Leah Green's light bulb moment came in 1999 when on a work trip to New York, she noticed

manicure bars on every street corner of the Big Apple and saw a gap in the UK market for professional,

high-quality manicures, along with an on-trend range of products.

Fast forward nearly 20 years and Nails Inc is a multi-million pound empire.

Having created the UK's number one nail bar chain, with 20 locations,

award-winning polishes which are used backstage at everywhere from fashion weeks to award ceremonies,

Thia has used her industry experience and intelligence

to launch a new brand, Incredible. Welcome to the Shearlock's success stories. In each

fortnightly episode, we delve into the stories behind some of the most successful entrepreneurs

and careers we've seen. A very warm welcome, Thea, to your Shearluck's success story.

Let's start at the beginning.

You went to London College of Fashion, to study fashion.

What happened next?

I was at London College of Fashion for three years, and during my time there,

I, like so many people, constantly interned.

We were talking about it before.

So I was interning at Tatler when I was at London College of Fashion,

and then by the time

I left college, I went full time and worked as originally as fashion coordinator, I think it was

called, hilarious title, and then became fashion editor at 23. So that in itself is incredible

that you became fashion editor at 23. Talk to us about interning. Interning gets a bit of a hard time. This was in what year? What year did you leave down in the college of fashion? So Nailsink started in 1999. I'd have been at Tatler for two years to 97. I guess I was studying from, I think it's probably 94 to 97. And I did, I worked at Tatler and over those two years worked my way up from, well, interning whilst I was at uni and then fashion coordinator, I think it was called then it was fashion assistant, junior fashion editor and I left as fashion editor. And were you very clear that interning was the way in and that was what you needed to do? I loved interning. I think you're right. Interning does get a bad rep and I think it's, you know, interning is confusing, isn't it? because some people pay for interns and some people don't pay for interns. I think that's a lot of the challenges about the finances.

But, right, interning does get a bad rep. And I think it's, you know, interning is confusing, isn't it? Because some people pay for interns and some people don't pay for interns. I think that's a lot of the challenges about the finances. But for me, in a small magazine like Tatler, I think if you're willing and ambitious, I got to do so many great things. So even when I was a student, I was going on photo shoots. I was working for the editors. The brilliant thing about those sort of smaller magazines is the runners get to do so much. So I really felt like I was learning the job and in the end, proof is in the pudding because I got offered a job at the end of it because they trained me throughout my uni day. So I feel like for me it was an amazing experience and I loved it. I think a lot of people do it and then they need a job maybe on the side to support it financially but I loved interning. You do what you have to do. Yeah.

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