A North Wales fashion graduate who started her Manchester clothes business in the last lockdown is already on course to turnover a £1m a year.
Olivia Prince graduated from university in Manchester and won a placement with major brand Boohoo.
Last March the 27-year-old from Conwy decided to go it alone - starting up her own website with the help of a friend to sell clothes online - using her grandmother’s house in Manchester as a base.
But it was when her and fashion designer friend Davina Hewitt started to create their own collections under the Murci brand that the business took off.
It was then turbo-charged when Millie Court walked into the Love Island villa wearing a Murci outfit. This saw the firm move from her “Nanna’s” to a small office and it is now set to take on warehouse and office space just outside the city - with hopes they could also bring some work back to North Wales in the future.
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Olivia said: “When I started up I did not know where this would take me. It really kicked off when we started to design everything - we found out the only way to stand out was to design your own clothes, that is why it has done so well.
“When it stared I was working part time as a receptionist and then would go back to my nanna’s to pack and post the orders from that day. But it soon reached a point where I needed a whole day just to pack and I had to leave my job.”
The summer saw the Love Island exposure and orders exploded with them moving to small offices. The former Ysgol Aberconwy pupil added: “It was so much free press, it just took off and was so good for brand awareness”
They now employ seven with her brother Thomas part of the team doing the accounts. They are due to move into new 5,000sq ft offices in Manchester at the start of April and are on track for annual turnover of £1m.
Olivia added: “This has all happened in a year and we are just coming up to celebrating our first anniversary. It just grows every single month - orders for the new collections are better and better.”
They now work with suppliers in the UK, Italy and China. She added: “Finding suppliers that work in terms of quality and price has been a challenge, especially as until recently it has been hard to travel but we have managed and customers are happy. We are heading to Italy shortly to meet a supplier. The bigger we get the more suppliers we need.
“We are looking forward to this spring and summer. We sell a lot of going out clothes and last year with lockdown we didn’t know where people were getting to wear them but they were still buying.
“We are really excited about this summer with more travel and festivals, we feel we also know our customers and that they love our bold prints and colours. We want to keep on growing from here.”
