Peace on Earth may be an unrealistic Christmas wish but is it too much to think this year is the year we are going to do things differently.

I was walking around my local City Centre the other day and was shocked to see how many women still had see through cheap leggings on. There is nothing more unflattering, no matter how thin or amazing your bottom is, than being able to see flesh or underwear under your clothes. It is just not stylish.

When I designed the PBL perfect black leggings it was because I could never find a pair that did everything I wanted from, no see through, to fitting me comfortably...

Fashion Revolution Week a global movement calling for greater transparency, sustainability and ethics in the fashion industry. Read how Shirley get's involved.

When you work at something you are passionate about it's very normal to talk about it. A good saleswoman can close a deal but it takes a good deal more self promtion to build an empire but how do you self promote without looking desperate or cheesy?

Starting your own business is not easy, especially if you want to offer something unique in order to brand out from the crowd.

The fashion industry, a business I decided to enter is in reality a closed shop. Once you have designed your garment, in my case, the PBL, a made in England black legging the first stage, having created it is to let the world know about it.

You would imagine it would be easy to get magazines and the media to rave about...

For years Leicester, UK was at the forefront of quality garment fashion manufacturing but brands moving production overseas for better margins has meant the proud red brick buildings of a once glorious industrial age has been replaced by poor ethics and shattered reputations for British manufacturing. New shoots are breaking through with companies like Ethically Sourced Products making things sustainably for ethical fashion brands made in Leicester.

The global sports wear clothing market which includes the active wear and yoga pant market for women is booming in the US and by 2019 it is set to be worth around $178 billion dollars so says Trefis a market research firm based in Boston. So Venus Cow and the PBL Perfect black leggings are on track to join this fast growing phenomenon as a desire for function in fashion surpasses just plain old...

Doing a great interview relies primarily on managing nerves, more likely to hamper you if you really want the job on offer. When preparation, meets opportunity you usually get luck.

Starting a fashion brand is rather tricky these days when the whole media, magazine and TV platforms are run like an "in club" where money talks and anything real, desperately trying to break in, gets ignored or deleted unless you have money to spend on advertorials. I find it really sickening to my stomach that people like Kelly Brook open a new restaurant and the Daily Mail have three different made up stories about her, giving enormous coverage and exposure for her...

Last night I watched a really powerful film, Charles Ferguson’s “Inside Job” about the biggest heist in history and it got me thinking about my own financial downfall when my bubble burst during the dot com crash in 2000. This huge "dot bomb" crash, as it was known, was estimated to have cost investors, like myself, 3 trillion dollars.

In financial markets a stock market bubble is a self-perpetuating rise or boom in share...

I get really passionate about certain subjects I come across when doing my free life coaching work and recently I met a group of young women on a mission to get magazines, the media, TV and big brands to stop airbrushing and photo shopping in their advertising campaigns and brand marketing.

These young women believe airbrushing to be damaging by putting unrealistic pressures on them to be tall, slim and perfect, something few of us are in reality. I am not sure how much this growing problem is...

The main reason to work with a life coach is to help you figure out where you are in your life and where you want to be but for most setting personal goals is an impossible task. Very often people need someone to help them make the dreams in their heads become reality by helping them do the work and focus on the vision. A life coach can really help in areas like relationships, careers, personal growth, addictions such as food, drugs, drink, smoking...

It's 10 years to the day David Cameron gave his controversial Big Society speech. I've read a good deal of inspirational quotes since but none so resolute than Ernest Rutherford quotes "We haven't got the money, so we'll have to think."

David Cameron was the first person heard talking about "Big Society" in the UK. Eleven years later social entrepreneur Shirley Yanez has made progress.