Michelle Taylor and the Tallulah Love Luxury Lingerie range

Tallulah-la – French Fall in Love with North East Designs

Company Name: Tallulah Love Luxury Lingerie

Luxury lingerie designed and created in the North East is capturing the hearts of the French and other overseas markets with the help of UK Trade & Investment.

Tallulah Love Luxury Lingerie was launched last year by Hartlepool-born Michelle Taylor, former design director at Playboy Intimates UK.

Michelle’s design career began after completing a degree in fashion marketing at Northumbria University and included working for Marks and Spencer’s supplier Claremont and a design house that supplied high street stores such as Topshop and Miss Selfridge.

Keen to develop her own line, she took a leap of faith and launched Tallulah Love Ltd last August in Hartlepool and earlier this year moved to new premises in Jesmond, Newcastle.

Now, she has signed up to UK Trade & Investment’s Passport to Export programme and commissioned an Overseas Market Introduction Service (OMIS) report to identify key buyers and outlets, providing valuable advice and support as she prepared to launch her 2010 range at the Salon International de la Lingerie show in Paris earlier this year.

Michelle, Managing Director at Tallulah Love Ltd, explained:

“The Paris show was an amazing experience. We received a very warm welcome from the industry, including being named number one in the show by Intima magazine, a leading lingerie trade publication.

“As a result of the show we now have stockists in Paris, France, Germany, Italy, Holland, the United Arab Emirates and Russia.

“Tallulah Love will also be welcoming a new member of staff to the team in June when Chiara Denis, of Lyon, France, will be working with us to establish new leads throughout France and Italy and maintain customer care with existing clientele in these countries. We are very excited that Chiara will be joining us and look forward to expanding our stockists and developing long term quality customer relations with her assistance.

“Our next steps will be to actively promote Tallulah Love collections to the American market in the very near future. We have had some wonderful reviews in the New York Lingerie Post, Petite Coquette and have also been approached by a well-known publishing company who are making a historical reference book about the design of lingerie through time – Tallulah Love will be among some very famous designers included within its pages and we’re very flattered to be included.

“There are exciting times ahead and we will look forward to working with the UK Trade & Investment team as we venture into this new American market.”

Jonathan Gamblin, one of UK Trade & Investment’s International Trade Advisers, said:

“Michelle has used her extensive experience and passion for design to create the Tallulah Love Luxury Lingerie range and has already generated a lot of interested in France and a host of other overseas markets.

“UK Trade & Investment offers a wide range of support services to help companies, whether novice or experienced exporters, to explore and maximise potential in overseas markets.

“Tallulah Love was able to gain the support of our Tradeshow Access Programme to help cover the costs of attending the show in Paris, while OMIS provided a useful insight into the market and helped identify key buyers and outlets.

“And through the ongoing support of Passport we will continue to work with the company to help them develop and implement an export plan.”

International trade support services in the North East are part financed by the European Union’s ERDF Competitiveness programme 2007-13, securing £5,999,216 of ERDF investment through regional development agency One North East. The ERDF Competitiveness programme 2007-13 is investing over £250m in North East England to support innovation, enterprise and business support across the region.

For more information about the wide range of support services available through UK Trade & Investment to help your company succeed overseas call the North East International Trade Hotline on 0845 05 05 054 or email: enquiries@ukti.rito.co.uk.