I'm Imran Ahmed, founder and CEO of the Business of Fashion, and welcome to Drive,

VOF's new podcast series, delivered by DHS, where we hear the stories of fashion's most dynamic entrepreneurs in their own words.

This week, I sit down with Tom Chapman, who, with his wife, Ruth, co-founded Matches Fashion, which grew from

one boutique in London's Wimbledon into a global player in fashion e-commerce. Last year, Tom and Ruth

exited their business and sold it for $1 billion. Looking back, I would say to you that there was

no specific long-term strategy,

let's launch online and let's grow into a global international business.

The decisions we made have always been customer-focused decisions.

You have to have a vision of what you're going to do and you have to deliver that vision.

Often, the logic tells you not to do something, but you need to keep the magic of a business.

You need to keep its personality.

You need to keep its DNA of what it is. And you need to accept the fact that sometimes things just

don't have the return that they should, but you need to have that representation to really be

creative and to create a point of difference.

So here's my conversation with Tom Chapman to learn what it really takes to build a global fashion business from scratch.

Good morning, Tom Chapman. Thank you for taking the time to sit down with me.

We are here to discuss the drive behind Matches Fashion, which was recently sold to Apex at a valuation

reported to be around a billion dollars. And anyone who's built a billion dollar business

knows that that doesn't happen overnight. It takes time. It takes resilience. It takes the effort to get through

challenges and unexpected situations. But I thought in kind of exploring this story with you that we

would start at the beginning with your first store in 1987 in Wimbledon Village. I mean, back then,

Tom, what was the motivation to open a fashion boutique? What was the fashion industry like back then? Good morning, Imran. Good to be here.

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