The last person we are looking at for our Inspiration Week is someone who could truly be one of the biggest fashion inspirators at least in the UK- which is none other than Sir Philip Green. Sir Philip may not exactly be a total fashionista like the other designers we have talked about, (though he probably does wear the most expensive suits you could ever find) but he does own the massive Arcadia Group- which includes several of our favourite fashion shops like Topshop, Miss Selfridge, Dorothy Perkins, and Burton Menswear for the husbands as well as famous other high-street names.

He is currently Britain's ninth richest person, owning 2300 shops in the UK which controls 12% of the UK clothing retail market, making his empire the second largest in the sector. He was born in March 1952, and despite being more of a businessman than a fashionable one, he has almost always worked in fashion. He left boarding school at the age of 15 and worked for a shoe importer before travelling to the USA, Far East, and Europe, and set up his first business on his return importing jeans from the Far East to sell to retailers in London. In 1979 he bought the entire stock of 10 designer label clothes sellers, sent them to the dry cleaners, put them on hangers wrapped in polythene to make them look new, then bought a place to sell them to the public.

Since then, he has continued to rise higher in the retail market, and in 1999 bought a failing British Home Stores and turned it around. It is now believed to be worth over £1.2billion. Sir Philip Green has spent more than £6million in education; the majority of it going in to The Fashion Retail Academy which now has over 200 students, and he is a generous supporter of the industry charity Retail Trust. For the many thousands of people who work in any Arcadia store, they can call Sir Philip their boss as it is a big thanks to him that these shops are so popular, and as for Miss Selfridge and Topshop... well, where would we all be without them?!