Dollybabe ready to grow into fashion

Dollybabe.com - Ready to grow into fashion

Local businesswoman Durdana Rashid has everything in place for her fashion-wear business to take off in Rochdale and beyond. Her brand, dollybabe, offers a range of fashion accessories; from handmade jewellery to designer bags.

Ms Rashid said: "We stock a lot of must-have pieces, the types of items that all the celebrities are wearing so the items are certainly in fashion. We are determined to keep everything up to date and offer value for money on all of our pieces."

Ms Rashid's niche is that she has always maintained a more intimate hands-on approach to fashion, compared with the 'Devil Wears Prada' attitude of some of the more commercial fashion stores. She said: "I have always been interested in fashion. I have made a lot of the items we stock myself - in particular the handbags. I started making them for friends and family, to show my creative side, but I had always wanted to set up my own business and I thought it would be ideal to start selling some of the bags I had made, amongst other items."

Ms Rashid is building on some early successes in the fashion world. In 2006 she launched some of her wears at the 'Big Fashion' show at the NEC in Birmingham and they proved to be a hit, whilst the show itself was featured on BBC television. Locally Ms Rashid got a good response when she held a stall at the Rochdale Cultural Market in the town centre during July this year.

She said: "I am hoping to build on that early success now. Hopefully my website will enable me to reach more customers. We will be keeping up to date with the latest fashions because it is true that fashion is always changing."

Ms Rashid aims to branch out into setting up accessory shops throughout the region.

In setting up her business Ms Rashid received help from Rochdale Ethnic Minority Business Support.

• Visit the Dollybabe website