Sarah Shafi counts Strange – still beloved by ageing New Romantics – among her products' biggest fans. On the day I arranged to interview her, in Leeds city centre, she had just waved off Strange from the railway station.

I had come tantalisingly close to meeting one of the iconic figures of 1980s' pop. Sadly, this opportunity really had faded to grey, although Shafi did let me chat to Strange on her mobile. She is an avid collector of celebrity endorsements.

"Steve has become a really good friend of mine after he appeared on Celebrity Scissorhands – we provided all the hairdressing holsters for the TV show. He adored the holster – we had a special limited-edition Gothic one. We really clicked," she says.

Shafi, 40, is the Leeds-based founder and managing director of Rude, a leather accessories design firm that is best known for providing "holsters" used by top hairdressers. A swift glance at her website reveals that she has received glowing words of praise from the likes of Ben Cooke, the hairdresser to Victoria and David Beckham and Leona Lewis.

Many Yorkshire entrepreneurs are held back by their reticence, but Shafi loves the limelight and is never lost for words. Her list of hobbies include food, wine, cigars, horse-riding, skiing and "world peace".

Her empathy seems to stem from her training as a psychologist. In her early career, she had to counsel people who were going through the most traumatic times imaginable.

By her own admission, she didn't shine at school, but found her niche when she took an advanced diploma in counselling.

She worked at St James's Hospital medical social work department, in Leeds as a social welfare officer from 1991 until 1997, which included a two-year stint counselling terminally-ill patients.

She recalls: "The social work and counselling was a very special part of my life. I was counselling people who had been left with less than six weeks to live.

"Being involved with people at that time in their lives is a privilege. It's tough and it's sad but it can also be very rewarding."

In 1997, she decided to make a radical change, which was driven by a need to "reinvent myself".

"I gave up my job and threw caution to the wind. I decided to go to America and drive around in a pick-up truck for a year. I camped out in the Grand Canyon in the snow. I loved the driving and the freedom. I did things like jogging across the Golden Gate bridge, catching the morning mist.

"I ran out of money after a while and ended up working on a marina in a big lake in the foothills of the mountains in Georgia where they filmed Deliverance. I went chasing black bears and riding out on a ranch in Colorado. I learned to ski in New Mexico in 60 degree heat where there were just Texans there in shorts and stetsons skiing down the slopes.

"But I was homesick for the British sense of humour. When I got back to Britain, I just watched a load of Carry On films."

After returning home, she took a Masters of Arts degree in counselling at York St John University and spent three years working as a lecturer in the school of management and communication. She then went on to work as a senior business coach with Dale Carnegie Training, in Leeds, before having a eureka moment in 2006. She realised that she had a mission to help hairdressers keep their kit in pristine condition.

She recalls: "The average cost of a decent pair of hairdressing scissors is £250 to £300. Most hairdressers have three or four pairs on the go.

"It's expensive kit and they had these poor quality bags which would fall apart and were really naff. So I decided I was going to make one. I got the cow-hide from my piano stool and made it into something that could be worn in the salon.

"I thought there was a market for it. It could be a niche product. I made some samples and I went out to hairdressers and asked them what they thought of the product. They said they wanted to buy it. I thought there was a business waiting to happen.

"I left my job at Dale Carnegie in May 2006 and re-mortgaged my house, borrowed money, and ploughed everything into creating a business. I did a marketing campaign and got some friends to help me out with sales. I decided to launch it at the biggest hair exhibition in Europe – Salon International in London. My turnover for break-even was £12,000 over those three days and we turned over £17,000, which was fantastic."

She says the event was a great way of "raising the brand profile", and an endorsement from Ben Cooke soon followed.

Shafi remains the 100 per cent owner of Rude, and although she's had help from West Yorkshire Ventures and Business Link, it hasn't been plain sailing.

She says: "I have been looking for an investor and I still am. It's not easy to get a business off the ground when you've not got a particular trading history. The plan is to sew up the hair-dressing side of things, so that becomes the cash cow.

"I'm sorting out my distri-bution streams at the moment. I've got a great distributor in Denmark. We're expanding into Norway, Sweden, Germany and Poland. I'm going out to Denmark to look at my strategy for distribution. I've also got some serious interest from Australia. There seems to be a big gap in the market. Hairdressers are saying there's nothing out here like this. It's the same in America."

But how do you go about getting celebrities to back your products? Does it make a difference?

"If you see somebody you like, you keep going until you get to them," says Shafi. "You have to be very honest and up-front with these people because they will see right through you. If you're not honest, they will suss you out. I've developed a good relationship with a lot of the celebrity hairdressers in the UK. My business is small and I need help. But if you ask people for help, you find they are generous.

"When you're going to create a brand, celebrity endorsements are key. You need to have creative and innovative people involved to make people feel reassured about using it."

There aren't a large number of high-profile Asian women in business. Shafi believes a good education and a supportive home environment are crucial if more Asian women are to take their place at the top table.

"We are seeing more and more Asian women getting a good education," she says. "Over time, as there is more exposure to the western world, they are starting to be a little bit more liberated. I think there's a lot more still to be done and the education starts in the home where women should not be regarded as subordinates, but should be given more equality.

"I have a very strong sense of self and I will just fit in wherever I go. Being part of a culture and part of a community can be very powerful. It can be very good and nurturing. I'm not intimidated about being around a boardroom with 20 men, but there are still barriers there for some Asian women."

She is also proud of the fact that all her products are made in Britain, a strategy she feels sure will pay off in the long term.

She says: "British handbag manufacturing has become a bit of a dying trend and the cost to source and manufacture over here has been prohibitive. But I have stuck to my values of not selling out to the Far East or producing them in sweatshops, as I believe in supporting local business and the environmentally necessary trend of home production."

Two years after it was founded, the turnover stands at about £200,000 and more than 2,000 belts have been sold. Shafi says that the business is poised for rapid expansion. Turnover is expected to reach about £8m in the next three years, with a net profit of some £1.5m.

Shafi said: "This is a conservative estimate and
does not represent the potential for all international markets, including Australia and America where I am gaining a lot of interest. I hope to build a core team of between 10 to 20 employees within the next three years.

"Outsourcing will take up most of the work but it is extremely important that these relationships are strong and solid so they will be every bit as Rude as any member of staff."

Shafi hopes brazen "Rudeness" will create jobs in Yorkshire,
and also ensure that top hairdressers gain a dash of gothic charm.