I think it’s about time I shared with you all about The Sail Loft Christmas Market. With all the comings and goings of the festive season, I did not get around to posting about our fantastic Christmas Market for female-founded South Devon businesses. But it was such a lovely event, I thought you might like to have a peek at how it went.
So let’s start off by explaining how it all came about. Running a market event for female-founded businesses was on my bucket list of things I wanted to do for The Tribe, but it was somewhat down the line, maybe in a few years time. So I had parked the idea on my list of ‘Ideas for later’. And yet within a few days, one of my lovely Tribe Online members reached out to me and asked if I would be interested in running a market with her.
Sarah Smither is an incredible entrepreneur. She runs Barrington House, an extremely successful holiday let business in Dartmouth. Last year, with her husband Rupert, she also opened The Sail Loft, a unique bar, restaurant and lifestyle business in the heart of Dartmouth. Together, Sarah and Rupert sensitively refurbished this amazing building with many of the original features restored. It was the perfect venue to hold a Christmas market and a great opportunity for Sarah to showcase just how versatile The Sail Loft is as an events venue.
The reason I wanted to be involved in a market for female-founded businesses was purely to offer some support after what has been an incredibly tough couple of years for all businesses, but particularly for women in business.
Studies have shown that women have been adversely affected by the pandemic and multiple lockdowns. As female founders, we already have a lot of barriers to starting and growing our businesses and a global pandemic just exacerbated the situation beyond what any of us could imagine.
So Sarah and I decided to use our resources and network to do what we could to help other female business owners at Christmas. I truly believe that when we come together and collaborate, we can achieve so much more. We really are stronger when we choose to work with other women.
So we reached out to our community and invited a handful of amazing female-owned and run businesses to come and show their wares at our Christmas market. Some of the women exhibiting were members of our very own Tribe Online community and others were local women whose work we admire and wanted to support.
It was a fantastic event and we hope to be able to do more similar events in the future so watch this space.
Bex of Soren Designs 
Claire of Devon with Kids 
Gemma of Dartmouth Candle Company 
Helen of Helen Butler Designs 
Jody of New Old England 
Victoria of Love Lammie
Exhibitors at the market included:
- Soren Designs
- Devon with Kids
- Dartmouth Candle Company
- Helen Butler Designs
- New Old England
- Love Lammie
- Little Star Studio
- Botanical Boheme
- Mon Petit Cashmere
All photography was shot by the very talented local photographer Claire Gillo
So that is what happened at The Sail Loft Christmas Market. There was a lovely festive atmosphere and the locals who attended seemed to really enjoy it.
Stacey Sheppard is the founder of The Tribe, a small community-driven coworking space in Totnes that caters to creative, growth-oriented female entrepreneurs by providing an inspiring working environment designed to foster collaboration, connection and community.
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