6:01am Friday 17th November 2006
ISOBEL Davies is ahead of the times. Always has been. In 1994, when organic veg was still a bit of a hippy dippy fringe fashion, Isobel started Farmaround, an award-winning organic vegetable box delivery service in London .
"We were talking about food. That should be in the front of everyone's thinking, not just for a fringe element. It needed bringing to the forefront," she says.
She soon had 4,000 customers, a wholesale business and premises in New Covent Garden. "A green revolution," said the newspaper headlines.
Not bad for a singer and saxophone player with no business background.
Despite her admission that "musicians are always self-obsessed", Isobel has always been driven by her fierce passions - for decent treatment of animals and for a care for the environment and for society as a whole, concerns that are now moving into mainstream.
Originally from Hilton, near Yarm, Isobel moved back up north, to Richmond to care for her father. Farmaround moved with her. As well as keeping loyal customers in London, it now serves customers from Morpeth down to Sheffield and from Teesside across to the Lakes.
But as well as organic veg, Isobel has a new business and again she has caught the mood of the times.
"Izzy Lane" is a new range of clothing. The wool comes from Wensleydale and Shetland sheep, largely those that Isobel has rescued from the butcher's knife because they had some small imperfection that rendered their fleeces apparently commercially valueless.
The sheep are kept at her home near Richmond and with more rescued and the lambs born, she hopes to build the flock up to 300. And their wool is being used to make clothes - everything natural and made the old fashioned way.
But the clothes are far from old fashioned.
"I was fed up of ethical clothing being frumpy, I wanted something smart and chic and versatile that people would love to wear," she says. "And I think people are ready for it, because there's already been a lot of interest. It's caught the mood of the moment."
So far she has seven designs of skirt - a pencil design, a long skirt, one with a fringe, one made up of all the different coloured tweeds.
"Say tweed and people think of something heavy, but this material is so fine you could wear it in summer with sandals, as well as in winter with boots," says Isobel.
As well as rescuing sheep, Isobel is also rescuing old skills and industries.
"Finding the people to do this has taken so much research," she says. "It's been very interesting to go into something I knew nothing about. Finding people who can spin and weave and make buttons. These are skilled people and they are practically the last of the line in Britain.
"Even the machinery's gone and can't be replaced. I've seen some wonderful machines built in Victorian times and for over 100 years they've been working away and they still can, but most of them have already been scrapped."
In America she found some naturally coloured cotton, "beautiful greens, browns and mauves". The only place she could get it spun in this country was in a museum. But even that might not happen because the process before spinning can't be done in this country.
The snag is, of course, that making clothes in the way she wants, with every stage done individually, means they're not cheap. The skirts will sell at between £100 and £150.
"But they won't be like the throwaway clothes from China that you wear one season. These will last for years and still look good," she says.
Ethical clothing and artisan producers being right in the mood of the moment, Izzy Lane clothes will soon be featuring in the top glossies. Isobel was also on television's Countryfile in the summer.
Farmaround employs about 50 people in Richmond. There is also a tiny shop in Newbiggin where the fruit and veg always look fresh and appetising.
"We use a lot of local produce from suppliers such as Richard Wass of Fadmoor, Jonathan Watson of Thirsk, Metcalfes of Boroughbridge, Richardsons of Newby Wiske, Alan Dudd of Northallerton," says Isobel. "But it's much harder in winter so we also have to buy from abroad.
"But because we're so big, we can buy directly from foreign suppliers, such as co-operatives in France, Spain and Italy, instead of going through wholesalers, which saves time as well as money."
With parts of the business in London and in the north, the temptation is to join them all up and go nationwide.
"Tempting, but not straightway," she says. "I think our next step would be perhaps to move over into the Manchester area and see how that goes."
In the meantime, Isobel's brain is bubbling with a lot more new ideas, including a range of organic, all natural beauty products.
"And I'd like to make shoes, really beautiful stylish shoes, but not in leather," she says.
Then there is a flock of goats in Scotland which produce 100kg of cashmere - of which Izzy Lane has earmarked 60kg for their cashmere jumpers. The goats might need a new home. Isobel is tempted...
Isobel's lack of business training has never bothered her.
"I think it was an advantage really," she says. "Coming from being a singer, I was always more creative. I didn't think in the straightforward way that business people do but come at things from a different angle.
"And so far it seems to have worked out all right."
* www.farmaroundnorth.co.uk Tel:
01748-821116
© Copyright 2001-2010 Newsquest Media Group
http://www.thenorthernecho.co.uk