Welcome to the Business Journal Archives
Search for articles below, or continue to the all new BusinessJournalDaily.com now.
Search
Success Story
Toula Vows Her Brides Will Be 'Perfect'She came from Greece as a young bride, learned how to sew and opened her own bridal shop.The brown barnlike structure with giant white letters that spell BRIDAL on the roof gives but a hint of the treasures inside.Four rooms packed full of sparkling wedding gowns, gleaming prom dresses, shiny accessories, and unique lines of party dresses, business attire and sportswear illustrate the success story of Toula Kostoglou.Kostoglou was born and reared in Greece but came to the United States in 1971 as a bride, after meeting her future husband while he was vacationing in her homeland. With nothing more than a high school education and a love of beautiful clothes, she opened Toula's Bridal 16 years ago. "I loved clothes, and I loved fashion," she remembers. "And I always liked to create things."Her success as an entrepreneur dates to when friends showed her how to cut a pattern and she started sewing clothes for her young daughter. "That's how I learned," she says. "I read a pattern and I started sewing and things were turning out to look pretty good."And so, Kostoglou opened a fabric shop, which she operated four years, before launching Toula's Bridal, in Canfield. She didn't have a business background -- "I went straight from high school to getting married," she says -- but knew what she wanted. "I just went ahead and bought what I liked and it worked."Vi Agresta, a wedding planner based in Struthers, says, "Toula is very good at what she does, as far as knowing you, picking something out that would look flattering on you." Agresta accompanies her clients as they make the rounds of area bridal stores looking for gowns. "Toula has a nice, large store. She has a lot of choices to choose from," she says.Kostoglou doesn't pretend every dress is right for every bride, says Agresta, who dislikes taking clients into shops where employees do.Kostoglou, on the left, helps Amanda Beagle of Warren pick out a wedding dress and hair piece.When Kostoglou opened her bridal shop, she recalls, "I did everything by myself. It was overwhelming but I did it." As the business grew, she added employees and began expanding her shop's one-room beginning. "Every couple years we kept adding a room," she says. Now, she says, "I don't want it to grow anymore. We could, but this is it. I'm not going to get any bigger." At one point, Kostoglou considered opening a second store, but decided it wouldn't work. "I wouldn't be able to be in both places at the same time," she explains. Although Toula's has grown to have a staff of nine, Kostoglou remains involved in the day-to-day operation, putting in 10-hour days. "It's a lot of work sometimes," she says. "It gets me tired because you can be working all day and then go home and sew at night." Kostoglou does every fitting herself -- "fitting is the most important thing," she maintains -- and checks every dress before it leaves the store. "I don't want to let my customer down by not being here to check, to make sure they are satisfied before they leave," she says.Toula's Bridal also stocks a large inventory of dresses for the mother of the bride, bridesmaids, flower girls and for parties.Ten years ago, when she saw customers looking for wedding shower, honeymoon, cruise and business apparel, she added more lines of clothing. She also added accessories such as jewelry, purses and shoes."People want to go one place and get everything," she says. "It's more convenient." It also ensures that everything matches. "We match their shoes, their purses, their earrings, and when they walk out of here, they're perfect," she says.Kostoglou travels to Europe at least once a year on buying trips. "I carry a lot of unusual dresses that you're not going to find all over the place. I bring a lot of dresses from Spain. I buy a lot of jewelry from Italy and Greece," she says. "There are unique things here that you're not going to find in other bridal stores. We carry things that nobody else carries.""It's a benefit for someone who's looking for something different, and is looking for something unique or is hard to fit," says Agresta, the wedding planner. Agresta saw this with her own daughter, who has trouble finding clothes that fit because she is tiny. "Toula was able to fit her very nicely," Agresta says. "She knew the kind of gown that looked good on her. So she pulled styles that looked really good."Kostoglou is constantly searching for new lines of gowns. For instance, she's trying to obtain gowns from a manufacturer in Greece "because they have some beautiful dresses," she says. Brides from other areas see dresses offered at Toula's in magazines and on the Internet, and travel to Canfield to purchase them and be fitted. Kostoglou has shipped dresses as far as New York City. "We get brides from all over," Kostoglou notes. "We just had a bride from Cincinnati last week. We get them from Cleveland and Pittsburgh." Kostoglou doesn't do much advertising. "It is by word of mouth that we get our business. And because we carry things that nobody else carries," Kostoglou says. In recent years, more stores have opened locally that offer bridal and prom wear. But, she says, "The people who want to buy an exclusive dress, they're still going to come here."I guess everybody's in competition, but I don't check to see who's competing with who. I never worry about that. Most of my customers are repeat customers. A lot of my prom girls end up being my wedding girls."Still, the bridal business can be grueling. "It is a very tough business. You have a lot of deadlines," Kostoglou says. At the same time, "It's a great business if you really have your heart in it," she says. "To see every bride happy and every prom girl happy, it's rewarding.""