CLAIRE HARPER surveys her elegant dining room, crammed with boxes of T shirts, mini fleeces, packs of baby socks and bootees and apologises for the mess. The rest of her beautifully-appointed period farmhouse in Kirkburton is, by comparison, incredibly neat and tidy, especially for a household with two young children.

However, the 38-year-old is discovering that running your own fashion business from home makes certain demands on space.

After a high-flying career in marketing, Claire recently gave up a steady salary and corporate life in order to spend more time with her children but says she is too driven to give up work altogether, which is why she’s now knee deep in childrenswear.

It’s 11 weeks since she launched her new online venture, www.indiacoco.com , selling British-designed brands, and so far she has been encouraged by the response.

But then it will be surprising if she doesn’t do well, given that she has nearly two decades of experience behind her in some of the country’s biggest corporate businesses.

Originally from Northampton, Claire studied for a BA Hons in business studies with marketing and French at Southampton University and was quickly snapped up to fill a graduate placement at the headquarters of the national retailer Argos.

“It was a fantastic start,” she says. “I was thrown into the deep end, producing Christmas flyers, catalogues; getting involved in TV advertising.

“At the time the company was the first to lead the multi-channel multi-product retailing that is so common now. They invested in the internet and I was working with some amazing people.

“I have been fortunate throughout my career to have been mentored by some inspirational people.”

After five years at Argos, Claire was head-hunted by Ocado, which was at the time a new on-line shopping venture by the John Lewis and Waitrose partnership.

“They were just setting up the business and it was at the height of the dot com boom,” she explained.

“I was part of the team that developed the Ocado brand and, again, it was a fantastic opportunity.”

Although on-line shopping is now commonplace, Claire says her team had to think of ways to persuade customers to put their trust in the Ocado brand. “There were lots of problems to solve. It was quite maverick really. We were taking on Tesco and Sainsbury.” It is experience that she is now putting to good use.

After four years there Claire was once again head-hunted and asked to join the opposition – Sainsbury’s – to head up its on-line marketing team in London.

She stayed there for just over three years and then moved North with her husband, Lee Williams, a former head of finance for Comet, who was offered a position as divisional marketing director for the Bradford-based Morrisons.

Claire was asked to become the first-ever marketing director of family-owned Huddersfield company Mamas & Papas.

“The company is now 30 years old and is very much a family business. It’s a very demanding work culture and still very much hands on,” she said.

“I had a big team of around 40 people and did a lot of travelling. Mamas & Papas has 60 stores in the UK but is a world-wide brand with stores, franchises and partnerships. I launched it into the USA.”

Not long after moving to Huddersfield, Claire became pregnant with her daughter Coco, now four, and took just three months maternity leave. Even while at home with her newborn daughter she hosted business meetings and was determined to get back to work full time.

“And it worked,” she says. “I was travelling a lot, working demanding hours and juggling my time. “The big catalyst for change was having our second daughter, India, last summer. Coco was starting school and I wanted to be able to take her there in the mornings and go to sports day and school events. And I wanted things to be different with India.”

Having had five years working for a company that manufactures and sells baby and toddler clothes, and having two young children of her own, Claire decided to take the plunge and create an on-line retail outlet selling innovative, quirky and organic children’s clothing. “Our daughters are the inspiration behind it,” she says.

She searched for British-designed brands, using savings to buy stock and create a website, and launched indiacoco.com back in May. Coco’s dress (above) is £57 and India’s dress and bloomer set (above, left) is £28, giving an indication of the style and price range of the clothing Claire stocks.

Claire’s husband Lee, who now runs his own retail consultancy, is her business partner.

She says she has a “deep work ethic” learned from her parents. Her father ran his own HR training consultancy and she remembers how hard he worked to set it up.

“I’m working ridiculous hours at the moment, but I can be flexible, do things when I want to and work from home. When I was at Mamas & Papas what I craved was flexibility,” she said.

“Looking back on it, it was tough when Coco was a baby and I knew it would be difficult to juggle two children. But it’s wrong to look back and have regrets.”

Claire believes she has found a solution to the dilemma of being a hands-on parent but not wasting her hard-earned skills and experience.

Now, as well as raising two little girls, she also hopes to grow a family business of her own.