Phoebe Gormley changed the dynamics of Sevile Row in London when she founded a women’s only tailoring company on an exclusive men’s tailoring street. Sevile Row is an exclusive shopping street for men who desire tailored made clothes. Gormley sent shock waves in the fashion industry in London 2015 when she started her own, exclusive women’s tailoring company: Gormley and Gamble.

Gormley’s love for fashion stemmed back to her youth when her father was going to throw out some old suits and she took them instead. She cut them apart and created clothes for herself from them. She was proud of her work and realized how much she enjoyed sewing. After discovering this newfound love for fashion, she interned at Sevile Row and Jermyn Street, gaining experience tailoring clothes at high end stores.

Gormley pursued fashion studies in college, but quickly became bored and decided to drop out of school and start her own company. Her marketing plan was word of mouth and that gained her the recognition she needed to get the support and publicity from other CEOs to make it onto Sevile Row. Instead of being just a tailor, she is now a tailor and CEO of a woman’s only tailoring company. What sets her apart is not just the fact that she is breaking the gender and cultural norms of Sevile Row, but the fact that she uses quality materials to quickly create customized suits and attire. She sends all measurements to a factory in the Czech Republic which is against the norm of handmade suits on Sevile Row. Gormley explains that women prefer the clean, perfected sewing of a machine for half the cost and timely completion instead of the lengthy process of sewing by hand.

Gormley inspires me to break social norms and look outside of the box. She saw a problem and took action.  She went from being an interning tailor to a successful CEO of clothing company. She honed in on her passion and took her determination to get to great heights of success in the fashion industry.

https://www.gormleyandgamble.com/

Sophie Ashby, South-African born and London based designer founded Studio Ashby in 2014 at the age of 25. She is revolutionizing the interior design industry with her eye for color, antiques, ‘world art’ and flair for South African style. She takes much inspiration from her own life and uses it to create beautiful interiors. Her mother was South African and her father British, so she spent many years in England and in South Africa.

For part of her life, she grew up in a market town called Tontes in Devon, England, that was filled with small boutiques that sparked her interest to own her own business someday. She always knew that she wanted to do something creative in her career and had an interest in property and business, so she felt interior design would be the perfect field for her.

Ashby studied at Leeds University in England in Art History. Afterwards, she spent the summer semester at The Parsons School of Design, The New School in Manhattan. This gave her the fundamental theories and strategies needed to launch her into the interior design industry. She was an apprentice to Victoria Fairfax, a renowned interior designer who inspired Ashby’s love for antiques.

She then headed up the interiors department at a multidisciplinary creative agency, Spring and Mercer. At the agency, she had a lot of freedom to develop her design style and lead the department in the direction she thought was best for the company. Even though she had a successful job at Spring and Mercer, Ashby always had a dream to own her own business.

When one real estate developer asked her independently of Spring and Mercer to decorate a townhouse near Trafalgar Square, she took the job and decided this was the time to step out and start her own business. She was working from coffee shops on her laptop and didn’t have much of a plan beyond this one job with this real estate developer. Yet, three weeks later she had another client and now the business has swelled to twelve employees.

Ashby and her designs have been covered in multiple publications, such as Home and Gardens, Architectural Digest, and Design Anthology.

I am inspired by Ashby for her perseverance of following her dream and becoming a successful designer in a cutthroat industry. She took her raw skills, passion, and determination to found her own company and inspire others with her artistic eye and love for beauty.

Model and fashion designer Lauren Bush is changing the world for millions of children by serving one meal at a time. At the age of 23, Bush founded FEED, a social enterprise that sells fashionable lifestyle accessories and uses most of its profits to offer meals to hungry children.

Bush became the Honorary Student Spokesperson of the United Nations World Food Programme in 2004 and saw firsthand the widespread reaches of child hunger while traveling around different countries. When she came back to the States, she felt moved to do something.

In 2007, FEED was founded. A considerable amount of the profits go to providing school meals to children in need. To date, FEED has donated six million dollars and provided over a hundred million meals to children through the UN World Food Programme and Feeding America. Their most popular product is the FEED bags that have a number on it that tells the consumer how many meals it is providing when purchased  For some kids, the meal they receive at school is the only food they will receive all day. FEED partners with 63 countries around the world, including the United States.  Buying these bags is a way that we can help fight world hunger, which seems like such a daunting problem to solve and brings it down to tangible steps we can take.

Bush’s story moves me.  In 2009, Bush was named on of the Fortune Magazine’s Most Powerful Women Entrepreneurs and one of Inc. Magazine’s 30 under 30 in 2010.  She saw a problem and decided to act. She saw firsthand the hunger that plagues children and knew she had to do something to combat it. I love businesses that not only have beautiful products but have a social impact behind it.  It makes me feel like I can make a difference and touch people’s lives through just buying a single product. I think that is pretty amazing.

https://feedprojects.com/

https://dujour.com/lifestyle/feed-ceo-founder-lauren-bush-lauren-interview/

https://www.feedingamerica.org/about-us/partners/entertainment-council/lauren-bush-lauren