Sara Bako knew she wanted to move to New York the first time she visited — on a high school graduation trip with her mom. The Georgia native also knew she wanted a career in retail. As a teenager, she worked at a Papyrus paper goods franchise at Atlanta’s Perimeter Mall and fell in love with the industry.
“Something clicked for me,” she says. “My love of people and selling product and that synergy that happens in a store all synced up together.”
It’s mid-afternoon in Bryant Park and the July sun has cut the clouds, dappling Bako’s A-line floral print dress. The division president for London Times, a subsidiary of dressmaker Maggy London, is wearing Maggy London, and she suggested the leafy Midtown rendezvous because of its proximity to the Maggy London offices on 37th street. She’s not just in her neighborhood; she’s in her element.
Both of Bako’s dreams have come true: She lives in New York and works in retail. But as the ’04 retail management graduate sketches her path from the University of South Carolina to her current job, the silhouette is hardly a straight line.
“Each change in my career has been driven by a curiosity about the next piece of the puzzle,” she explains. “I started in stores, and then I wanted to understand how the product gets selected, so I moved into buying. From buying, I wanted to understand how the product comes to the buyers to begin with, so I moved into wholesale. Then I wanted to learn about the factory side of the business, so I moved to a vertical company that’s headquartered in China but has offices in New York.”
The subsequent move to Maggy London scratched yet another itch, allowing Bako to explore e-commerce and digital marketing.
When she first graduated, though, the Manhattan piece of that industry puzzle felt very much out of reach. She can thank her college mentor for that. And she does. All the time. Kitty Strickland, the HRSM professor who launched USC’s fashion merchandising program also helped launch Bako’s career — by telling her what not to do.
“My junior year I was talking to Kitty about internships, and I said, ‘I really want to live in New York so I’m going to do that,’” Bako explains. “And Kitty said, ‘No you’re not. When you graduate, you’re not going to have any money. New York is hard. It will eat you alive and spit you out. If you really want to live in New York, go somewhere else first, establish your career and figure out your strengths. Then move to New York.’ And that’s exactly what I did.”
On Strickland’s advice, Bako took an internship at Macy’s Atlanta office, then stayed on for four years. When the department store chain consolidated their regional offices in 2009, she moved into wholesale — and on to New York. After a brief stop at a junior’s manufacturer, she landed at a family-run business, HMS Productions, and stayed for a decade.
“I moved to New York on a one-way ticket, which is a surreal experience for anyone who has done it,” she says. “But it was everything I thought it was going to be. I still remember the sense of wonder and awe — you’re pinching yourself that you’re here.”
And she is still here — married, with two kids, and a career on the rise. In fact, she often shares her personal journey, detours and all, with undergraduates at USC, where she serves as a member of the retail program’s advisory board. In her own small way, she is doing for the next generation what Strickland did for her.
“It would have been a really fun experience if I had come to New York right out of college, I would have loved it, but I would have left,” she says. “Kitty had these very blunt words of wisdom for students, and she was right. The city is tough. But I’ve now been here 15 years and New York is just as much home as Atlanta.”
So does that make Bako a New Yorker? She glances around Bryant Park. The lunch crowd is thinning out, but the café tables are still crowded with people from anywhere and everywhere. She laughs: “What’s a New Yorker?”
“I consider myself a Southerner in New York,” she continues. “I won’t ever let go of that. It’s a defining part of who I am, and it’s a defining part of my approach to business. So much of women’s apparel is based in the Northeast, and too often stores make assumptions about what Southern customers want. I understand that customer and that part of the U.S. That’s one of my secret weapons.”