Fashion venture goes retro for future success

Helen Adderley, 28, set up vintage fashion firm Dusty & Dylan 18 months ago.

Now she has moved from the students’ union at Leeds University to larger premises in the Headingley area of the city, from where she hopes to build a chain of stores.

Miss Adderley, who lives in Harrogate, set up her business after working as one of two personal assistants to Sir Philip, the billionaire owner of Top Shop, and as a team secretary at Burberry.

Dusty & Dylan, on Otley Road, sells hand-picked vintage items dating from the 1940s to the 1990s, as well as a few items from the 1930s.

It also sells mid-20th century homeware and furniture, and a selection of film posters, which are sold for up to £300.

The firm sources much of its clothing through wholesalers in Barnsley and Hull and Miss Adderley, who has been part-funded by her parents, said she hopes to turn over around £120,000 this year and to open a second shop in due course.

Miss Adderley told the Yorkshire Post: “I want it to be the best vintage shop in Leeds; (people will say) go there and you will get something different.”

If she is after advice on how to achieve her goals, then Miss Adderley won’t have far to turn.

Her father is the owner of executive recruitment firm Adderley Featherstone, based in Leeds, and her uncle, Bill Adderley, set up home furnishings business Dunelm from a market stall in Leicester with his wife in the late 1970s.

Today, Dunelm has more than 100 stores nationwide, including in Leeds, Sheffield and Scarborough, and it has a medium-term target of increasing its store estate to between 150 and 200.

Miss Adderley spent five years in London and she said her spell in the office of Sir Philip – the demanding owner of Top Shop, Dorothy Perkins and Miss Selfridge – was the best form of work experience and meant rubbing shoulders with long-time Top Shop model Kate Moss and Anna Wintour, the editor-in-chief of Vogue magazine.

Asked what Sir Philip was like, she said: “From someone at that level he was what I expected. To get where he is he has to have a big character.

“He is a challenge to work for – it makes you tougher and you can take a lot more.

“(But) doing PA work did not really suit me. I am just not an office person.

“I come from a business background – there is that influence there.”