LAURA ASHLEY…maybe if you are young you may not even know the name, but she was very important in the 60’s.
I met Laura when she came into my boutique in Holland Street Kensington. She had a carrier bag under her arm and looked pretty scruffy. Obviously, I thought at the time, she was not going to be a good customer for my rather expensive clothes.
She said she was from Wales and that she had some things to sell. She brought out some tea cozies and an egg cup cozy in a nice-looking print and she said she wanted £3 each…well I didn’t obviously want anything I also felt so sorry for her and told her I would but 2 of each to sell in the boutique. She was over the moon and said she would come back! Hopefully she wouldn’t come back.
I put them into a cupboard and forgot them...
Not that long after that I noticed her name cropping up here and there.
Laura Ashley started with a few designs of her fabrics and made them into dresses, and they sold like hot cakes…everyone was wearing a LAURA ASHLEY frock!!! A few years later she had formed Laura Ashley PLC and the world was her oyster!
Laura sadly fell down the stairs and died in 1988. Her ‘empire’ still exists in a way and who ever took over the company, it may have been her son I’m not sure, but they sell wallpapers, fabrics, tiebacks, and goodness knows what else now, so her start with egg cup cozies really paid off, whilst I am still working at my ripe old age….story of my life!
Silly me for thinking that that scruffy young girl would never make it….and maybe I should try to sell her tea cozy and eggcup cozy as memorabilia!
