Cleveland Street button shop seeks help to stay in business

A fundraising campaign has been launched to save one of the last remaining cottage industries left in Fitzrovia.

Maureen Rose, who runs Taylors Covered Buttons and Belts out of a tiny shop on Cleveland Street, is at risk of closing her business before the end of the year.  

During the Covid restrictions the shop had to close for many months, which left her £17,000 behind with the rent.

Katie Fyfe, a local resident and friend of Maureen, is urging people to support the campaign and told The Fitzrovia News:

“The landlord is now taking legal action, and won’t renew the lease until the debt is paid in full. If Maureen can’t raise the money, she will have no choice but to close the shop for good this November.”

Taylors has been around for over a century and Maureen has been running it for over 50 years, supplying the West End theatre industry and people from all over the world with her buttons.

The shop opened at Cleveland Street in 2000 and was previously run from Silver Place in Soho. Her business was featured in The Fitzrovia News in 2012.

“She is a local icon who loves her work and doesn’t want to close,” says Fyfe.

Maureen has set up a crowdfunding campaign to help pay off the debt and is seeking the support of local people.

“Over the decades, we’ve supplied buttons and belts to some remarkable people — from the current King and Queen, Her Late Majesty Queen Elizabeth II and Margaret Thatcher to countless film, theatre, and TV productions. Our little shop has quietly supported Saville Row, the creative industries and served generations of makers, all from a site once home to Charles Dickens himself,” she writes on the crowdfunder.

Please visit the Taylors Buttons website for further details.

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