©2017 Saratoga Photographer.com
By Jill Nagy
Deborah DePasquale’s new business, Toga Heritage, reflects her fond memories of childhood summers in Saratoga: picnics and barbecues, trips to the races, learning to play golf, visits to the Saratoga Performing Arts Center, and sips from the mineral water fountains.
The shop offers items from hats to picnic baskets to help capture that nostalgia.
She calls it a “lifestyle business,” aimed at “locals and locals at heart.” Physically, it is a shop housed in part of the Paper Dolls stationery store in the Saratoga Marketplace at 454 Broadway in Saratoga Springs.
“It’s my own shop inside of a shop,” she said.
DePasquale said that she launched her brand in 2016, selling at polo matches, fashion shows and similar events. Some of the items she sells are manufactured under her own label. Others, she buys wholesale.
Her aim is to eventually manufacture everything she sells, either in Saratoga or in Montgomery County. Currently, her private label is on items including picnic baskets, beach baskets, ice buckets and a line of scented candles. She plans to launch additional items and new candle scents in October.
The shop’s name, Toga Heritage, has nothing to do with Greek clothing or “Animal House” style parties. Rather, it adopts a nickname for the city of Saratoga Springs.
“We all have similar memories of Saratoga,” DePasquale noted. If you remember playing golf, for example, she has golf towels for you. A SPAC afficianado? Try a waterproof blanket or a new picnic basket. There is also a dog collection, a collection of boat items (think flags), and a wedding collection. Whatever you buy, she said, it will be “personally packaged and put into a self-branded bag and tissue.”
The owner’s professional background is as an interior decorator. She said that she found it “challenging but rewarding” to come up with a design to display her large and varied collection of merchandise in a relatively small space.
Toga Heritage is open the same hours as Paper Dolls: 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday; noon to 5 p.m. Sunday; and 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday.
The webpage is Togaheritage.com. The telephone number is 518-944-8951.