Saxony celebrates 45 years in Charles City

By James Grob, jgrob@charlescitypress.com

Saxony women’s clothing store in Charles City and its owner, Lisa Richter, both made their world premiere debuts 45 years ago.

Both of them look a little different now, but Richter said she hopes to run the business she’s known all her life for as long as she’s still happy doing it.

“We are very proactive,” Richter said. “This is our business, it’s our ‘meat and potatoes,’ and it’s done well.”

Saxony, which features brand name women’s apparel and accessories, is currently located at 104 N. Main in Charles City. It was more of a wig shop in 1975, and it was located in the old Cedar Mall. It moved to its current location in Charles City in 2003, when the mall was torn down.

Richter owns and runs three clothing stores now — Saxony in Charles City and Mason City and LBL (Life by Lisa) in Cedar Falls. Saxony was founded by her mother, Mary Lou, in 1975, and Richter said she literally slept in a crib in the fitting room.

Richter was born in July and Saxony was officially born in September of that year, although Mary Lou sold wigs from her home for a short while before the first store opened. That first store in the Cedar Mall was mostly just wigs and accessories, and expanded into clothing.

“Clothing kind of took over … but we’ve always maintained the wig store,” Richter said. “Our Mason City store still sells wigs, and so does my Cedar Falls store.”

Mary Lou was a millinery (women’s hats and wigs) specialist with Younkers, and traveled to all the different stores as a district manager. In 1975, she got pregnant with Lisa and decided to go out on her own.

Lisa’s father, who passed away in 2009, was an immigrant from Germany, specifically the state of Saxon, thus the name “Saxony.”

Richter, a 1994 Charles City High School graduate, has essentially been running the business for about the last 15 years, and took over completely three years ago when Mary Lou retired.

“I’ve learned everything from her,” Richter said. “It hasn’t always been rainbows and butterflies, but I couldn’t have had a better teacher.”

This has been Saxony’s birthday week, and later this month the store will have its annual open house. Stacey Berger, who has been working at Saxony for 16 years, acts as store manager for both the Charles City and Mason City stores.

“I like the people. All the people are my friends,” Berger said. “It’s really a nice asset for this town.”

“Stacey is just fabulous,” Richter said. “Much of the staff has been with us for years and years, and that’s huge in terms of our customer service. They know what the customers need and what they like.”

“You’ve just got to evolve, things keep changing and you have to just keep pivoting,” added Berger, who is from Nashua.

Richter has evolved as well. She was ringing up customers at the age of 7, and spent her late teens and early 20s working as a model in Europe, gaining exposure to all parts of the fashion industry.

She returned to Iowa and took over as manager of Saxony in 1999. The Mason City store opened in 1986 in the Willowbrook Mall and Richter opened LBL, a store in Cedar Falls that caters more to younger clientele, in 2009.

“We know our business. We’ve been doing it a long time,” Richter said. “We’re consistent, our customers love us. We stay on trend. We travel to all the different markets.”

Richter said competing with online markets has been one of the biggest challenges for her business. She has modernized the ever-evolving business model and become a social media presence. She’s proud to maintain Saxony’s brick-and-mortar presence, however.

“Online is important, but women are tactile, they like to touch and feel the clothing, and you can’t do that online,” she said. “When you walk into Saxony, you get an honest opinion. We want our customers to look their best, because they are walking advertising for us.”

She also makes sure that the business is involved in the community, which is another asset that she says you can’t get online.

“We love our customers, we love our staff, and we love clothes and fashion,” Richter said. “It just comes down to having a quality product and good customer service.”