Eric Illingworth founded Molly Brown London after a high-flying career in the city. The jewellery brand for little girls and young teens is now and award-winning business. Here, she reveals her best and worst moments and tells us more about her off-duty time.

I used to work for an Executive Search firm…
in the Investment Banking sector. I reached a point in my career when I was looking for something that gave me some more flexibility and would allow me to spend more time with my family.

The idea came about… around the time of my daughter’s birthday - the jewellery I found was either inappropriately expensive for a little girl or very babyish and something she wouldn’t want to wear it when she was older. I researched the market more closely and realised that there was a gap in the market for well priced, tasteful jewellery for girls and decided to go for it.

The most difficult part about setting up the business was… finding the jewellery manufacturer. It was a bit of a minefield and I spent months trawling the internet and went down several blind alleys. Then finally, somebody who knew somebody, knew somebody who was prepared to help and they made a fantastic recommendation.

My best moment was… being nominated as a Finalist for Best Jewellery Brand of the Year at the UK Jewellery Awards 2010. I cannot tell you how proud and excited I was when I received the email.

The worst was… realising that we had totally miscalculated our packaging stock and that we were about to run out. We had to air freight rather than sea freight which was a bit of an expensive solution but it was that or no packaging.

On weekday mornings I am… up at 6.20am, shower and then get the children off to school. I have three children all at different schools, so it can be a bit of a palaver. I sometimes go for a run first thing or it’s straight into the office.

You might not know this but… I am scared of the dark.

My mother’s favourite saying is… ‘Just do your best’ and so when things sometimes don’t work out or go wrong I ask myself if I have done my best and if I have then there is no point in getting worked up or stressed out about it. Funnily enough I find myself saying the same thing to my own children now.

My greatest fear is… I would be absolutely devastated if anything happened to one of my children.

My idea of perfect happiness is… chilling with friends and family, preferably somewhere tropical!

If I could be anywhere in the world right now, I would be… in South Africa.

The person I most admire is… my mother. She is intelligent, independent and incredibly strong. She is quite a quiet person but has an inner strength that I will always admire and never forget.

I am a great girlfriend… and I am lucky to have great girlfriends who mean the world to me.

If I could do anything better, I would… like to be able to make decent puddings instead of resorting to raspberries and M&S meringues all the time.

My most overused phrase is… drinks anyone?

I don’t have a particular style… One day I might be in a pair of jeans and a jacket and the next I may decide to wear a dress; it has to be with heels though! Looking through my wardrobe there seems to be a lot of charcoal grey, black, navy and neutrals; you would never catch me in anything highly patterned or bright orange.

My favourite website apart from my own is… the Real Flower Company. I also spend far too long browsing Net a Porter and the Anya Hindmarch website.

www.mollybrownlondon.com


18 June 2010