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Success stories - Damaris

Here are some real life stories which chronicle the ups and downs of starting your own business and illustrate how the Portobello Business Centre can offer vital help

Innocent : Urban Kids : Holistic Silk : Asquith : FreshMinds : Damaris :
Coco-Ribbon
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Damaris Evans makes exclusive lingerie for the luxury market - a pair of her chiffon knickers will set you back as much as £200. She's been in business since 2001 and now employs one full-timer and two part-timers as well as outworkers who make the lingerie. Her lingerie sells in big name stores and the business is now turning over £180,000 a year. One of Damaris' designs even featured in TV's popular 'Sex and the City.' Celebrity buyers have included Kate Moss, Jade Jagger and Pamela Anderson.

"I have fashion degree from Central St Martin's in London," Damaris says, "but I originally learnt to make clothes from my mother. I knew from a young age that I wanted to make clothes. Lingerie appealed to me because production costs are lower - you don't need as much material for a pair of knickers as you do for a gown. I also felt that it would offer me more scope for originality.

"I first went to the Portobello Business Centre four years ago, before I started trading. I'd been offered a loan of £5,000 by the Prince's Trust and one of the conditions was that I had to have a robust business plan and they recommended that I go to the Business Centre. That was one of the best moves I ever made.

"Bob Howell was my business adviser and he was excellent at taking me through the plan line by line and making sure that it all made sense. The Business Centre also encouraged me to do really thorough research into my market. In the end, I spent six months on research alone but that was definitely time well-spent as it helped me to identify the niche in the market that I wanted to get into.

"I also did a couple of courses at the Business Centre in financial planning and those were really valuable too. As a designer, you can have the best ideas in the world but you won't get anywhere unless you put your business on a sound footing. The Business Centre were a tremendous help with that.

"Then I won the Prince's Trust Fashion Enterprise Award in 2002 which was very welcome recognition of all the hard work I had put in as well as of the help that I'd had from the Business Centre.

"I'm now about to launch my moderately-priced diffusion range called Mimi Holliday which will be available at House of Fraser. This will greatly broaden my customer base - and give my business a much higher turnover. I'm also planning to go down the e-commerce route and I'll be hoping to get some advice and support from the Business Centre with that.

"To anyone who is thinking of starting up in business I would say you've got to have passion, you've got to know your product inside out and you've got to get some good advice. In my case the good advice came from the Portobello Business Centre."


 
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