Claudia Fisher talks from the heart

The Chamber is lucky to welcome lots of fantastic and inspirational speakers to our many events. For anyone who missed Claudia Fisher's brilliant and heart warming talk at our brunch on May 4th, here are some excerpts from her fascinating life story.

Claudia on Claudia...
'I’m the owner of purple heart.com, I’ve got three shops in the centre of Brighton and of course we’re online too.'
'I don’t do things conventionally- I went to St Paul’s Girls’ School in London but was a bit of a rebel…in fact I was a punk!'

'So…how did I get here…? I think I need to start by telling you something that may seem too personal…nearly 40 years ago, just 9 days after my 10th birthday, my father, died in his sleep. He was only 36 years old, a doctor specialising in haematology (you'll see the relevance of this later) very lovely and very healthy. This isn’t a sob story, it’s just what happened.'

On discovering a talent for ceramics...
'I bought some ceramic paints and a kiln (which 27 years later I still have and although its bit rusty it still works brilliantly), and put an ad in the local paper saying ‘I can paint anything onto a tile’. At first the work trickled in, then the word spread and the work it flooded in. I was painting single tiles, panels, borders, matching old ones and then someone asked me to paint a cup…so I did, along with mugs, plates, bowls and vases. From this came a business that lasted over twenty years.'

On balancing work and family...
'I should probably mention that during this time I also had three children, a daughter and two sons. My children are the most important thing in my life and the thing I’m most proud of. They have always challenged and inspired me and are my motivation. I managed to juggle motherhood with my business by working while they slept or were at nursery or school. I should also probably mention that I don’t mind working long hours and luckily don’t need too much sleep!'

On developing a passion for retail...
'In 1993 I opened my first shop in Maida Vale primarily as a workshop for my team of painters and a showroom, but I jazzed it up with other gift lines and this is where the retail bit comes in. I’m a bit of a magpie, I love colour and sparkle and beautiful objects, so spending my days making and buying beautiful things was great fun.
...Work kept streaming in and soon we were supplying exclusive ranges to the likes of Heals, Whittards and Harvey Nics, but I was missing seeing customers. So in November 2000 I took out a lease on a tiny shop in Queens Park. I decided to call it purple-heart because that was my most popular range of china, multi coloured hearts covered in swirls and stars dancing on a purple background… and I added the dot com bit on because I could see that online retailing could only grow. That little shop went from strength to strength; if I needed something for my kids and couldn’t find it locally I sourced it and put it in the shop.'

On producing her famous tie-dye...
'On a trip to Portobello market we spotted some colourful tie-dye for babies and my husband said ‘I think we could do better than that’ so we spent the weekend tying up grey old baby-grows and dyeing them in buckets, the results were spectacular! So when I opened the little shop I decided to source stocks of white baby clothes, dye them up and sell them. I designed a label, sewed them on the back and put them on the shelves. People loved them and twelve years later our hand made tie dye is still going strong. The tie dye has been selling online for eleven years now and we have customers all over the world; a simple example of taking an idea and turning it into something concrete.' 

On moving her base to Brighton...
'In 1999 my husband and I hatched a hair-brained five-year-plan to move to Brighton. Amazingly we managed it and five years later, in 2004, we sold up and moved here. I’d managed to buy a beautiful house and to secure a shop in a good location on Gardner St; after a busy summer of moving, decorating and settling in everything in the garden seemed rosy. The shop on Gardner st was a great success that Christmas and I was managing to keep the London shop ticking over too. The icing on the cake came when, the next spring I found that, at 43, I was pregnant with my fifth (and final baby)…another boy!'

On facing her toughest challenge...
'And then it went horribly wrong. Jesse, my fourth child was diagnosed as severely anaemic. To be honest, and especially as we are all vegetarians, I didn’t realise at first how serious this news was.
The next day we were told that we would be going to Great Ormond St Hospital to take a sample of his bone marrow so they could work out what was wrong with him…but that in his current state he would be too weak to withstand a general anaesthetic and would need a blood transfusion the next day.
Talk about your world falling apart within hours! And now you can see why having a dad around that was a haematologist would have been very useful! And perhaps you can see what I mean about enjoying today because you don’t know what will happen tomorrow?
The doctors diagnosed Myeleodysplasia and said a bone marrow transplant was the only chance of a cure. I won’t go into the gory details of the next three years. It’s enough to say that it was gruelling. We moved house because I knew I would have to take a year out from working, I closed my London shop and trained my staff to manage the Gardner St shop without me.
Jesse had his transplant on 1 February 2007 and quickly became very, very ill. He was in isolation for months. In 2007 we spent over 5 months living in Great Ormond St and many weeks in the Royal Alex. We nearly lost him a couple of times and he spent time in intensive care.
Through this I managed to keep the Brighton shop open. I wangled an internet connection at Great Ormond Street (quite a task I can tell you) and kept in touch with my staff and suppliers by phone and email. I had considered closing the shop and I did have to shut down the website, but somehow it just kept going.
Christmas 2007 was a very emotional one in our house. We couldn’t believe we were all together and after a bout in intensive care in November Jesse magically turned a corner.'

On the secret to her success in the City...

'After eight years of quirkiness I think we have found a place in the hearts of the people of Brighton and this isn’t just down to me. My staff are amazing, they are totally dedicated and committed. I encourage them to take on responsibility and to think out of the box and I love having their feedback. We try to offer excellent customer service at all times, which is hard sometimes when we get especially busy, but it is at the core of the business and we are constantly trying to improve it.'

And one final thought...
'In spite of the ups and downs that I have told you about today I feel incredibly lucky. I work very hard but I have great fun most of the time. I have five beautiful children who are all now healthy and happy, and very supportive husband.'

Claudia Fisher
Owner, Purple-heart
http://www.purple-heart.com/

Pictures throughout by www.brightontogs.com

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