Refrill - International Women's Day - Bespoke

Refrill is a North East based business run by Karen Holmes.

We spoke to Karen as part of our campaign supporting International Women’s Day.

I worked in the costume industry for 15 years and always had a love of all things vintage. I decided to start off selling vintage clothes and have now branched out into accessories, homeware and everything else old and curious.

Vingage Refrill

I sell vintage clothes, accessories, homeware, small furniture, etc on eBay, Facebook and I have just moved into an office in Darlington that will be open as a showroom when the lockdown is eased.

I have closed down twice for lockdown but I have been lucky to still be able to post some items out at other times. All the vintage fairs were obviously cancelled, so I’m hoping I will be able to trade at those again very soon.

I hope the move into my new office proves successful and when I can open to the public I can encourage more people to discover a love of vintage!

Loving Running My Own Business

The best thing about running my own business is that I get to spend every day buying, selling and talking about vintage goods. I always thought this would just be a hobby for me, so it has been amazing to turn it into a business. It also allows me to fit working in with family life as I can set my own hours

My advice to anyone looking to set up their own business is to be passionate about your work as this makes all the long hours and hard work worthwhile when it pays off.