I guess I never really knew. When I was doing my A Levels, it was decision time [in terms of] which direction I went with in my university course. It was either a creative route – my mother was a designer and my sister was very creative, and I was thinking about interior design and wanted to go to the design school in New York – or more business and economics, like my father.

I was much more keen to go to the interior design school in New York, but my father actually pushed me and said: “Look, you need a good foundation. Even if you do that, in the end, Heidi, that business foundation is valuable even if you go into the creative afterwards”. So I studied marketing economics and it was a great decision because it gives you a really good basis for building a business. I speak to a lot of the designers that have joined the team over the years and I hear that a lot of design schools are now including business courses because it doesn’t matter how beautiful your design is if you can’t sell it.

Penny and I met when we were at a consultancy in London. We just worked really well together. At the time, we were doing a big research project for a blue chip company on airport spending and how lucrative it was, as a lot of people would invest a lot in a holiday, and looking great on holiday. It intrigued me. That was coupled with me, at the time, going on a diving holiday in February. Back then, more than 20 years ago, winter sun holidays were quite a new thing.

I went to get my holiday wardrobe and literally couldn’t find anything. I remember going to Fenwick on Bond Street and it was the only place stocking swimwear. There were about 10 little bikinis and one pieces on the end of a rack and I went into the changing room, and it was awful; dark and dingy. The curtain didn’t close properly. It was thoroughly depressing. I got an ill-fitting bikini because that’s all I could get, let alone trying again for a lovely hat and a new pair of sunglasses. It was hopeless.

I was talking to Penny about it and we spotted a huge market gap for all-year holiday shop. We did so much research for months and it just snowballed. We were both approaching 30 and wanted a change, so we started writing a business plan and it went from there.

It took us probably a year to put the business plan together and we had to decide whether we wanted to go small and grow organically, or ask investors and give away some equity in the business in order to go bigger, get a great location in London, and get a great PR agency to launch the brand. We decided on the latter, which was great, because we’d been looking at little shops in Wandsworth and getting a bank loan, but we wanted to do it well. We then looked at boutiques in Notting Hill which, in 2002, was massively up and coming. We got some investment from The City so that we could do it with a bit of a bang at the beginning, which actually paid off.

That to me was absolutely obvious because I’d been through it. Research was so important, and having focus groups of women told us that shopping was something girls loved, but when it came to swimwear, no one had a clue what they actually wanted. It was a really emotional shopping experience, one that you usually came out of feeling thoroughly depressed because not only was the product not great, there were no boutique brands offering something different. The whole experience was also something we wanted to turn on its head, so we aimed to create an environment where you actually started your holiday by coming into our store.

At the time, lingerie fitting was a big thing, especially at La Perla and Marks & Spencer, but no one was fitting swimwear. We wanted to train our team to really understand a woman’s body and what fitted them. I wanted the store to feel like a beautiful Hamptons home, smelling like coconut oil, with a curated edit of beautiful boutique brands merchandised beautifully because, from research, swimwear was usually just crammed at the back of a rack. I also wanted to change the trying-on experience because it had been awful for me and, from focus groups, often made women feel lumpy, bumpy and horrible. I designed big spacious fitting rooms with solid doors and flattering lighting with a bathrobe so you didn’t have to put all your clothes on to go and get another size. All these things were designed to make your shopping experience for your holiday a bit more fun.

I have three quite young kids so juggling family with work is a daily challenge. It can depend on where we are in the critical path and the season, from designing the collection to working with the product team on fit – which is the brand’s USP – so we spend hours and hours in fit sessions. Online is a growing part of the business, so you want those beautiful assets from photoshoots to showcase the product which takes a lot of time. Being a founder of the business with Penny, we’re always looking at sales and working with the team. It’s juggling all of those.

The best part of the job is really getting to know and understand our customer. We’re in a lovely position as a brand that we have stores so I can go straight onto the shop floor and find out what’s working and what isn’t. That’s why we launched the Heidi Klein brand, because at the start when we launched in Notting Hill, we sold a collection of beautiful third party brands and the Heidi Klein brand really only started because we were on the shop floor the entire time. So, one of the things I enjoy most is talking to the customer and finding out what she is enjoying and what she’s not enjoying. The worst part of the job: critical path, manufacturing, customs – Brexit has been a challenge and adds another layer of challenges. That can be painful.

The first day of the Notting Hill store opening was huge for Penny and I because we’d given up big careers in The City. Our families thought we were completely bonkers. It was nerve-wracking and we didn’t know which way it was going to go. But we were so lucky on the first day, we got a page in The Times Magazine and a big piece in Vogue; the store was just crazy all day.

From a brand point of view, the Heidi Klein line started [in 2004] because there were gaps in the market we couldn’t fill for our customers – and that just grew, and grew. One day, about a year later, someone from Barneys in New York walked into our Notting Hill store and wanted to stock us. Those are two of the real early highlights that set the brand on track. But just seeing people wearing the brand always makes me smile.

The first real challenge was when we were pitching for investors and we had our first presentation three days after 9/11. We thought no one’s going to go on holiday or fly anymore. But we truly believed in the concept and just pressed on. The other big challenge was the Covid-19 pandemic as no one was going on holiday. But what we’ve learned is just keep going up, believe in what you do and keep talking to people. There’s a really good network of female founders that you can talk to and bounce off; Anya Hindmarch has been a great support from the beginning. You help each other through it.

I think you’ve got to be strict because when you have children, it’s hard to juggle. Someone asked me the other day how I keep the balls in the air, and I said they’re often on the floor. You can never truly switch off when it’s your brand; I’ll go on holiday and I’m constantly trying to see what brands other women are wearing.

My mother has always been an inspiration to me. She was an interior designer and her office was in my family home’s attic. I’d often be up there helping her choose schemes and I get my love of creative and beautiful things from her.

I would say communication is absolutely key, and it’s important to not get tied up in the micro, day-to-day stuff. As a manager, you need to have the vision for the brand and communicate that to the team so that you’re working towards a common goal. Also, relaying all of the feedback we get from that customer to the team is crucial, so they understand the product they’re working on.

Juggling home life and family commitments with all your responsibilities of running a business is hard. It’s a constant juggle to keep everyone happy and do a good job in both camps. But I think don’t be too tough on yourself; sometimes you do drop a ball. I’m clear with my kids; in the week I focus on the business and at the weekends I’m all about them. I travel with photoshoots a lot and it’s tricky to miss some key moments for them, like sports days. But, I think it’s about talking to them and telling them why I’m doing this. Now my daughter is older and is thinking about university, she thinks it’s cool I’ve got this career and it’s interesting seeing that you can inspire your children by having a business. Sometimes things go wrong, but just do the best you can.