A Glasgow fashion firm which began life as a pregnancy hobby has become a favourite of Katie Price, Cheryl Cole and girl band The Saturdays.
Susan Irwin, 31, started selling designer baby clothes on eBay five years ago when she was pregnant with her daughter Chloe, who is now four.
It has spiralled into online womenswear firm www.spoiledbrat.co.uk and the company is expecting to double its turnover to half a million this year - despite the recession.
Katie Price has even told fans via Twitter she loves the website and the company – which has secured exclusive rights to a number of hip US brands – supplied gifts for her televised wedding to Alex Reid.
Susan said: “We try to offer things you don’t see on websites such as ASOS and concentrate on things celebrities have been seen in. We like to get a lot of the brands from America that you don’t see in UK stores.
“I’ve always wanted my own business. Last year our turnover was a quarter of a million and this year we reckon it will be half a million! We’re like ‘gosh this started as a hobby in my living room’.”
Susan puts much of her firm’s success down to persuading celebrities to wear their brands.
They ship boxes to celebs, and when they are snapped wearing the outfits by celebrity gossip magazines Spoiled Brat’s press officer make sure readers are directed to their website.
Susan, from Killearn, Stirlingshire, said: “You never know if it’s going to work or not. But we sent Katie Price a box yesterday and she was wearing a top on This Morning today. When that happens it goes a bit crazy.
“We sent cake holders, mirrors and necklaces for her wedding bags. It costs us money but we get quite a lot back from it. It puts a lot of internet traffic our way.
“We sent The Saturdays a box of stuff and four out of the five wore it. Pixie Lott was wearing some of our jewellery we sent to her in Sugar magazine. Cheryl Cole wore a T-shirt in America after she split up with Ashley, Sarah Harding from Girls Aloud has worn bangles and a T-shirt we sent to her, and Dannii Minogue wore a dress early in her pregnancy.”
Brands exclusive to the company in the UK include funky T-shirts from LA label Wildfox Couture which have been worn by Lindsay Lohan, Paris Hilton, Victoria Beckham and Eva Mendes, hip cami tops by Love You Long Time and babydoll dresses by Lamis Khamis, a favourite brand of Paris Hilton.
The website, which also still offers clothes for children as well as items for men, also stocks Katie Price’s equestrian range.
Susan studied history and politics at Stirling University and was doing a teaching course when she became pregnant.
With the help of sister Elaine, 24, a nursery nurse, they started selling clothes they got from trendy up-and-coming kids brands online from Susan’s living room in Bearsden, East Dunbartonshire five years ago.
But they then decided to set up on their own.
Susan said: “I’ve always loved fashion and when I fell pregnant I thought it would be nice to get some nice kids stuff and I then started selling kids clothes on ebay. I realised they were taking such a big cut, so we started working on our own website. I looked at other websites and thought ‘we can do that’. We started out with a lot of companies in London, wee quirky brands.
“I’ve always been quite adventurous.
“We didn’t have a clue but we’ve taught ourselves as we’ve gone along.”
As the firm grew, Susan’s living room was swapped for her parents garage in Killearn, and two years ago the company moved into a warehouse in Hillington.
They now focus mostly on womenswear and handle between 50 and 100 orders a day to as far afield as New Zealand, China, the USA and Dubai.
Plus the business has become a family affair.
Susan’s fiance Stuart, 30, does the photos after giving up his job as a kitchen designer for Howdens in Paisley. Plus other sister Gillian, 28, swapped work as a pharmacy technician to handle the customer service.
Even the three sisters’ parents are involved. Mum Marlene, 56, a retired RBS worker babysits Chloe so Susan can work, while her dad George, 57, an engineer in Dubai provides a place to stay when the girls goes to hunt for exciting new brands from the Middle East.
And Susan hopes little Chloe, who inspired the business, will one day take it over. She said: “She says she wants to be a pop star though, or a vet. But you never know! Hopefully one day we’ll have a big empire to pass on to her!”
