Windermere lingerie supplier, Unibu, has been selected as one of the Small Business Saturday 100 this year.

Founded a little over two years ago, Unibu is the brainchild of Shirley Crisp, a local entrepreneur who had sold underwear in Windermere for over a decade.

Then, with a desire to create a quality product, she decided to start manufacturing underwear in the UK with 100 per cent British materials.

Shirley was speaking to in-Cumbria as part of our “10 minutes with…” series.

So, who is Shirley Crisp?

My background is in retail really, I’ve been brought up in a retail environment, for the last 10 years, I’ve run my own lingerie shop, Shirley C Lingerie in Windermere.

While I was running my business, going off and buying products and speaking to suppliers, I used to ask them where the products were made and I soon found out that a lot of lingerie is made in Turkey, China, or Cambodia, places like that.

As the recession hit, I noticed that the quality was being downgraded in order to maintain the price point and the delivery was becoming increasingly difficult, so that’s where I came up with my idea to begin producing ladies and gents underwear in the UK.

How did you get started with Unibu?

I’ve always wanted to produce my own brand but it was just a case of finding out what it was I was going to do.

So I came up with ladies and gents underwear that is 100 per cent made in Britain.

I built the unibu brand up over the past two years and sold it within my shop and then in March this year I closed my shop because the brand was going well and I wanted to focus on supplying to other retailers. I took a leap of faith to concentrate purely on the brand.

It’s been going very well, I’ve been speaking to a lot of retailers and I have a website where customers can purchase directly if they haven’t got a stockist locally. I’m hoping as the months and years go on that I’ll be able to increase my stockists up and down the country.

How has working with Small Business Saturday been?

It’s really good, it’s been quite an experience really. I’ve followed the Small Business Saturday while I was a retailer and it was to try and counteract the whole Black Friday feeling and to encourage you to go into businesses in your area and support them.

It was something that I was aware of while I was a retailer, and now that I am a supplier it’s great to be a part of it.

It’s been a busy few months really, since I found out in the summer.

Is Black Friday something you steer clear of?

You have to really think about things like Black Friday. I think there are a lot of offers and deals out there that aren’t as good as they seem or the customer might not be getting as good a deal as they think.

As a small independent retailer, I maintained that the important thing is to keep the up customer service and a clear pricing structure throughout the year

Usually in a small business you find that that doesn’t alter. Obviously, the multiples tend to offer things at a discount at different times of the year.

It is an American thing and I think what the UK market has added to it is that, instead of it being on just one day, we’re now having Black Friday week to try and break it down a bit so you’re not getting all of this rush on one day like we saw a few years ago with people fighting in the shops.

I think everyone likes to get a bargain, but it’s only a bargain if you need that item at the end of the day.

How easy was it to create a business that sells a product entirely made in Britain?

The materials I use are from all over the UK. Being entirely made in Britain is something that I’m passionate about and I’ve gone the extra mile to source everything from the UK.

I’ve been to all of the factories and they are up and down the country. I’ve spoken to hundreds of manufacturers over the years finding out who makes what and where they're located.

Often, their stories are quite moving and people have been affected quite heavily when everything went offshore in the 1980s and they’ve hung in there and offered a really good quality product.

I think that when people buy something that’s made in Britain, they expect the quality to be good but I think you do tend to find a better quality in the actual components themselves.

There’s a definite community around people that support the “made in Britain” movement. I think we’ve forgotten to shout about what we can do and what we can do well and we’ve become so used to importing things into the country.

Do you have plans to start exporting?

I do have stockists in Scotland and Wales, but I haven’t gone offshore yet, it’s something that I’ll be looking to do in the future and obviously making sure that everything is running as efficiently as it can be.

There’s certainly scope for us to start exporting.