From fashion PR to fashion pro

WHEN she was 20, Scots fashion graduate Emma Greenhill put on her brightest red lipstick and set off to hawk her wares round the fashion houses of Paris.

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She had no idea that one day she would be designing scarves for celebrities including Tilda Swinton, Alexa Chung, Erin O’Connor, Fran Cutler, Laura Bailey and Jade Parfitt.

Emma, now 47, made her name in as a PR specialist and creative director for top brands including Chalayan, Gibo, Hockley, John Galliano, Luella, Julien Macdonald and Karl Lagerfeld.

But with the encouragement of her designer friends Julie Verhoeven and Hussein Chalayan, who she met while working for John Galliano, Emma has gone back to her roots and has just created her own accessories collection.

She said: “I was interested in fashion from really early on, since I was about seven. I was always dressing up and drawing and just loved it.

She added: “I loved the art room at school and I wasn’t the brightest spark, so I was encouraged to go and do an arts degree. I graduated from uni in 1992 after studying fashion and textiles at Brighton University.”

After being left £500 by her uncle, Emma told her mum and dad she was going to Paris to work for a design house. This was before the days of the internet and mobile phones and Emma’s family thought she was crazy.

She explained: “It was bonkers because I had no connections there. I took the plane from Glasgow to Paris and stayed in a dodgy hotel before finding somewhere to live that was cheap and cheerful.