, there are expensive houses, but this street also has a lot of social housing. 'They don't know the history. 'Ever since Richard Curtis made that stupid film every American banker or rich guy from Switzerland who spends a few months here, when asked where they want to live, says: "Oh, my wife likes that film". 'It's changing the area. Our doorsteps used to be social places. We'd sit out here and chat to friends and neighbours. 'But now you can't do that. If you do, any random person thinks they can come and sit here too.' Another local, whose home is beige, also thought the colour would ward people off but found the most effective thing is placing a rope in front of his steps. He said: 'Our home is beige so it's not as bad as some of the more colourful ones - but the most effective thing is these straps we have now. 'I know the green house has seen a huge drop since putting theirs there. 'Because it does get ridiculous. Before, we had people posing on our steps - which obviously set my dog off. 'They'd even have picnics there. It's just rude. 'With Instagrammers, it's always the same kind of people. You can spot them.. Lots of Italians - which I can because I'm Italian. 'As for the tourists, I mean, it's the people are coming here for pretty photos instead of going somewhere of note. They're not going to the British Museum.'
Telegraph
6 days ago
- Lifestyle
- Telegraph
We painted our homes black to ward off Instagram tourists
Homeowners have painted their houses black to stop Instagram tourists from loitering outside. Those living on Lancaster Road in Notting Hill, just metres from London's Portobello Road Market, claim hundreds of social media influencers stand outside their front doors to pose for pictures, with some even undergoing multiple outfit changes. Meanwhile, brazen tourists stop for lunchtime picnics on their doorsteps, often peering through windows and 'forgetting that people actually live there', they claim. Now, three houses on the road have ditched their previous bright exterior in the hopes that black walls are 'less Instagrammable'. A 'quiet zone' sign is in place and one property owner further down the street has strung a rope across their front steps to block tourists from getting too close. One resident, who did not want to be named, said: 'My family moved in about a month ago and the previous owner painted it black just before because they were fed-up with how many people stop out front. 'It gets crazy. People get on the steps and take loads of photos. On the weekends, there can be hundreds of people. 'It's not Londoners - it's mainly tourists. But it just gets stressful. I know my parents hate it. The hope with the black houses is that it's less picturesque. They basically want to attract less attention.' Another resident, who didn't want to be named, claimed theirs was the original black house. They added: 'The other two decided to join us a couple months ago as we all agree that black houses don't look good on social media. 'I understand why people take photos - because of how it looks - but it just gets so packed. We can have hundreds of people on the street at once and it's a residential road - we're not able to cater to tourists. 'I think people just forget that people live here. So the hope with painting the houses black is that tourists will relax a bit. It's been working a little bit so far, to be fair.' Meanwhile, George Hencken, who has lived in Notting Hill for 29 years, said his home used to be pink but he painted it grey seven years ago to make it 'unphotogenic'. 'But the thing is, and something those who have painted their homes black will soon find out, is that even if people aren't using their house as a photo backdrop - they'll still be here.' He claimed many tourists had a sense of 'arrogance and entitlement'. Two tourists, Clancy Carroll and Georgia Densley, who were visiting London from Australia, described the black houses as 'a downer'. Ms Carroll added: 'I mean people are drawn here because of the street being iconic and colourful, right? 'It's a tourist spot and surely tourism is good for the local economy. It's a bit of a downer to paint the houses black. We're not fans of that. 'But to be honest, it probably won't work. If the rest are still colourful, people will come here - and if they all paint their homes black, it will become: 'Let's go see the street of all black houses'. 'It hasn't stopped us.'
The Sun
22-05-2025
- Business
- The Sun
Popular Hong Kong restaurant that's famous for its ‘delicious' menu to open first UK site
A POPULAR Asian dessert restaurant chain is set to land in the UK soon. Specialising in "egg puffs" which are more commonly known as bubble waffles, the chain is set to bring the trending desserts to the capital. 3 3 Mammy Pancake boasts 20 sites across Asia already with its first international location set to open in London next month. The street food chain is due to come to Portobello Road in the capital. Founded in 2009 by Brendan Ho and Donald Lai the business has found huge success. Mammy Pancake will be offering up the chain's classics like the Earl Grey egg puffs and the original egg puff. It will also bring exciting new flavours to Britain with sticky toffee, pistachio, strawberries and cream and even crème brûlée. Ingredients for the delicious desserts are to be sourced in Asia to ensure authenticity. Selected UK produce will be used for special regional flavours. The Asian menu features red bean, ube (purple sweet potato), matcha and salted seaweed sweet corn flavours. The business was awarded the Michelin Guide's Street Food recommendation for six years in a row from 2016 to 2021. Aiming for further expansion the founding duo aim to build "a new legacy for Hong Kong food culture in the UK." Brendan Ho said: 'We want to give Londoners and the wider UK market access to genuine Hong Kong street food, executed with the same quality and heart that made it a staple of our childhood.' The US restaurant chains that have landed in the UK Huge brand Popeyes first crossed the Atlantic in 2021 and it now has 50 stores in the UK, with plans to expand further. Meanwhile Church's Texas Chicken, which reviewers have branded "better than KFC" is set to open its first UK sites. It says it has plans for 900 branches across the country. Wendy's, renowned for its famous square burgers, is opening its 50th store in the UK this year. It's said it plans to establish 150 locations across the country by 2028. The expansion is set to create over 150 jobs. Meanwhile sandwich chain Which Wich is launching its second UK store on London's Fleet Street in June. The Texas-based chain, which first arrived in the UK in 2018, has a flagship location at Central St Giles. The Which Wich website boasts of 'custom-crafted sandwiches and salads' with 'over 60 toppings to create a masterpiece'. Another American chain that's made its mark on the UK is Wingstop, which now has 57 sites here. Mammy Pancake appeared at the Cannes Film Festival last year. It has received impressive reviews online with fans calling it "delicious." Plans for further expansion are in the works with more UK sites coming over the next few years. Mammy Pancake is following the success of dozens of food brands and restaurant chains that have come to the UK. The move comes following the announcement that Amsterdam based burger chain Fat Phill's will be opening 100 new sites across the UK in the next decade. Fat Phill's opened its first UK store in Clapham, London last year and aims to bring more sites to Britain soon. Mamma Pancake is following suit with founders aiming at bringing further locations to the UK in the coming years. The first Mammy Pancake location is set to open on Portobello Road, London in June.
The Guardian
18-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
The Fat Badger, London W10: ‘A set menu, yes, but a hearty, meat and two veg-type set menu' – restaurant review
Off to Notting Hill to the secret, exclusive dining room, pub and hidden speakeasy that is the Fat Badger. When it opened earlier this year, the place was invite-only, but has since relaxed its door policy to allow anyone who fancies the first-floor bar for ale, martinis and toasties or the set menu by a former River Cafe chef on the top floor. Nothing is more likely to rankle decent, upstanding Guardian readers than the notion that the Fat Badger was once invite-only, and in Notting Hill, land of the frittered trust fund, too! 'Eat the rich!' said Jean-Jacques Rousseau, apparently. Well, he'd have to find them first, because they don't make that easy here. This badger is tucked away above the much-lauded Canteen on Portobello Road, and access is down a side street via what seems more like the goods entrance. Head up two sets of stairs, and the Fat Badger's pub and dining room are elegant, olde-worlde, wood-panelled and candle-lit. It's all completely charming, of course, but crucially – and this is by no means a dig – and, despite the acres of hype because Margot Robbie and Jamie Dornan have been spotted here, it's also nothing remotely groundbreaking. In recent years, a new breed of London pubs such as the Hero in Maida Vale, the Devonshire in Piccadilly, the Knave of Clubs in Shoreditch and now the Fat Badger have been selling gen Y the concept of 'going to the pub' as if it were a deliciously edgy, new thing. People mill around, drink booze and talk! In real life! When the place opened, there was even talk that, gasp, they were selling single cigarettes behind the bar, to take to the smoking area. All the glorious grot that was once so commonplace is being rebranded as the epitome of decadence. That said, by the time I got round to visiting last week, those single ciggies were no longer available, no doubt because some miserable snitch had said it might be illegal. The food in the upstairs dining room, meanwhile, is really very good, which you'd maybe expect with the likes of George Williams (ex-River Cafe) and Beth O'Brien (Ballymaloe Cookery School graduate) at the helm. That comes with one caveat, though: this is a no-choice menu. That's not to say it's a fancy, itsy-bitsy tasting menu; instead, this is a hearty, meat and two veg with doughnuts for pudding-type set menu. Even so, there's no real warning of what's on offer – it's a secret, again – and it'll cost you £85 a head. We were asked what we liked and didn't like, and if we had any allergies. That was followed by a steady stream of, on the whole, delicious things that would delight even the most uppity eater. A soupçon of nettle soup, as thick as a puree, with fresh Irish soda bread and glorious salted butter. Then some gorgeous lobster in a light tempura served in a 'taco' made of thinly sliced celeriac. Salty trout belly on charred toast was intriguing rather than yummy, but a chunk of grilled pigeon on toast was earthy and rich. More trout appeared, this time chopped with olives into a fresh paté to smear across that salty bread. If the Fat Badger has gained an early reputation as something of a party palace for the Notting Hill set, that sells the cooking here very short. Next up on the mystery menu was a generous portion of scallop in a lobster gravy studded with fresh peas and pork jowl. The scallop was seared yet still yieldingly soft and the peas tasted as if they'd only just left their pods. Produce here clearly comes first. Anyone worrying that a secret menu of this kind might throw up a few curveballs would breathe a sigh of relief to see that fillet of beef with hasselback potatoes is the main event, with large chunks of rare beef, strewn with at least a dozen fat morels, a whole heap of potatoes and a steaming pan of warm bearnaise sauce. The clientele that night was almost 85% huddles of posh, thin, joyless women discussing society wedding calendars, but then it was a Tuesday evening in May in west London, so what else would you expect? Dessert was a huge portion of strawberry and basil sorbet, which challenged my belief that basil in a sorbet is nothing but an annoyance: it really worked here and was promptly inhaled. A freshly made sticky doughnut with apple sauce and a delightful spherical mass of apple crumble ice-cream rounded things off, with the crumble worked in flaky chunks through the rich vanilla ice-cream. The Fat Badger may have been sold to me as one of the naughtiest new places in London, but I think this wonderful, calories-be-damned ice-cream was easily the lewdest part of the entire evening. The Fat Badger is immensely likeable, and they'll now let you in even if you're not famous (or friends with them). Lucky you! The Fat Badger 310 Portobello Road, London W10 (no phone). Open Tues-Sat, dinner only, 5-9.30pm (last orders); Sun lunch, noon-3.30pm. Dinner, four-course set menu only, £85 a head; Sun, three-course set menu only, £60, all plus drinks and service
