Harbour & Tide Katy Lassen

For the first few months, Katy must have felt more like a travelling salesman than a shop and business owner. Circumstances meant that she either couldn’t find or afford suitable premises, and when something did look hopeful, transactions fell through. Perhaps someone was looking down on her, though, because for many reasons, the shop she is in now is the perfect location – not only for her business, but also as a hub for the local community she has become part of. I invited Katy to talk us through that journey and how her business has developed since it first opened its doors along Margate’s coastline.

How did you eventually find this property? I presume you live in Margate?

“No, I live about ten minutes down the road, but after a several months of searching, I had developed a strong network of people who kept me in the loop when properties became available. On this occasion, it was a friend – who knew the property was coming up for rent – who gave me the nod. By then I’d seen loads of different places and had numerous encounters with landlords, some of which were quite negative, to be honest. But the landlords here were a breath of fresh air. They were being sensible about the rent, and the shop was in a great position, so I just thought, I’ve got to go for this.

I hadn’t even looked at Margate before then, but in hindsight it worked out perfectly because it’s the most popular and busy seaside town in this area. I did feel bad that I couldn’t find anywhere suitable in my hometown, but it wasn’t for a lack of trying. I’ve now been here for three years and have had a wonderful time. I have to confess that I’m actually more stressed than I was at the beginning, which is annoying, but that’s the reality of running your own business once you get past the honeymoon period. The loan I got to help with the start-up has now been used up, and I’m having to make decisions about investing in more stock in order to improve profit margins, so my outgoings are continuously increasing. We now have some of our own branded clothing, which are our best sellers. That’s incredible for us, but I need to invest in at least 20–30 units across six different sizes to make that kind of product viable, so there are regular significant outgoings. Even though they sell really well, they won’t all sell at once, so it takes time to see the return on that investment.

You find yourself constantly trying to find the sweet spot between outlay and return. I’m lucky to have some experience in this area from my previous life before the shop. I worked in fashion as a stylist, so my world was based around fashion publishing and running magazines. What I didn’t realise when I started the business was that this experience had also taught me a lot about branding, art direction, and, to a certain extent, marketing. If you’d asked me before whether I knew about those things, I probably would have said no but I also taught fashion promotion and imaging at the University for the Creative Arts for eight years, helping students develop their own advertising, branding, magazines, etc – so I was actually really knowledgeable about that side of the business.”

Have you always lived in Kent?

“No, I used to live in London, but I made the choice to move to the coast several years ago. Things have changed a lot now, but at the time, when I told people we’d bought a larger house with a lovely garden just ten minutes’ walk from the sea, they were like, that sounds amazing…but where’s Ramsgate? I was worried about leaving London because of my career, but I wasn’t really enjoying my work then, so I was willing to take the risk. I was also pregnant, so it felt like the right time – but typically, after having my daughter, I had the busiest year of my career. That’s the sort of crap that happens to women! It meant that 2019 was hectic as I tried to bring up my daughter and manage work demands at the same time. By the beginning of 2020, I realised I couldn’t keep going. It was good money, but I couldn’t manage it all anymore.

Then the pandemic hit, and I was one of the lucky ones because I actually had a really nice time. I missed the money from my former job – timings meant I didn’t receive any furlough – but I was in the privileged position of having a partner who could help with the bills. With the last of my expendable cash, I bought myself a tracksuit, a neoprene swimsuit, and a dry robe, because it felt like the perfect time to try something I’d wanted to do for a while: sea swimming.

I pretty much spent the whole of 2020 on the beach. The weather was amazing, my daughter was three then and had stopped legging it at every opportunity, and we hadn’t been to the beach much prior to that. Then, when childcare reopened, I was able to shift from the sand and spend more and more time in the sea. The weather was boiling hot, and I suddenly realised there were so many people on the beach – but nowhere to buy nice beach things. My friends would talk about a great beach chair they’d bought from Zara, or a beach bag from H&M, but the shops here didn’t offer those kinds of products.

Shops and magazines had always been my thing, so I started to consider whether there was an opportunity for something that would appeal to locals – especially when you think about the different types of people here: the DFLs, as well as the more traditional seaside-goers who might be a bit more conservative in their style. I thought if I could find a middle ground, the idea had legs – perhaps sea legs!

At first, I imagined keeping the style palette more muted, but as the pandemic went on, I realised people were looking for joy. Things had felt drab and scary for a long time, and maximising joy wherever you could had become important. I’ve always loved colour – my earlier fashion work was really vibrant – and I thought it would be far more interesting to do something very different from the other seaside shops. No traditional nautical themes. I wanted to offer products that were joyful, fun, and design-led, but also practical and useful – things you’ll actually use. People also had less money then, so it was important that they could buy things that were good quality and would last: not throwaway items, but products that make you feel good every time you use them, whether it’s a beach towel or an insulated mug.

This would have been around 2021, and my fashion work had dried up a bit, so I turned my full attention to the project. I started off working with someone else, but she had just had a baby and found it was too much to manage. It didn’t feel like it at the time, but in hindsight it was probably a good thing. I’d spent my whole working life collaborating with others, so this was the perfect moment to go it alone. It was scary at first, but I’m the kind of person who would rather take a risk and fail than not try. I applied for a Virgin Start Up loan, which was approved, and I was up and running. The rest, as they say, is history.”

You are very keen to ensure that the shop is part of the community, and central to that is the swim club – how did that come about?

“What I’ve really enjoyed about running the shop is the community that’s been created around it. To be honest, the swim club was really down to them. Someone suggested it to me one day, and I don’t know why, but it hadn’t occurred to me before. I’d like to take the credit for such a great idea, but I can’t! I was like, Oh my God – of course I should have a swim club. It’s now become something that makes the shop brand really stand out. I was delighted when Holly Tucker, who founded Not on the High Street and is a massive champion of small businesses, posted about what we were doing and said, Amazon doesn’t run a swim club – and that’s the point. These are the things big companies can’t do, and wouldn’t really care about doing. I do something like that because it helps my brand, but more than that, because it’s really important to me. I lacked that human connection with people in my previous work. The swim club now represents what Harbour and Tide is really about: bringing joy, connection, and a sense of community to coastal life. What started as an idea sparked by sea swimming has grown into something that I hope is now rooted in Margate.”

Find out more at www.harbourandtide.com