A mum-of-two has reached the four-year anniversary of the opening of her clothing business and despite challenges she faced during Covid she is reaching customers around the world.
Claire Devlin, 39, from Westhoughton, opened her business, Indie's Attic, in 2016 from her home, attending artisan markets and sharing her products online, before she decided to open her store on Market Street
The mum of Freddie, 12, and Indie, nine, wanted to make a future for herself and her children and always had a keen eye for fashion.
After selling her products for a few years at markets and other places, Claire decided she wanted to open her own shop and now she is never looking back.
Claire said: “To reach my four-year anniversary is a massive achievement, I think especially having the shop open during challenging times such as Covid and now a cost-of-living crisis.
“Before I opened, I had a dream to run my own business and I had always had a love of fashion, so I decided to go for it and take the plunge after being a stay-at-home mum for a few years and it was either sink or swim to provide for my kids.
“I set up Indie’s Attic in November 2016, originally as a pop-up boutique.
“Based at home, I would pop up at artisan markets, seasonal events and hold private parties with my stock.
“I stored everything in Indie’s attic bedroom, and this is where the name came about.
“I didn’t have a lot of money getting started but had a hunger, passion, and determination to make it work.
“The business started to get a following and after lots of chats with my parents, who warned me of the pressures of having a shop, but also knew of my ambitions, I signed for the shop in Westhoughton.
“It seems only like yesterday when my dad and I were sat in a local coffee shop waiting to hear if the application for the premises had been successful.
“Four years on and I absolutely love what I do.
“It makes me feel very proud, after starting with very little money to get the business going, it does feel like a great sense of achievement.
“But I’m also very aware that I am lucky that I have a very good and amazing team of ladies who I work with, and we all support each other.
“You can be a mum and have a family and also run a successful business at the same time.”
Claire said although her business struggled at the start of the pandemic, once it was put online the customer base flew.
She said: “It’s not been the easiest four years with Covid and now a cost-of-living crisis, but it’s still hands down the best thing I ever did getting the shop.
“When we closed the shop during Covid I was worried in what direction the business would take but I wasn’t going to give up.
“As a single mum I wanted to provide a great future for me and the kids, so during Covid I threw myself into building the business online, so I got the website built, pictured all of the stock in the shop and pushed the business online.
“It took us a few weeks to get orders in again but once they did they came in at high volume and from there I adapted the business to be more online friendly.
“And while the shop was closed, we successfully ran the business online.
“The customer base was still there, and it even increased for online shopping.”
Claire said her job has been made easy as customers are like friends.
She said: “I have customers coming in just to have a chat and to say 'hi', it's more like a community hub than a shop and the customer base are very much like friends.
“You see the customers grow in confidence and you build that really close relationship with them.
“It is not just a business, I think the relationship that we have got with our customers counts for a lot.”
Claire said she hopes to bring many amazing things to the business in the future.
She said: “The shop is doing well, and the online side of the business is growing so we have now begun quarterly shopping events to launch seasonal collections and we want to continue doing that and we would like to start offering more personal styling which we haven’t had the chance to do so far.
“And in the future, we are hoping to potentially open a second shop.
“We do have a strong Bolton customer base, but we also have people coming in from surrounding areas and even globally, we have people coming from far.”
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