Meet Deborah and learn more about life as a wedding dress designer and business owner. Part of our Bitesize world of work series.
I'm Deborah. I'm 25 years old and I'm a business owner and designer.
Being a business owner is kind of like having the job role of about 20 different people. You have to make sure that the business as a whole runs really well and really smoothly.
I'm a wedding dress designer and that involves sketching and drawing wedding dresses and breaking down the technical specification of the wedding dress. That means that you draw the wedding dress the way that it's supposed to be put together and then I send these sketches away. I have them made and then I have customers come in and try the dresses on and then we pick their wedding dress for their wedding day.
Everyday in business you use a lot different skills. I would say that skills that are used would be communication – so you're on the phone every day, you're speaking to people face-to-face. That leads into the customer experience, so you have to be really personal and make sure that customers have a super unique experience. And that's all about your communication skills.
So it's something that I've learned in business, is that you always have to be ahead of the game. It's a really competitive market, especially in bridal and that's why I think it's important to have a unique selling point and our unique selling point is definitely the fact that you can design and add to and customise your wedding dress.
From a young age, I always knew that I wanted to do something really creative as a career and I used to be really involved in arts and crafts and I used to sketch and draw and, when I went to secondary school, I chose creative subjects. So, I chose Art and Music. I would say taking those creative subjects definitely helped with my career choice.
When I left school, I originally thought about studying interior design and then I changed my mind and I thought fashion was a really, really good choice and, while studying fashion, I worked part-time in a bridal shop and then realised that I could combine the design and working with bridal that I really loved and open my own shop with my own designs.
So it hasn't been easy getting to where I am today. Building the business plan and working and studying for two years was really, really difficult and it came with a lot of challenges, but I overcame these one by one. I think sheer determination and passion comes into this. So I feel so lucky and so privileged to be able to do the job that I do. I absolutely love my shop. I love my job. I love my team. So it's been really tough to get to where I am today, but I'm really, really proud of the person that I've become and I'm really happy that I overcame all the challenges that I faced throughout the journey of building up my business.
Being a business owner is kind of like having the job role of 20 different people.
- Deborah knew from a young age that she wanted to do something creative. She was always sketching and drawing and chose creative subjects including Music and Art at secondary school
- She studied Fashion Design and was inspired by working part-time in a bridal shop to open her own wedding dress business
- She now runs her own bridal business. She draws dresses and sends the sketches off to be made into dresses before displaying them in her shop. She loves her work and loves helping people to find their perfect wedding dress.
What to expect if you want to be a business owner
The salary and working hours when you own a business can vary enormously but what's most important is that you work hard and love what you do.
Working for yourself looks different for each person and each business, but in general it means you:
- run your own business and are responsible for its success
- can decide how, when and where you do your work
- charge an agreed, fixed price for your work
- sell goods or services to make a profit
- can hire people at your own expense to help you or to do the work for you.
You can be both employed and self-employed at the same time. You can work for your employer during the day, for example, and run your own business in the evenings and at weekends. It’s important to contact HMRC for advice if you’re not sure if you’re self-employed.
You can get help with setting up or developing your business, through the government’s business support services, for example, for advice about tax or about how to find funding to start your business.
This information is a guide (source: GOV.UK).
For careers advice in all parts of the UK visit: National Careers Service (England), nidirect (Northern Ireland), My World of Work (Scotland) and Careers Wales (Wales).
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