Holly Harrison (32) lives in Belfast with husband Jim (31) and two daughters Coco (2) and Gigi (6 months). Zoe Harrison (31) lives in Belfast with partner Mark (44) and daughter Savanna (11 months)
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edigree will always out — and that’s true in the case of sisters Holly and Zoe Harrison, who grew up dressed from head to toe in Benetton. The pair, who originally hail from Portrush, grew up with their mum running a Benetton concession and have gone on to run their own fashion store — Harrison — on Belfast’s Lisburn Road. Holly (32) says: “Mum was into fashion, so she dressed us in Benetton — bright and colourful and oversized. I used to wear age 4 when I was one. “I was into fashion from when I about 15 or 16 and I took fashion management at London College of Fashion.” Holly went on to spend three years in Glasgow, during which time she opened two Benetton stores in the city. Meanwhile, her sister Zoe studied at Chelsea Art College and went on to earn a degree in Printed Textiles at Belfast Art College before going backpacking in Australia. But the pair had always dreamed of opening a multi-branded store. Holly decided she wanted to move home to Northern Ireland and do something new, so she launched the Harrison store and was soon joined by her sister. “When I was at university doing my degree, I did a presentation which was all about opening a store — what you would do, what brands would you sell,” Holly says. “It was weird, because I founded the store years later and it was just the same thing. At the time there weren’t many stores in Belfast selling premium denim.” Holly says it is now much easier to find premium denim brands like Hudson Denim and Paige in Belfast but they were hard to track down at the time. She decided to offer a mixture of price points, featuring premium denim and lower cost tops to go with it - despite the advice she had been given. “People thought you should target the higher end or the lower end of the market. But we would buy the odd high end item but also more reasonable things to go with it. It was trial and error, finding
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“Working together is like hanging around with your best friend ” Photographs by Kevin Scott what brands work for us,” she says. There are 15 months between the sisters and they say they have always got on. For bigger events such as shows, they work closely together. Holly tends to concentrate on the management and staffing issues, as well as much of the buying, while Zoe is more creative and does the visual merchandising. Holly says Zoe spurs her to make more adventurous decisions. “It’s good because I’ve been buying for so long now, and you can get a bit safe,” Holly says. “If you know something isn’t selling in certain years you avoid it the next year — but that’s wrong because people adapt to trends eventually. So I would rein her in and she would be a bit more adventurous.” Zoe says the store caters for a wide range of age groups. “My nanny has dressed from it, but there are still really young girls as well. We did not specify a target age group,” she says. “Holly would have a vision of what she wants when she is buying, and I would be more visual so I would do all
the merchandising in the windows — we complement each other. “It’s really bizarre — at one stage, we were working together, living together, our friends were the same. We were never really apart.” The sisters have also opened a Harrison concession in Coleraine and have just launched a new Harrison store in Ballymena. Their latest venture is a new menswear area in Harrison Belfast. Holly says their business partnership proved to be a great advantage when they had children. Holly now has two daughters, Coco (2), and Gigi (6 months) with her husband Jim (31), while Zoe has an 11-month -old daughter, Savanna, with her partner Mark. “When I was away from the shop, at least I knew she was here — you know someone else is there that cares as much as you,” Holly says. Zoe says the key to working with your sister is that you have to get on as people. “We are both very laid back — we would never fall out,” she says. “You spend all your time with this person. It would be very exhausting if you butted heads all the time. If you do get on, it’s the best thing ever — it’s like hanging around with your best friend.” Holly adds: “We’ve always been very close and I suppose we never take ourselves too seriously. She wouldn’t offend me if she said ‘What were you thinking?’ We don’t really take any criticism too personally, so that works. Neither of us is competitive. “If you do that, it’s fantastic. I would never go into business with anybody else.” For more information, visit www.harrisonfashion.co.uk
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