INTERNATIONAL fashion designer and home-grown talent Ally Capellino has vowed to forge ahead with her career despite going bust.

Ally, 43, real name Alison Lloyd, hails from humble roots in Tadcaster, where her mother, Betty, still lives.

Over the past 20 years she has built up the powerful Ally Capellino fashion label with her former partner, Jono Platt, originally from York.

The company went into receivership on May 11 after a stressful year-long slide into the red that was precipitated by the break-up of Ally and Jono's relationship.

"I can imagine that we might work on projects in the future but I don't think we will for a while, because I think we need a break from one another," said Ally, who has a new partner.

She is designing a new line of clothes from a friend's bedroom in Shepherd's Bush, where she is staying with her 14-year-old son, Hamish, as she prepares to move into her own flat. Her daughter, Aggie, nine, lives with Jono.

But Iron Will Ally (the words she scrawled on her Highway Code book as a 17-year-old driving test candidate) will not be beaten.

The ex-Tadcaster Grammar School pupil still sees a strong future for herself as a designer.

"It was a big relief when the business went into receivership," she said.

"Now I'm hoping someone will be interested in me enough to give me some work.

"I'm trying to take on some consultancy work so that I'm a lot more design-based."

She is also hoping to buy back the Capellino brandname from the receivers, and is about to fly to Zurich, where a range of her designs is showing.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.