A much-loved Cardiff shoe shop has announced that it will be closing after 52 years of trading. Jon Ian, based in the Morgan Arcade, has announced that the store will soon be closing its branch in the city centre.
David Thomas set up the store in 1971 after returning to Wales from London. A farmer's son from Wick, David had been managing director of Kurt Geiger's shop on Bond Street in the 1960s and wanted to come home to Wales to establish his family business in the Morgan Arcade. The shop opened when David's daughter, Esther Hitchcock, was seven, and her father became her mentor in the business.
"The shoe industry was definitely in our bloodstream and it was passed on," Esther said. "The shop has been very much part of my life growing up, [I was] always in there on holidays and high days - it was just learning all about the shoes and business in general.
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"We've seen a lot change over these years. When it's in your family and it's been in your DNA for so long, it's funny when you look back and reflect. I've been going into the shop this week and looking at how the shop itself hasn't changed at all, but all around it has completely evolved."
Esther has fond memories, that she says other customers will remember well, of her father sitting in his chair in the shop. "You would go in and have a discussion on politics, or all about fashion. He was a mine-full of information and, consequently, that was also what was passed on to me in my learned years, shall we say."
The shop made it through four recessions, the miner's strike, threats of demolition, and changing fashions. Sadly, after 48 years of running the shop, David passed away in 2019, and Esther kept the store in Cardiff up and running after his death.
Esther has long been part of the business, starting in the Cardiff shop as a Saturday girl when she was 12 before setting up her own branch of Jon Ian in Cowbridge - which will remain open - after moving there to start a family. She continued to work with her father through the buying and bookkeeping side of the business.
After her father's death, Esther took over the Cardiff store in 2019 - not long before the team was faced with the coronavirus pandemic. "Life as we knew it changed. As bad as I was - devastated - when dad died, I was so glad he wasn't around during Covid times because he was in that shop seven days a week - he would not have coped with it closing and not being allowed to go in."
David was dedicated to his business, and would make sure to be there as much as possible. "When we had snow here [...] and we couldn't get in, he walked to Bridgend to get the train in, which was a 10 mile walk for him at that time, so he could go to sleep in the shop and so he could open the shop in the snow. Then there was no-one around. He was determined not to miss a customer."
Esther said her father was "ever the opportunist", reflecting: "The time that the Pope came to Cardiff, we were all warned about crowd control. He got in at six o'clock in the morning and then we didn't see a soul in the shop all day. He felt sure that we had to be there to grab that moment because, who knows, we may pick up a new customer."
The decision to close the Cardiff store has been a "massive" one for Esther, who says she was determined to keep the store going after her father passed away. However, with rising rent rates and utilities bills and Esther seeing decreased footfall in the arcades, she has made the decision to close the shop.
The date that the shop will close is yet to be finalised, but the closure of the Cardiff branch does not mark the end of Jon Ian. During the coronavirus pandemic, an online store was set up, which will continue, and the Cowbridge shop - which has expanded into ladies' clothing - will remain open.
"Dad would say, 'You're closing one door and you're opening another one,'" Esther said. "We're just evolving with the times and we're still going to be specialists in what we do best and that is in the fashion field." She added that messages of support from loyal customers following the announcement of the store's closure have left her emotional, and she is determined to cater to those who would have usually come into the shop in Cardiff.
"Some people have said, 'I used my first paycheque to buy shoes from Jon Ian' - so many people did that," Esther said. "They'd come in to choose a pair of shoes and then they'd pay off weekly, about £5 a week, to pay off for these shoes."
She continued: "We will do home deliveries, I'll do late nights [in Cowbridge]. We will do Sunday openings. The customer service that we offer is still very much here. People only have to pick up the phone and we can organise whatever suits them."
For Esther, the future of Jon Ian is going to be "bigger and better", despite the difficult decision to close the Cardiff store. "It's all about going forward. We're really sad to be leaving Cardiff, but [...] we're going to be even bigger and better, and we're still here."
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