North East Entrepreneur Featured In Vogue

20 April 2013, 07:23 | Updated: 30 March 2016, 13:50

A North Shields entrepreneur who turned her hobby into a business is appearing in one of the world's most famous fashion magazines.

Rachel Dobson launched her luxury cushion business 'Oh Sew Contemporary' last year.

Now her range of cushions are being stocked all over the North East and beyond and she's even picked up a mention in the prestigious Vogue magazine.

Rachel told Capital how she got into being a 'cushionista' in the first place:
"The cushion thing is because I've sewn from the age of 7 - but it was never cushions.

It was actually always cross-stictched gifts and embroidary and things that I did for other people.

In fact, my mam's spare bedroom is full of things I made for her when I was little.

That kind of thing would never have made me a living, so to give up a well-paid job it had to be something that could bring in a good salary for me.

So in July last year i chose to give up a job that I had, which was no longer making me happy, and persue something that had made me happy for years and years and see if I could make an income from it."

Rachel also says:
"My main ethos is to keep it British where possible.

So I don't want to go down a cheap cushion route, I want to make sure my cushions stay good quality and true to the values that I've believed in from the start.

Where possible I want to make sure that the fabric is from the UK and the cushions are all made in the UK.

I may be one person in one small business, but if every small business thinks the same way then hopefully we should be able to do a little bit more to get the UK economy back on its feet."


Rachel also spoke to Capital about the importance of social media for small businesses.

You can hear what she had to say here: