BEING good with a sewing machine has not only given South Warnborough woman Julia Dee a life of glamour it has also made her a top business entrepreneur.

She is now the owner of two companies which each week takes her from rural tranquillity to the business heart of London.

Julia, 58, has become one of Britain’s most successful businesswomen through her company The Wardrobe Curator, which has celebrity clients, and Total Wardrobe Care, after she discovered the most fragrant and effective way to kill moths.

But without her tailoring skills none of this would have come about. She began to show her talent for tailoring while growing up in the New Forest and after getting her degree from the Epsom College of Fashion found “my dream job” in Bahrain working in the ex-pat community doing alterations or making clothes for both British and Muslim women, some members of the king’s court.

“I eventually had a team of Iranian women working with me and we were dealing in such beautiful fabrics,” she said.

“I was also having a lovely life with lots of parties, dinners and seagoing on luxury yachts, and as I was in my early 20s it was wonderful.”

Her dream life was shattered with the outbreak of war in Iraq and the start of unrest in the Middle East, so she felt it was safer to come home.

“I arrived on a cold winter’s day in 1990 in the middle of the worst recession and I was on the dole for 10 months,” she said.

Fortunately, she owned a small flat in Streatham, so she had somewhere to live, and eventually got a job selling women’s fashions in Harvey Nichols. And she noticed that the store’s alterations department was “very slow”.

“It could take sometimes three weeks before customers got their order back,” she said.

“There was one lady who needed a quick alteration, so I sneaked it out of the store, did the work and sneaked it back again for her next day.

“I couldn’t charge any money because I was working for the store but I began to do more and more alterations at my flat,” she said.

Julia realised she could run her own dressmaking business but still needed to work, so she took a part-time job at Harrods and founded The Wardrobe Curator, setting up in a former laundry in Battersea alongside other young, aspiring entrepreneurs such as perfume maker Jo Malone.

As the company grew, she was able to get a skilled team of dressmakers to help her as orders came flooding in and requests from some clients were taking her into top homes in London. Also to film premiers or any red carpet event where an alterations to a frock or a suit was needed by starry clients.

Often clients would ask her about how to care for their clothes, but most of all how to stop moths eating the fabrics.

While gathering testimonials from actresses such as Elle Macpherson and Gwyneth Paltrow for her work, Julia began to do research into ways of preventing moths eating their way through the wardrobe.

“But I didn’t want to recommend moth balls which are toxic and foul smelling, so I bought a book on Victorian pot pourri, a natural insect repellent,” she said.

She learned that ancient Greeks used laurels for their crowns, as they kept insects away, and Chinese silks being shipped to England were wrapped in tissue impregnated with lemon grass to ward off bugs.

After some experimenting with protective herbs and leaves, Julia got her friend Debbie, who runs New Forest Aromatics in Brockenhurst, to make up an oil from them and created the May Chang Blend, which spreads a fragrant perfume through your wardrobe.

At the same time, she employed a friend to make pretty pink and white biodegradable packets to hold hanging sachets for wardrobes or sweater drawers, linen spray, which can also be used on carpets, storage bags and a moth box to trap male moths before they can find the females.

As a spin off she has also produced a double-hanger for two garments and a sweater comb to get rid of bobbles on jumpers.

Julia’s success brought her a flat in Kensington and the need for larger premises for her expanding businesses which took her to offices in Plantation Wharf, Battersea, where The Wardrobe Curator, which she has run for 40 years, is based.

Five years ago, romance entered her life when she met future husband Tony Marley, a widower, who has lived in South Warnborough for 40 years.

“Never having been married before I am now stepmother to three children and have six step-grandchildren and it is wonderful when we all get together. Also, Tony has joined the business.”

Being married meant she was now juggling being a wife with being a businesswoman so sold her Kensington flat, bought a “tiny one” in Chelsea and now devides her time between London and South Warnborough.

She has also moved Total Wardrobe Care to Southampton, which makes it easier to travel from home and also to go over to the New Forest to see her mum.

Julia’s is a real success story with a growing client list for her tailoring services and growing sales of her fragrant moth products. She sells 1,000 moth boxes per month, which means she spends three days in London so is more than happy to escape at weekends to the 400-year-old cottage she and Tony share.