Susie Watson

With 10 shops and a thriving online business, Susie Watson Designs has a well-established reputation for handmade textiles, furnishings, ceramics and rugs - but the path to success hasn't always run smoothly...

- JANET GLEESON

Susie Watson never imagined herself as founder of a celebrated design brand, nor did she envisage the roller-coaster ride that she'd go on to create it. Brought up in Wimbledon, which she considered rather boring and suburban', Susie's father ran a family business that sold some of the first sewing machines and bought up most of Peckham High Street in its early days. 'My mother's family were rather different,' she says. 'Obsessed with travel and collecting beautiful things. This diverse set of genes may have served me well.'

Sent away to boarding school, Susie showed little interest in an academic career: 'School didn't capture my imagination and I was exceptionally naughty. I ended up taking only one A-Level at an expensive London crammer.' Unsure what to do next, and with university options blown, she trained as a radiographer and a speed writer, then tried work as a doctor's receptionist, an elocution teacher and a cleaner. Each job ended disastrously until, much to her father's relief, she met her future husband Hamish and married, aged 20.