Sharon has family's enterprising streak
Oct 11 2007 by Chris Knox, The Journal
A WOMAN is continuing her family’s enterprising streak by opening a new designer boutique which aims to bring a little more glamour to Newcastle.
Sharon Musset-Harford has set up her business The Loft in Jesmond, which includes a designer fashion department, hair salon and a nail bar over three floors soon to be topped by a rooftop cafe.
“I am bringing a little bit of glamour to Newcastle and am selling brands that you would previously only be able to get in London,” she said.
“Newcastle is now becoming much more upmarket and I want to capitalise on the fact that more North-East women now have the money to splash out on girly treats.”
She is no stranger to business, after helping her husband launch Big Luke’s restaurant in Bath Lane, Newcastle in 1990, before it relocated to the Gateshead MetroCentre in 2000.
Before this, Sharon set-up The Sandwich Company in Cambridge, where she lived with her husband during the mid-1980s before heading back to Newcastle after the birth of her eldest son, Sam, 20.
She started as a stylist in Lacoupe hair salon in Grainger Street, Newcastle, 26 years ago, where she learned many of the skills that have helped her in her new venture.
Sharon says her family has always been entrepreneurial and that she could not wait to start her new business now that Big Luke’s is managed outside of the family and her sons have grown up.
“My family has always had the bug for owning our own businesses as we all like the satisfaction of being our own boss. I need to be busy and once I managed to get more time on my hands, I knew I had to start up a new business,” she said
Her youngest son Jamie, 18, has just set-out on his own with the launch of jobs4students.biz, a recruitment website aimed at students.
One of The Loft’s more radical services is the Indian art of eye-brow threading, which involves crisscrossing threads to pluck out eye-brow hair, a process which Sharon says is fast, precise and pain free. It also sells designer label clothing, which Sharon says are exclusive to The Loft.
The business is located in a building previously used by Owen Humble, one of Newcastle’s oldest antiques dealerships, which relocated to Lemington in 2003 after 45 years in Jesmond. Sharon expects to make a profit in the first year and wants to plough the money back into improving the business.
The Loft employs 10 people with plans to increase this figure in the near future as it looks to develop its roof-top relaxation lounge, which offers panoramic views across Newcastle, as a stand-alone business.
