EXCLUSIVE Footwear Ltd is preparing to take its first major step outside York and North Yorkshire.

Or rather, the worldwide internet company is getting ready to open a new shop in Newcastle upon Tyne to add to its presence in Gillygate, York.

The Tyneside shop will also add to three concessions within The House designer stores in Yarm, Harrogate and Thirsk and through Koodos, the online designer clothing retailer.

It seems that nothing – not even recessions – could stop Frances Chalmers’ two-person venture from expanding at breathtaking speed.

Last year saw revenue leap by between 40 per cent and 125 per cent year on year.

Turnover for 2009/2010 increased 46 per cent on last year – and with the prospect of the Newcastle outlet and sales of children’s shoes opening next door in Gillygate, sales are expected to double again. It all points to Frances achieving her goal of generating £1 million in turnover within the next two years.

And it is hardly surprising that she is now pitching for both the Women In Enterprise title – a category in which she was a runner-up in 2007 – and Small Business Of The Year.

Frances launched Exclusive Footwear in 2005, inspired by an unsuccessful hunt in York for a pair of designer shoes to give her husband.

The former IT sales director, who launched the business only six months after giving birth to the first of her two children, spent months visiting shoe companies and travelling to Milan and London, putting together a winter collection. Many shoe designers blanked her until she met three of them personally in London and told them to “get on board or miss out”. All three of them signed up.

Since then, as growth of exclusivefootwear.com accelerated, helped along by ten per cent lifetime discount offers to newly registered online customers, her Exclusive Footwear products have featured in newspapers and magazines all over the world. Last August, Channel 4 asked her to present a “fashion footwear for racing” programme with presenter Marietta Doran.

She was also a finalist in the Drapers E-tailer Of The Year Award in 2007, 2008 and again this year.