CHILDHOOD was tough for Andrianna Shamaris. When she was three her mother died of cancer at the age of 36. A year later her father died, seemingly from a broken heart.
The orphaned Shamaris was brought up by an older aunt and uncle, and recalls being taunted and roughed up by children at school because she did not have parents.

When she finished secondary school in Stockwell, south London, there was no money to pay for further study, so Shamaris went travelling. Her first stop was Italy to learn Italian and work as an au pair for a year. Then she travelled to Australia for six months, where she worked in a shop that sold designer-label clothes in Sydney.

Shamaris was 18 when she returned to London to work at Browns, a small boutique on South Molton Street. She moved on to work at the London store of Ralph Lauren, the American clothing designer, where she dealt with celebrity clients, including Princess Diana.

She said: “It really was quite wonderful. Diana was married then. She was kneeling down looking at jeans and needed some help, but she couldn’t be seen buying clothes from an American store. “She called me up the next day and asked me to come and see her.” Shamaris remained in contact with the princess for the next four years.

Using money she had made from commissions, Shamaris bought a flat in Primrose Hill and started to furnish it. She sold the apartment fully furnished and at that point realised she had flair for design and interiors.

Although she was earning a good wage at Ralph Lauren and had made a healthy profit on the sale of her flat, she decided she did not want to work in someone else’s shop. “I was bored,” she said.

A wealthy client invited her to Beverly Hills to be her assistant and Shamaris moved to America. But her boyfriend in London missed her so much that he asked her to marry him. She agreed and returned.

Eight months after her son Redmond was born, Shamaris got the urge to travel again and set off with her husband and baby. They ended up in Bali, where she bought a lot of furniture.

“I saw great antique pieces and I ended up with a 40ft container full of them,” she said.

It encouraged her to try her hand at the furniture business. She convinced her husband to make a big leap and move to Sante Fe in New Mexico. She had never been there but liked the sound of it, having been inspired by Ralph Lauren’s Sante Fe Prairie collection in 1981.

On her first day in town she found a location for her first outlet simply by putting a note under the door of a store. She signed a lease that afternoon. The rent was $1,600 (£930) a month.

Shamaris worked seven days a week and managed to make the store a success. But after six years she was ready for a new challenge.

Her marriage was also failing. She divorced her husband and moved to Montecito, in Santa Barbara, California. “I left with my only son and hand luggage,” she said. “I didn’t want to be lingering over a divorce and money.”

After the divorce, Shamaris had only $2,600 to her name. She borrowed $2,000 from a friend and organised an exhibition of furniture she had bought on a trip to Indonesia. She sold the lot in two weeks — a success that encouraged her to open a shop.

One day Fred Segal, who owns a collection of trendy boutiques where celebrities like Gwyneth Paltrow shop, came into her store.

“He walked in and said, ‘I love your stuff, you should be in my store. I’ll meet you there tomorrow’.” Soon they were in partnership. Shamaris borrowed $25,000 from a friend and in 2000 opened Andrianna at Fred Segal, the first line of furniture sold at Fred Segal.

At first shoppers were unsure. “They thought it would be really expensive because it was Fred Segal, but I got a celebrity following.”

Just 18 months later she opened a stand-alone store in Malibu and then another in New York.

Her shops sell everything from raw wood planks to large carved-wood screens, tables and bamboo bowls, and turnover is several million dollars a year.

Now 38, Shamaris said passion was the secret of her success. “You really have to love what you do. You can’t just do it because you think you will make money doing it.”

She said you also had to be tough. “If you are really sweet, people will walk all over you.”

Along with furniture, she has launched a clothing line, Good In Bed, a collection of 12 styles of slip dresses, shirts and trousers in fine cotton. After conquering New York, she hopes to open a shop in the Hamptons, or in Miami, and eventually in London.

Her most important advice for anyone starting out is: “Rules are made for breaking.”