Fashion follower

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Sarah Curran was confident her fashion e-tail business My-Wardrobe could work from the word go. She tells Charlotte Dennis-Jones why

Sarah Curran’s dream of setting up an e-tail fashion business while soaking up the French sun in Saint-Emilion didn’t quite go according to plan.

Her aim was a relaxed and mortgage-free life across the Channel. And, as owner of a north London fashion boutique, the bricks-and-mortar-free world of online fashion seemed an obvious progression. But not long after My-wardrobe.com went live, she and her co-founder husband Andrew realised they would have to move back to England to grow it to its full potential.

The business, which focuses on selling mid- to high-end fashion brands, will celebrate its second birthday in April. In the two years since its launch it has attracted an ever-increasing army of followers and is a popular favourite with many a consumer magazine fashion editor.

While still small – total sales for last year were just under£1 million – it is growing fast. Sales for the whole of last year rocketed 143 per cent.

In the early days in France, the team comprised just the two-man team and a business partner. They had a warehouse, studio and small office. Now, they have a team of 30, with offices in Nottingham and London.

“I’ll never forget our first order, which went to Germany,” laughs Curran. Packing the first delivery took her the best part of an hour, partly because of the stress of wanting it to be perfect and partly because a night out with friends the previous evening had gone on until 5am.

From there, online hits and sales climbed steadily. There was, however, certain scepticism at the beginning. “Everyone assumed we’d come in to try to be another Net-a-Porter. We really hadn’t. We came into that market to position ourselves in the middle. It was completely empty,” she says. “But I knew it was going to work. Not everyone lives around the corner from stores that stock these brands.”

Nevertheless, getting the brands to come on board has not always been easy. The business’s most recent high-profile recruit is Luisa de Paula, who joined as buying and merchandising director and previously held buying roles at Liberty and Selfridges. One of her responsibilities will be to help target certain labels.

With some, the protection of their online distribution has been a major problem. Notably, Curran says the French and Italian fashion houses are particularly reluctant to sell online. “They have a different view of online and distribution,” she explains. “It’s changing, but I think it’s a cultural thing. Many see it as a wild animal they won’t have any control over.”

This is reflected in their orders, too. “French women have a more emotional relationship with fashion. They seem to need that whole shopping experience more,” she says. “At the moment. France, Italy and Spain are not big markets for us, whereas Scandinavia and Germany, for example, are fantastic.”

The long-term plan is to expand – particularly into the emerging markets of Eastern Europe. My-Wardrobe has also bought domain names for My-maternity.com and My-lifetstyle.com, so it can expand the brand to offer a department store shopping experience. However, in the immediate term, it is launching menswear for spring/summer 2008.

Curran herself seems surprised – and delighted – with the twists her career path has taken. “I remember watching the Clothes Show when I was a teenager and then last year I was filming and doing trend commentary for them. It was surreal,” she recalls. The programme’s presenter Louise Redknapp has also been recruited to its board.

She describes herself as something of a late starter when it comes to fashion retail. “As a teenager, I was forever going to a charity shops and customising my clothes. I was always creative, but it wasn’t until I was 30 that I opened Powder [her fashion boutique]. This whole ambition thing came later on. I spent my 20s doing the party thing and now I’m like right, I’ve got 10 years to prove I can do it,” she laughs.

It may be early days, but many might say she’s proved it already in only two.