When fashion design lecturer Natalie Reynolds started making leggings while on maternity leave, she had no idea that it would eventually spawn a hugely successful business – employing not just her, but her husband too...and a whole factory!

With a celebrity following that includes Stacey Solomon, Tina O’Brien and Alex Jones, the brand has more than 117,000 followers on Instagram and some 50,000 followers on Facebook.

Echo:

And new releases of leggings are possibly more anticipated than Black Friday for their thousands of mummy fans.

“Fred & Noah is a children’s wear brand specialising in organic fabrics, bold prints and patterns that children love to wear,” says Hockley-based Natalie, who is mum to two boys – Fred and Noah!

“Our baby leggings were the very first product and today remain as popular as ever.

“I set up the business towards the end of my maternity leave in 2014.

“I was a lecturer in fashion design at South Essex college. It was a desire to be creative again, coupled with a frustration of what was available to me in the shops for my new son that was the driving force behind creating Fred & Noah. I didn’t set the business up with any intention for it to become an income, there was no business plan or loans –we literally made clothes, sold them and used the money from sales to buy more fabric and do it again on repeat.

“After about six months we had become so busy that my husband Dan began to help me in the evenings. We continued like this, working from our dining room table in the evenings after our children had gone to bed for a couple more months, before we decided that we had to make a choice.

“We both quit our day jobs and started work at Fred & Noah full-time. Dan built us a studio in the garden and from there we grew our business. A couple of years later we decided to get some help and took on a UK factory who took over most of the production of our garments.

“My role today is varied. A typical day is printing out the daily orders and handing them to the packing staff to prepare and ship to customers, I then answer all of the customer emails (we have no admin support for this) and typically I still have to do a little bit of sewing each day.

“It’s also my job to design new fabrics, seek out new designs and cloth and run all of the social media. Dan deals with all of the finance, ordering, factories and staffing.”

And the business is children focused in more ways than the obvious.

“All of our team are parents,” reveals Natalie. “So we tend to work school hours which suits us really well.

“We start at 9.30am and finish at 2.30am for the school pick-up. After school there is still some work to be done, like counting and bagging up the post ready for collection, but we usually get the kids in the studio during this time doing their homework so we can finish our work.”

So, what’s the toughest bit about running Fred & Noah?

“The strain the business can put on our marriage,” she confesses. “Don’t get me wrong we are very happily married and strong, but working together, living together, being parents, husband and wife, business partners... all at once can take its toll.

That’s the toughest part. And when the kids are on school holidays and at home, we still have to work. That can be really stressful.”

And the best bit?

“Working with my husband,” she smiles. “There isn’t anyone I would rather do this with.”

For more information, go to Fredandnoah.com