From M&S Buyer in London to Founder in Dubai

I can't believe that seven years ago this month, I left my job in buying at Marks and Spencer to start Endless in the UK.

I have photos from the early days - travelling to Paris Fashion Week, door-knocking to persuade brands to take a chance on an entirely new start-up, an entirely new concept - before we even had a website. No deck full of traction. No proof points. Just vision, conviction, and a whole lot of belief.

Thankfully, three brands said yes.

We launched our site that March.

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I started my career at Marks & Spencer HQ in London as a Womenswear Buyer, then moved into Lingerie. I spent years inside the supply chain of fashion - learning how a range gets built, how a margin gets protected, how decisions about what women would wear next season were made twelve months in advance with imperfect information and a great deal of nerve.

I also learned the part of the industry that's harder to celebrate.

I saw how much was made. I saw how much didn't sell. I saw the systemic over-production that gets baked into the way fashion plans its seasons. Once you've seen that, you can't quite unsee it.

So when I started building Endless, I wasn't designing it from the customer side alone. I was designing it from the supply side too. Circular fashion makes sense to me because the maths makes sense to me. There is already enough beautiful clothing in the world. The job is to make it move.

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After nearly two decades in the fashion industry - and seven years building my own business - I know that the story of Endless is always told cleaner than it actually was.

People see Endless now and sometimes assume it's been quick, easy, or lucky. What they don't see:

Seven years of showing up. Seven years of learning the hard way. Seven years of ups, downs, pivots, and persistence. Launching a business in the UK, navigating Covid, and then starting again in a brand new region - moving to Dubai with no team, no funding, and one suitcase.

Every relationship, every opportunity, every yes - I went out and earned. Built from scratch. Grown into.

None of it was luck. All of it was choice.

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Two years into Endless UAE, the lessons that have stayed with me aren't the ones I expected.

The power of community - I've come to appreciate the importance of a supportive community more than ever. The people who showed up to the early events, who told their friends, who messaged me from across the city to say they'd worn an Endless dress to something that mattered. They made the business real.

Living my values and trusting my gut. I've been challenged daily to not only know my values but to actually live by them - in hiring decisions, in partnerships, in the moments where the short-term easy choice would have cost something more important.

Focus, and the energy to protect it. I'm learning more and more what to focus on versus let go of. What drains me versus fills me up. This is ongoing, and honestly, one of the most important things I've had to build.

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I'm happier, more fulfilled, and feeling more in alignment with myself than I ever have been.

That matters. Not because happiness is the goal of building a business - it isn't - but because alignment between who you are and what you're building makes you better at everything. Better decisions. Better team. Better product.

I left M&S with a question I couldn't stop asking and a belief that the answer was worth building toward. Seven years later, I'm still building toward it. The question gets clearer as we go.

You can see where it's taken us at Endless.