No costume drama with fancy dress business

Dec 1 2008 by Karen Dent, The Journal

A FANCY dress fan is taking the risque route with her new business. Marion Topping saw a gap in the market to dress up young women for hen nights, parties and clubbing after working at a fancy dress hire shop in her home town of Horden, near Peterlee.

But rather than go into competition with her former employer, Marion set up a complementary business next door to Krazy Kapers, which is owned by her friend and mentor Christine Watt.

Marion’s Lingerie & Fancy Dress sells costumes whereas Krazy Kapers only hires to customers. Christine encouraged Marion to take the leap and set up a business selling off-the-shelf costumes.

Marion said: “We don’t want to clash. People can come into either shop, we can complement each other.

“She has been fantastic. I couldn’t have asked for a guardian angel as good as her. I’d been so desperate. I’m covered in tattoos and some people don’t look at the person behind it.

“She just came round and opened her heart out to me and said ‘I’ll give you that chance. I want to give other people the same chance that I had’.”

Marion, who is continuing to carry out sewing work and alterations for Christine’s shop, also received funding and business advice from Be Enterprising coach Dave Collett and help from East Durham Business Service’s marketing adviser Katie Kiddle.

Marion said: “I seemed to come up against every hurdle imaginable but once I had suppliers in place and stock ordered, I really felt I was getting somewhere.”

In addition to the shop, she is selling to her target market via costume parties, where she can bring samples of the stock for groups of customers to try on.

Marion said: “I do the group parties because they can’t always come in together and they want to see what each other is wearing. You get a lot of girls to come in to do group outfits for hen nights. I’ve got a daughter and I get dragged out to nightclubs as well and see what the young girls are wearing.

“It is all pretty much directed at the young people’s market in their teens and young 20s. The young girls love dressing up. They will go out of their way and pay through the nose, it doesn’t matter about the expense.”

Once she is more established, Marion also hopes to move into online sales.