A KENDAL graduate is selling his designs across the world after starting an online fashion store to pay off his student debts.

Stuart Pearce, 25, graduated as a Junior Industrial Designer from the School of Design in Newcastle, and set up 54 Floral Clothing after he left, just over a year ago.

“I owed money to a few people once I’d finished uni and my wage from working in a shop wasn’t enough to pay it all off,” Stuart explained.

“Now not only is it all paid back but I’ve been able to go part-time at work – it’s totally exceeded my expectations.”

Stuart started the business alongside younger brother Greg, 23, who is also interested in fashion and design.

Stuart said: “I’ve always been interested and keen on clean classical product design with a no fuss ethic and ideology that simply does what it has been created for.

“The brand explores basic graphic concepts through classic day to day garments, working with simple colour palettes and bold shapes to create pieces of clothing which have longevity, merge with existing trends and suit the masses.”

Last month 54 Floral finished in the top 50 of more than 700 stores on ASOS Marketplace – a subsidiary of asos.com which gives smaller brands the chance to sell to a bigger market.

The company, which sells on average between two and three garments a day, was also advertised in Elle magazine for August.

The name also has great significance for the brothers, as Stuart explained, “'Floral' is an anagram of 'For All’, and name is derived from the way we see the brand fulfilling its intentions.

“The '54' is dedicated to a family member who was sadly killed in a performance bikes race at the famous Isle of Man TT in 2005.

“His bike number in his last race was the number 54, and we wanted to see the brand dedicated to him in some way - having an army of fans with the number 54 on their clothing is something truly fitting.”

He added: “Not many people are yet selling online from Kendal, so this is a pretty new thing and we hope to be even bigger soon.”