The flame lily is a startling bright orange-red flower that blooms in the arid bush of Zimbabwe. It has inspired a designer fashion business which although now based in Thame began life under a tree in the middle of an African drought.

Flame Lily was started six years ago by Chris Garnett, who was born in Zimbabwe but has lived in England with her Canadian husband for about 16 years.

When her husband came to Oxford to study, she started work as personal assistant to Lord Rothschild at Waddesdon Manor, near Aylesbury.

She said: "When I had my first child, I wanted to indulge in my passion for knitting and fashion. I worked in admin for some years, but the creative part of me was always lurking in the background.

"Luckily for me, I managed to put together a good team of knitters. I come from a long line of people who all knit and crochet everyone does, there. It's like England was before the war, when every woman could knit.

"Two of my uncles are small-scale cotton farmers and the cotton comes from small suppliers. I employ 75 women at a Catholic mission in the middle of nowhere. The business is managed by two nuns, who allow me to use the outdoor church as my workroom."

She found the mission through the head teacher of her former school. "They were desperate to get some sort of work going in this very dusty, poor part of Zimbabwe. It took two years before we got anything off the ground."

She added: "Although I'm a very creative person, I'm not a trained designer. I had to learn about cutting, dyeing, sizing and, of course, selling.

By intuition "Because I'm an unskilled designer and my workforce is illiterate, the whole thing works very well. It's just as well that I don't use patterns or written instructions, because they cannot read or write.

"Everything is done by intuition I write or draw in the mud, on the ground. We experiment and we try different things."

The economy of Zimbabwe has been devastated following land redistribution by President Robert Mugabe.

Ms Garnett said: "In spite of all the problems of Zimbabwe, two things have not changed the enthusiasm for hard work that Zimbabweans have, and cotton production.

"Eighty per cent of cotton grown in Zimbabwe comes from small-scale peasant farmers, so the destruction of the white commercial farms had little impact on cotton.

"We somehow manage in Zimbabwe, in spite of 1,000 per cent inflation and an official unemployment rate of 78 per cent. We sometimes use a horse and cart to get things to the airport because there is no fuel."

Because of inflation, a barter system has grown up the workers are paid in food, seeds or school fees, rather than cash."

"Cotton and skilled labour are permanent features of Zimbabwe, so there is no problem there."

The cotton is organic and graded by hand because the small farmers cannot afford fertilisers or pesticides, and is very high quality.

Ms Garnett recently joined a Fair Trade fashion show in Thame, but does not stress the ethical side of the business, because she feels her clothes have enough style, wearability and flair to more than hold their own.

"I haven't really used the organic, fair trade side for marketing. I tend to make the fashion side, because it's more commercial," she said.

The result is stylish knitted or crocheted tops, cardigans, dresses and skirts which, while giving a nod to high fashion, are individual pieces, rather than trendy copies.

The other side of the Flame Lily business is fashionable everyday skirts, trousers and dresses made in a room above Ms Garnett's Thame shop from woven fabrics bought in Aylesbury market.

She employs a seamstress and a full-time shop assistant, as well as a part-timer. In addition to the shop in North Street, Thame, she sells the clothes at craft fairs and at Ascot.

With a website and a representative selling to small shops in Italy, Flame Lily looks set to become a permanent feature of the fashion world.

Ms Garnett said: "The clothes look different to what you would buy in the high street. What's wonderful is how surprised our customers are when they realise such sophisticated clothes are made by rural African women. They stand their ground next to Italian knitwear.

"There is hardly a clothing factory left in England, so we are really proud of the fact that we can label our products Made in Oxfordshire'.

Contact: 01844 216360; www.flame-lily.com