The Birth of Chic & Seek

By TheChicSeeker, December 16, 2025

I always vowed I’d never run my own business — I’d watched my parents do it and it looked stressful. But then, aged 28, right on time for my Saturn Return, something shifted. Saturn Return is the astrological rite of passage where you confront old patterns and step into the next chapter of your life. For me, that meant doing the very thing I swore I wouldn’t: becoming a business owner.

I was restless for a new challenge. I had entrepreneurialism in my blood, and it started curdling. I had an idea percolating for a while called WasteNotWantNot.com — a kind of Gumtree or Craigslist concept. I had absolutely no idea about investment or how to start a business, but I had a hunch, so I took two days off work and did a business course.

I can be a little obsessive, and this idea got under my skin. I started researching online forums and found threads where people were asking if there were any alternatives to eBay for reselling designer clothes. And at that time, there really weren’t any decent UK-based sites specialising in this. This was April 2009, not long after the credit crunch of 2008. Immediately I saw my gap in the market.

By May 2009, I sat my sisters down at our annual lunch to celebrate Mum’s birthday and declared, “I’m going to start my own business.” At first, I thought of the name Chiconomise, but it was already taken.

Then came the moment I will never forget. We were sitting around my wooden table in my little mews house in Notting Hill — the sun slanting in, glasses half-full, that feeling of possibility in the air. I was explaining to my friends, “I want to use the word ‘chic’ — I prefer chic to luxury.” I said, “It’s about having an edited selection of very high-quality clothes. We do the seeking so they don’t have to.”

And then it hit me. A proper lightning-bolt aha moment. My voice shot up in pitch, I banged the table with my hand, and practically shrieked, “That’s it! It’s about seeking the chic — like hide and seek! Chic & Seek! I LOVE it!”

My friend’s boyfriend grabbed his laptop and immediately secured all the domain names. In that moment, my baby was born.

(Of course, later on I realised ‘chic’ isn’t a word everyone can pronounce, and the number of times I heard people say “Chick & Sick” or “Cheek & Sleek” nearly sent me over the edge. Cue me rolling my eyes and explaining, once again, that chic is a French word…)

In June, I finally took the plunge and handed in my resignation. I wasn’t sure who to give it to — my new manager didn’t feel like the right person — so I went straight to Anya. It was a warm day, and we met at a Starbucks in Sloane Square. I reminded her that, in my interview five years earlier, she had asked where I saw myself in five years’ time, and I — naïvely — had said, “I’d like to have my own company.” She laughed and said, “Yes, of course I remember that,” and suddenly I realised what a rookie mistake it had been. Thankfully she hired me anyway, and working for her had been one of the best experiences of my life. I’m still grateful. I gained lifelong friends there, and Anya truly is an incredibly inspiring woman to work for.

And so, off I went — all alone, with no clue what I was doing — to start a business. Looking back now, I can see how held I was. There was so much support, and so many serendipitous events that nudged me along. I found a work ethic I’d never known before. I stayed up late, woke up early, and sometimes wished I didn’t need to sleep at all because I was so excited to get back to it.

I found a local graphic designer to create the Chic & Seek logo. He came up with the clever strap line, ‘Redistributing fashion’ and the look and feel of the brand. It was important to me that it captured the laid-back, chic vibe of Notting Hill.

The “About Us” page read:

“Chic & Seek was conceived in the summer of 2009. In my sleepy mews, just a stone’s throw from Portobello Road and Ledbury Road, I have had a first-hand view of the coexistence of high-end designer boutiques and vintage thrift. It was this that inspired me with the idea for Chic & Seek: top-end fashion uniqueness, available to all.”

Most of my friends were incredibly supportive, but of course there were cynics. An ex-boyfriend who worked in online marketing pulled me aside at a party and said, “You have no idea what you’re doing with online marketing — are you sure this is right?” Another male friend, an investment banker, sat me down at dinner and reminded me that “nine out of ten start-ups fail.” He kept asking, “Where are you going to get all the clothes from?”

But by then, I had the wind beneath my wings. If anything, their comments only fuelled me.

One of my friends from Anya Hindmarch taught me how to use a camera and shoot the clothes. Remember — this was before smartphones. I had a BlackBerry, which felt like the height of sophistication (and oh, how good they were forsearching emails, I miss that!). My friend helped me buy everything: the camera, the tripod, the mannequin, the lighting, the whole shebang. It was my biggest start-up cost — and my biggest hate. I had no patience for photography or Photoshop, but I needed to minimise costs, so I pushed through it.

Late one evening, I tripped over a cable and smashed one of the lights. I undressed the mannequin and the silk Stella McCartney dress I was photographing swished past the jagged edge of the broken glass. My heart sank. Tears filled my eyes as I muttered, “I hate this.” I checked the dress — thankfully, not a scratch. I remember thinking, I need to sleep,and my mother’s words, “tomorrow is a new day,”rang in my mind. I must not get defeated.

In my mind, the plan was simple: if I could find ten women with ten items each, I’d have a hundred pieces of stock to launch with. And surprisingly, that wasn’t what worried me. Deep down, I knew there were plenty of women with wardrobes full of gorgeous, barely-worn pieces and no time to sell them on eBay. I sensed they’d want a door-to-door service — something easy, personal, discreet.

And then, completely out of nowhere, came the opportunity that would change everything…