Growth Hub supports nearly 200 female founders
Belinda Yu drew on her family heritage to create a range of contemporary and sustainable handbags.
Alongside her brother James, she launched Wicker Wings six years ago to honour her grandmother, Yue Yao Li, who made handwoven wicker baskets in her native China before moving to England in 1990.
Today, Manchester-based Wicker Wings is fast developing a reputation among discerning consumers who want to invest in sustainable products.
All Wicker Wings products are made by hand by skilled artisans using traditional crafts of wicker weaving.
The bags are sold online as well as stocked by Net-a-porter and Selfridges and they now have customers all over the world including Australia and America.
A Wicker Wings bag
The company employs five staff in Trafford and a team of artisan weavers in Indonesia, and even grandmother, Yue, 79, helps with production.
“Wicker Wings is not just about making beautiful products, we really want to champion traditional handicrafts and sustainability,” said Belinda.
“Shoppers nowadays are making more conscious purchases and we do everything we can to be sustainable.
“We also want to slow down fashion and create classic designs.”
Belinda was recently supported by GC Business Growth Hub’s Manufacturing Growth Fund.
She is one of hundreds of female entrepreneurs supported by the Hub in recent years.
Recent data released ahead of International Women’s Day today show that more than half of entrepreneurs helped to set up a business by the Hub over the past year were female.
From April 2020 to February 2021, a total of 193 women received specialist expertise and advice compared to 150 men starting up businesses.
The research suggests that the number of female entrepreneurs is high in the region and compares favourably with the national picture.
The Rose Review of Female Entrepreneurship, released in March 2019, found that only one in three UK entrepreneurs is female.
The Greater Manchester figures have been welcomed by the Hub’s head of specialist services, Janine Smith.
Janine Smith
She said: “We have some amazing women across our region making a huge contribution to our SME business sector.
“It’s reassuring that the number of female entrepreneurs starting and scaling up businesses in our region is high.
“We are committed to continuing to level up the playing field. The Hub helps female entrepreneurs to come together, share advice, and forge connections.”
The year’s International Women’s Day theme is ‘Choose to Challenge’, and Belinda said that the way she tackles challenges is down to her inspirational mother, who moved here 38 years ago from China.
She added: “If there’s a challenge in front of me, I will tackle it head on and fix it and that is down to my mum. She is my biggest inspiration and the most hard-working person I know.
“My advice to women starting out in business is stick at it – you will have so many ups and downs but it will be worth it.”
Janine added: “We want to shine a light on ambitious, successful women like Belinda and to inspire even more women to come to us for support.”
