Softly spoken for
Masham-based Ali Orr hit a gold mine when she discovered that second-hand cashmere was much in demand. She talks to Stephanie Smith about bringing back a touch of luxury to life.
If cashmere is the golden fleece, Ali Orr is a treasure hunter, seeking out the best from across the world and bringing it back to North Yorkshire so thousands can appreciate its beauty, luxury and softness – at a fraction of the usual cost. “I can’t resist a bargain,” she says. “I can’t drive past a car boot without seeing what there is. I’ve always been a second-hand shopper, long before it was trendy to be.”
Ali is the owner and founder of Nearly New Cashmere, which has a shop in Masham and an online business through which she sells around 12,000 secondhand and reconditioned cashmere pieces a year – jumpers, cardigans, accessories and loungewear for women, men and children.
Ali lives in Wensleydale with her husband, Michael Hollins, who works in the care sector. Always an entrepreneur, in her 20s she ran her own catering business but, for 15 years, she was a stay-at-home mum to her four children.
About seven years ago, she began to buy and sell secondhand clothes on eBay to generate income. She soon noticed that secondhand cashmere was a bestseller and thought this might be the key to her longterm success.
But first she had to find the cashmere – and lots of it. “The first few years were spent establishing a secure supply,” she says. “I had to travel extensively to find it but since I have done that the business has been able to grow.”
All the cashmere jumpers and cardigans are genuinely secondhand, and Ali buys them in batches of 2,000 from the
US, Canada and the UK. She also takes cashmere from customers in return for a voucher. “It’s not about what’s in fashion at the moment,” she says. “When chocolate brown wasn’t in fashion,