Cassie Northern 
Lowery’s Dial, a cozy shop located at 1225 King Street in Old Town Alexandria, focuses on the fun and unique blend between the old and the new. The shop is run by Maggie Delahoyde, who’s always been enthusiastic about planning, thrifting, and finding one-of-a-kind items, all of which are reflected in her store. The store started as a pop-up and recently celebrated its first anniversary at its current King Street location. Read on for more about Maggie and Lowery’s Dial in Old Town Alexandria.
About Maggie
Maggie grew up in Raleigh, North Carolina. She moved to the DC area in 2007, and described the transition from Raleigh to Virginia as the start of “a whole other professional life.” Maggie originally worked in events and fundraising before opening Lowery’s Dial. Maggie has lived in Old Town Alexandria for five years.
View this post on Instagram
Maggie and her Dad, Bill.
Lowery’s Dial was initially a pop-up at a flower shop called K Aubrey, from June 2022 to last year, when it moved from the flower shop to its current location up the street. In addition to Lowery’s Dial celebrating being 4 years old, it’s also celebrating the 1st anniversary of moving to the new spot.
The store also has a deep familial connection, as it’s the namesake of two of Maggie’s family members. “Lowery is my great-grandmother,” Maggie said. “Mimi Lowery had an antique fine china shop in Modesto, California that she ran. My mom grew up working there.” Meanwhile, the name Dial is a family name that came from Maggie’s late father, Bill, as it was his middle name.
Mimi Lowery, left. Image courtesy of Maggie Delahoyde
Lowery’s Dial was essentially born out of Maggie’s lifelong enthusiasm for finding one-of-a-kind items. She described how thrifting and looking for brand new things – essentially, being a “picker” – had always been a part of her lifestyle. “My mom and I, we’d always get thrifting and always find fun stuff,” Maggie said. “I mean, the thrill of the hunt was basically my whole life. I always enjoyed it.”
The Store
Maggie was particularly inspired to start Lowery’s Dial after an experience she had helping friends decorate. “I started this whole thing because I was helping guy friends decorate their houses and was finding cool stuff on the cheap,” she said. “I just started pairing stuff together and the projects were really fun and turned out well. And so, it got me hooked on the whole idea of finding thrifted stuff or designs, and for resale.”
See more: Alexandria Welcomes Croatia’s National Soccer Team for the 2026 World Cup
To find items worth selling at Lowery’s Dial, Maggie’s main sources right now are estate sales. She finds that estate sales have just the kind of products she’s looking for – things that are cool, vintage, and nostalgic. She also enjoys the experience. “I love going to the house and seeing how they lived, and seeing what other things they collected,” Maggie said.
Still, sales of any kind are of interest to Maggie, as she never knows where she’ll strike gold. “It’s your usual thrift stores or side-of-the-road pickups. You just never know what people are getting rid of. Neighborhood, free-listing stuff, [I’m] just always out finding everything,” she said.
As for the more specific types of items that Maggie is usually searching for, Lowery’s Dial’s favorite aesthetic can be described as girly and old French and English. Maggie’s also really drawn towards 90s and Laura Ashley styles, as well as wicker and quirky ceramic animals, for an overall “cottage core-ish” vibe. She enjoys pairing things together: the example she gave was putting a vintage pair of cocktail glasses with cute and newer embroidered cocktail napkins. “It’s really fun to go thrifting and find cool stuff, and then find the vintage-centered things that are new that go really well with it,” Maggie said.
What to Expect
In addition to its fun collection of assorted vintage items, Lowery’s Dial also hosts a wide variety of events, such as mahjong open-play nights, calligraphy classes, workshops, and more. “We did a vision board workshop in January, we do watercolor nights, we did a garden vintage cookbook party last summer,” Maggie said, mentioning the last one – an Ina Garten cookbook dinner potluck – is one she hopes to do again. In addition to planning these events that happen at Lowery’s Dial, Maggie also continues to do work in events and fundraising outside of the store.
The cash register is in an old hot air balloon basket
Overall, she describes the cycle of finding old items, buying new ones, and managing Lowery’s Dial as an obsession. “I don’t know how to describe it any other way than just an obsession,” Maggie said. “That’s what I think about at 3 AM. It’s what I love doing. I love shopping, always have, and so it’s a little bit of a hobby to put it all together.”
Read more: Meet Carmen Corsi, Loudoun County’s Thrifting Fairy Godmother
Maggie loves receiving messages from people who are decorating items they find at her shop in their own personal ways. “People will either tag me or they’ll text it to me, how they styled it. I love seeing how people end up with [these] things, because that’s the whole point,” she said.
Lowery’s Dial is located at 1225 King Street in Old Town Alexandria. It’s open from 11:00AM to 6:00PM Monday through Friday; from 10:00 AM to 6:00 PM on Saturday; and from 12:00 to 5:00 PM on Sunday.
Follow @thefairfaxgirl on Instagram + TikTok for the latest Northern Virginia updates, and check out our events calendar, which has over 100+ events weekly to peruse. Sign up for our newsletter here.
