The Roundstone - About Us - Fancy That Group in the News

Inger, Maria and Dan are the team behind Fancy That Group of stores.

Fashion proprietor slows down: Decision to pull out of Frontenac Mall difficult

Frank Armstrong
The Kingston Whig-Standard
from June 10, 2000

Local fashion entrepreneur Inger Sparring is trying to tactfully put into words why she is pulling her businesses out of Frontenac Mall after almost 21 years there.

The owner of Fancy That and The Round Stone talks about "image" and "quality" and how maybe she's ready to take it a little easier for a change.

Then out it comes.

"I would most likely have stayed, but they are changing the image of the mall," says the Swedish-born Sparring, 66, who'll close up shop sometime before the end of August.

"It's very difficult for our girls when they are selling a $195 sweater that is absolutely beautiful, handmade, and somebody comes in and says it has to be $19.50," she said.

"They get very upset."

Ten years ago, when the Bath Road shopping centre was facing some hard times, Sparring vehemently defended the mall and announced her shops were experiencing some of their best sales ever.

Today is a very different story.

The shopping centre, which houses anchor stores Wal-Mart and Food Basics, now has mainly discount outlets, and doesn't bring a lot of passing trade to Fancy That, a sophisticated quality clothing and shoe shop, or The Round Stone, a seller of contemporary quality casual wear.

"It is sad," Sparring says in her still-thick Swedish accent.

"When I decided we were going to leave - we waited for a while - my whole body was physically and emotionally upset."

Sparring's anxiety is countered by the fact that her two downtown Princess Street stores by the same names - which her daughter, Maria Cronk, will run - are still booming.

Sparring's son, Dan Sparring, will continue to manage the family's other remaining store, Limestone and Ivy, in Brockville, the city in which the Sparrings first set up shop.

The Sparrings' arrival in Canada is a compelling story.

In 1973, Inger Sparring was 40 years old and married to a singer in Sweden who was so famous that he had to get out of the country for a while for some peace and quiet.

A friend who owned a chain of gift stores in Canada recommended they open a shop in Brockville.

"He had a marketing guy that had done some research and found out that a very exclusive giftware store in Brockville would be great because it was just between Toronto and Montreal," says Sparring, who ended up managing the store.

"Of course it did poorly."

Realizing the fancy gift shop idea wasn't going to work, Sparring began looking at opportunities to launch a more profitable enterprise and, in 1974, opened the first Fancy That.

"I decided to start a shoe store because I couldn't find any shoes that I liked."

Lousy shoe selection aside, Sparring's husband loved Brockville.

He could walk the streets and eat out without being hounded by autograph seekers or ogled by fans watching to see what kind of vegetables he was buying at the local grocery store.

"The only thing was that my dear husband at that time had some other interests, not only singing, but he also had," Sparring pauses, "a little mistress in Sweden."

The husband ended up moving back to Sweden, leaving Sparring to take care of their three children and dog. A few years later, Sparring met her current husband, Bill Barraclough.

Through Barraclough, who she cheekily calls her "cheapest employee," she says she learned to love Canada.

With his support, she went on to launch several other stores in the area - at one time owning 16 between Belleville, Smiths Falls, Perth and Peterborough - and, 20 years ago, they moved to Amherstview.

Eventually, the travelling began to wear on them and they whittled down their holdings so they could be closer to home.

Despite Sparring's resignation to shear away two more of her stores, to her customers, the candid clothier probably appears as energetic as ever, and, for now, she still is.

"I will go downtown most likely every day," she says of her Princess Street stores, "but I think I have started to slowly tell myself that it's coming to that time that I am going to semi-retire."