My first million: suits you, Sir Richard
In 1999, a travelling tailor came to the office where Jimmy Hibbert was working. He was unimpressed, and resolved to find a better way of selling bespoke suits. Here's how he found that way - with a little help from Richard Branson.
In 1999, a travelling tailor came to the London office of the recruitment consultant where Jimmy Hibbert was working. Hibbert wasn't impressed. "He had horrible breath, no personality and he measured me up for a suit," which cost £600. "I thought crikey, there has to be a better way than this." By the end of the year, Hibbert had left his job with a view to finding that better way.
With Shirley Biggs a former buying director for John Lewis, whom he met through a friend and who was to become his business partner he found a manufacturer willing to make bespoke suits at reasonable prices and roped in 15 friends to act as guinea pigs for the designs. The easy bit ended there. "The first two years were an absolute nightmare," says Hibbert. Biggs and Hibbert had backed the firm, Dress2kill, with their own money Hibbert ended up remortgaging his house twice in 2000, a year when the two lost £10,000 on sales of £85,000. So desperate was the company for cash that Hibbert sold his brother 10% of the firm for £1,000. It didn't help: by the end of 2001, they faced insolvency.
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