After graduating University at the London College of Fashion with a first class honours, Beth went straight into working for the London Embroidery Studio.
“I worked at the London Embroidery Studio for around 18 months. I worked on some big projects for well known companies and celebrities while I was there.
As much as I loved working there, I was starting to feel London was no longer for me, especially the commuting.
I was also putting in a lot of hard work on jobs, and big name clients would give amazing feedback on my work, but it was never to me directly, it wasn’t me that was getting the credit, understandably, it was the Studio.
Seeing this, and starting to grow uncomfortable in London, lead me to buy my first machine, with a goal of starting my own business to enable me to move back to Middlesbrough and to continue developing a career I worked really hard for. I wanted to work hard and receive the credit for the work I produced.
I knew from the feedback my work was getting from the likes of Victoria Beckham that what I was producing was good, and this gave me the confidence to start.”
“I actually setup my machine in a shed when I first started. I would work a full time job during the week, and then on an evening and weekend I was working on my business and completing orders.
I was slowly getting orders from Instagram posts, at the time children fashion was huge on the platform, and the first jacket I made was a children’s jacket to give to a blogger.
My first big client came about when Zoe Jordan asked another embroidery Studio for work that they couldn’t carry out, so they passed them onto me. They soon became one of my returning clients, I still work with them today.
I stayed in London another two years after buying my first machine. As I got busier with my own business I started to drop my “day job” hours to concentrate on Beth Wilson Embroidery.
Work was also coming my was through some of the connections I had made in the embroidery world. Some stores would ask for embroiders to work at events they were hosting, and my connections would pass them onto me.
This lead me to working at promotional events with companies such as John Lewis, Gieves and Hawkes at 1 Saville Row, and Dior, all within my first year of starting my own business.
These companies had me back multiple times as they were really happy with the work I was producing, which again made me knew I had made the right decision to start my own business.
Within the second year of starting my own business I decided to go fully self employed, and hired a second machine to keep up with demand.
“The pandemic was a time when my business took a massive turn. When restrictions were lifted I packed everything up and moved back up North to be around family. This was always going to be the plan, it just probably happened a little bit sooner than it was going to.
I still worked on my business all throughout the pandemic and lockdowns. One of the ideas that really took off was creating jumpers with rainbows from children drawings. I launched this with the actor Adam Thomas and his wife, and created the first jumpers for their children.
They then shared a video all about the project and how I was donating 30% of profits to the NHS. that lead to my Instagram growing massively and more orders started to come in from that.
I’ve started to get really exciting projects as my reach has expanded. I was recently asked to create a jacked by a celebrity stylist for a music video with Maisie Peters, and promotional photos for Grammy Nominated Singer/Songwriter RuthAnne. Its definitely something I love doing and being creative with. RuthAnn has became a returning customer of mine which is really lovely, and I even created her wedding jacket.
Social media has been and still is a big part of growing my business. One thing that works really well is videos and reels. People know what embroidery is and its nice looking at it, but they love watching videos and seeing how it is done, especially the more intricate techniques that not many people have seen before.
Involving the customer really helps gain a lot of traction.
I’m working for a lot of people globally, so I want to continue to push people to the social pages in order to lead them to the website. I’m working for people in America and Australia, and it’s the online presence that brings in orders from around the world.
There’s been a lot happening lately within the business, I’ve invested in a second machine so we can double production and also create larger items. With this came a second office, so I now run from a design studio, and also a machine room.
Excitingly, I’ve just taken on my first member of staff, which has been amazing for the efficiency in the business. It has given me time to focus on expanding the business even further.
We’re really excited with plans to exhibit at Top Drawer, and move into luxury homeware embroidery.
“If I was giving someone advice on starting their own business, it would be to make sure its doing something you really love. If you don’t love it, you won’t enjoy it and you won’t feel like its worth it.
I also think it’s important to be consistent online, think about your brand and how you want to be perceived, and remember Collaboration is key in the creative industry!”
