Former Coronation Street star Arianna Ajtar rose to fame after being cast as model Olivia Radfield in Weatherfield in 2018.
Although her cobbles stay was somewhat shortlived, she became recognisable to millions on ITV. Five years on, however, the 27-year old claims its her business career that is her "big success" - something she was working on during her time on the Street.
Arianna established Mars the Label in 2015 using £3,000 of savings and working from her dad's living room in Bolton, Greater Manchester. Since then she has negotiated the highs and lows of becoming an enternepeur, and has gone on to steer her company into a multi-million pound empire.
Incredibly, the star is self-taught, having started out by designing clothes she wanted to wear on an online "kids doodle app". She now employs 25 members of staff at a much more impressive office headquarters in the northern town, and said of her success: "We are now an eight figure annual turnover brand, which is honestly wild when you bring it all the way back to starting with less than £3,000 in my dad's living room. We've come such a long way, and I've learnt so many lessons.
"I can't even believe it myself to be honest. Sometimes I sit there and look at the sales on the website and can't believe that genuinely it's mine." Arianna was studying for a degree in acting at Liverpool University and working two part-time jobs when she dreamt up the business idea.
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Arianna during her Corrie days (ITV)But she soon realised she couldn't juggle all those commitments if she wanted her fashion dream to fulfill its huge potential. And against the advice of friends and family, Arianna quit her studies believing she had found a "gap in the market" for stylish fashions, clubwear and swimwear.
It was an instant hit - and by the time of the Covid-19 lockdown in 2020 she had taken her business to the next level. Arianna explained to MEN: "I was 19 when I first founded Mars, I just thought I'm going to design some pieces on a kids doodle app, which I still use. I'm not a trained designer, with no background in business. I was the seller as well as the consumer at that stage.
"I didn't realise at the time, but I filled a massive gap in the market. Eight years ago it was one size fits all online, but there were different things I wanted to wear, so I just created them. But I didn't see it as a scale-able business at that time."
She admits she learnt many lessons during those early days. "When I think back now it was crazy, but it shows how small scale it was, it was from my living room at home at my dads, with less than £3k starting it up. My mum died when I was 7, so I used a little of her inheritance she left me and some of my student loan to start the business off.
"An important thing to learn when you start a business is it's alright not to be good at everything, and to hire in your weak spots - a team is better than one person, but it took years for me to learn that. I messed up along the way, whether it was missing the day of orders, or our customer service at the start. If I went on holiday, I'd have to just close the website down! That's how it was for the first three years."
Arianna said she used to ask friends to tag her brand on social media in its early days as she couldn't afford to pay models to wear her designs (Arianna Ajtar Instagram)In the midst of developing her business, Arianna still attended auditions for acting roles having been in the industry since she was three-years old. As a child she enrolled at the famous Carol Godby acting workshop in Bury, with Carol going on to become her agent and responsible for her Corrie audition.
Arianna recalled: "The initial audition was for a bigger role, but I didn't get the part, usually I'd be gutted but I just knew that something else would come along. Six weeks later, they came back to say there's this other role. It was a small part, in the grand scheme of things it was blink and you'll miss it.
"But I'm still friends with the Corrie cast and they take the mickey out of me when they see me still called a Corrie star because I know it was a small role, but I guess it was a big storyline. I was only in for a few episodes, but it was honestly one of the highlights of my career, I was so so proud of that, because it was my mum's favourite programme. My whole life was Corrie so I felt like she sent me that role in a weird way."
Laughing, she added: "It bugs me when I'm labelled a "Corrie star" as I feel I've done so much more with my career, although don't get me wrong I absolutely loved it there and I would 100 per cent go back - but I'm just not a Corrie star am I - although maybe one day."
By the time she had began filming her Corrie scenes, Mars the Label was already "doing well" for such a new venture. Arianna said: "It was doing well. But it has just grown so much now. I thought it was doing well back then, we were doing 50 orders a day. But now we're averaging anywhere between 500 items to 1,000 a day. It's honestly crazy."
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Arianna went on to reveal that despite moving premises, the coronavirus pandemic hit her company hard - and unlike other online businesses, sales plummeted. "I just wasn't very good at the business side of things, I knew I had a great product, and I thought that's all I needed," she admitted. But when lockdown came we nearly closed - where most online businesses thrived we did the complete opposite.
"I'd always designed going out wear, swimwear, festival clothes because that's what I was passionate about. But in lockdown I had only one supplier who closed for six months." Instead, multi-talented Arianna turned her attentions to fitness videos - creating a home workout plan that proved an instant success. Using the money generated from her new idea, she pumped it into Mars the Label, realising it was "sink or swim" time.
With her business sales falling, Arianna created fitness videos and used income from the venture to boost Mars the Label (Arianna Ajtar)"I took the time in lockdown to learn about business, meeting up with other business owners and learning from them," she recalled. "I remember meeting Laura Smith who owns the business Lulabellz, and she gave me so much good advice. Which is why I will always now give advice to anyone if I can because I was just like a sponge, I took in so much.
"After lockdown, I just smashed it. It stuck with me that it was a make or break situation and the thought of not having Mars in my life after nearly five years, the thought of not doing it for a job, that was scary. I learnt as much as I can and It was the best thing, it's all well and good having an eye for fashion and how things should be shot and presented to the general public, but without that business support you're not going to get it to a massive scale."
She added: "I hired a designer and that's when I realised sometimes it can be better if you hire people who are better than you at your job. That was the penny dropped moment. I decided to make a massive order. It turned out it was the best risk that I've ever taken."
Sales subsequently increased dramatically, resulting in Ari purchasing a 20,000 sq ft unit, which Mars has already outgrown. She continued: "From 2020 I started bringing more and more people in. At one point I was taking zero wage for myself, because I wanted to pay and retain my staff. My team are everything and more to me, they're such nice people in the business."
The brand registered its first million pound turnover in 2021, but just a year later it "went crazy", shooting up to an eight-figure turnover. Pondering the reasons for its success, Arianna said: "I think it was a mixture of me growing up, my incredible team who are so good at what they do. It was a combination of things I think.
"You can be working so hard at something for five years straight, and then one day you're just a massive success. Lockdown pulled us back so much, that I think it gave me that extra fire in my belly. I'd maybe got a bit complacent about scaling a business and I didn't trust anyone. But that was hindering me, I woke up in 2020, got my head screwed on, learn to trust people again, talked to other business owners and all of that combined. Mars was already such a good business, but it helped it reach its full potential."
The business has now gone global, achieving massive success in the US and Australia. In its infancy, however, Arianna said she was forced to ask her friends to wear her clothes and tag the business on social media as she couldn't afford to pay for models. "I couldn't afford models when I first started, so I'd take pictures of myself in the clothes, and asked friends who were models to help as well. I'll always be grateful for that," she said.
Even now though, she confessed she still gets "so excited" when she sees other women wearing the brand. "Still if I go out people will say, 'Oh you're Mars the Label' rather than just Arianna. I'll often run over to customers and thank them, all the time, it's my favourite thing to do if I see someone out! I love to tell them how good they look in the brand.
"I remember going to Parklife last year and everyone was wearing Mars, I went over to this girl in the toilet, and said, 'Oh my god you look amazing'. She looked at me like I was mad. But anyone I see wearing Mars, they're literally my best friend in the world."
Arianna now employs 25 staff and is turning over an eight-figure sum (Arianna Ajtar)Despite her achievements, Arianna said she is keeping her feet firmly on the ground with regards to what's next. "I'm not an egotistical person saying I want to make nine figures next - I just want to continue to scale, to have a team that's as happy as they are now, I know I have the happiest team in the world," she said. "I just want to get better and get everyone to know what Mars is, and that there's something for everyone.
"I want to have the brand accessible to everyone, but still stay true to Mars. We sell in sizes from UK 4 - 24. It's a big size range now. When I first started my supplier wouldn't go bigger than a size 12 and it annoyed me so much. My friends were 16s and I was like 'this isn't fair" so in 2019 I got new suppliers and got up to UK 20 as soon as I could and now it's constantly evolving. People message me saying we need a bigger cup size, so that's the latest thing we've done now as well. It's always looking at what my customers want."
With Black Friday just around the corner she has promised fans some "big sales" ahead of her eagerly-anticipated Christmas party range. "We launch our Christmas collections in November, but historically December is always a bigger month for us," she explained.
Arianna remains careful with her money, although was excited to be able to buy her dream car a year ago - and to buy her dad a car too. She says buying her first home in Salford last year was also "one of her proudest moments".
She said: "My dad is so proud. He's 76 now. When he's come in to see me at the office he'll say: "oh you're doing so well, you're not in my living room anymore. As quickly as you get a material thing you can lose it, it's not that important to me. But my success speaks more in my staff, the numbers we turn over. It doesn't always have to be shiny things you show off on the internet."
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