Diana wedding dress designer Elizabeth Emanuel seeks £1.5m angel funding

Emanuel has hired Beer & Partners to help raise the money, capitalising in part on renewed interest in her designs following last year’s wedding of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge.

The funds will help her new firm, Art of Being, which will focus on traditional couture as well as creating a ready-to-wear range to launch and to recruit a chief executive to run the business.

The fashion designer has spent much of the past week pitching to the angel investors introduced to her by Beer & Partners with funds set to be raised in three parts, with an initial £150,000 expected to be raised by the end of this week, followed by £400,000 in September and the rest at some point next year.

Emanuel, who will be creative director, said: “The missing link at the moment is a chief executive who will have the most important input, besides me.”