Future is looking good as agency aims for growth

The answer is a modelling agency run by a young Yorkshire entrepreneur. You may not normally associate supermarket supremo Sir Ken with the dog-eat-dog world of high-fashion, but Emily McCarthy's work has taken her from the world of sweets and groceries to promotions and launches with Jaguar and Jet2.com and even to Hungary.

Now Mrs McCarthy, a mother of two, has opened a Shine Promotions office in London and outlined plans to grow the business further.

Shine, which is based in Harrogate, is a modelling and promotion agency set up four years ago. In that time it has provided men and women for

fashion shows and photo shoots as well as producing its own events.

It has also supplied models for product launches and events at venues like the Royal Armouries, Manchester Airport and Leeds's upmarket Victoria Quarter, as well as for a Kleenex launch at a Morrisons store with Sir Ken and the brand's emblematic dog.

It is a far cry from when Mrs McCarthy, a former model, started her business when she was 23, with little cash other than the money

required to register at Companies House. Now it aims to turn over 100,000 for the year to February 2011 – although, like a lot of other owners of small businesses, Mrs McCarthy said that depends on how Britain fares over the next six months.

"We hope to smash the turnover target with the London office opening but with the market changing, we have to be realistic and wait and see how the economy behaves over the winter." Shine, which has three staff, has formed a reciprocal arrangement with an agency in Budapest, which means it can send models to work abroad and the Hungarian agency can send people on its books to work in Yorkshire and London.

Mrs McCarthy hopes to make a similar arrangement with agencies in Europe and the US but said this will take time.

"In four years' time, I would like to do the same with Paris, and in four another years, in New York. They are the hardest places to go but if we have been in the industry for more than 10 years, then it would work.

"New York would be the hardest market to crack but there is still a huge amount of work."

Mrs McCarthy has also tried to introduce a more ethical culture into her industry.

Some agencies can boost their earnings significantly by charging would-be models hundreds of pounds for a place on their books but Shine refuses to do this, not charging a joining fee and avoiding raising the hopes of clients unrealistically.

"We only take on individuals we know we can get business for," she said.

Mrs McCarthy's own experience of modelling goes back more than 20 years. She started at just five, when she modelled for Pontefract-based sweet maker Haribo as well as for board games made by Waddingtons. After studying at Sheffield Hallam University, she worked for Sky in 2001, where she was tasked with booking presenters and making the logistical arrangements, before moving back to Yorkshire.

It was while studying, and doing some modelling and promotional work, that she began to see a gap in the market which Shine could fill.

The true face of fashion

The fashion industry has had an unforgiving light shone on it with films like The September Issue, a documentary following the work of Vogue editor Anna Wintour, and The Devil Wears Prada, which starred Meryl Streep in a thinly veiled take on life at the same magazine.

Emily McCarthy said: "It is definitely cut-throat but I think that is business in any industry. It is so competitive, but on the business side it as same as any other business.

"The only thing that is very similar to magazines and TV shows, like Ugly Betty and America's Next Top Model, is that everything always seems to be last minute. It always comes down to models' availability and last-minute stresses."