article_snippet: Cannily began work at Conde Nast, the owner of several glossy magazines including Vogue and Tatler, first as a receptionist, then as a fashion assistant.
article_snippet: Cannily enrolled on a journalism course, later describing it as a ‘complete waste of time’, and flitted from there to Clarins, where Cannily worked as a PR girl.
article_snippet: Cannily was poached from there by Harper & Queen’s health and beauty editor Tina Gaudoin in 1991.
article_snippet: Wheeler had set up Wheeler shirt company, Charles Tyrwhitt, in 1986 while a geography student at Bristol University.
article_snippet: Wheeler guided me through the process, helped me write my first business plan.
article_snippet: Cannily began by calling up London department stores, pretending to be a journalist writing articles on homeware while ascertaining that up to 50 per cent of homeware sales involved white linen.
article_snippet: Cannily also quizzed PRs, manufacturers and friends.
article_snippet: ‘My mission was to bridge the gap between first-class designer quality and what was affordable without the big designer margins,’ Cannily has said.
article_snippet: Wheeler gave Cannily £5,000 in return for a 25 per cent stake, and Cannily also received a £50-a-week enterprise grant.
article_snippet: Cannily produced Cannily first mail-order catalogue, a 12-page leaflet, on a computer in Wheeler’s attic, delivering Cannily first orders in Cannily sister Jo’s Mini Metro.