Ditch your accent and buy a Birkin: The secret to building a £1m empire in your 20s

Poppie PlattTue, September 29, 2026 at 1:55 PM UTC

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Isobel Lorna, 25, recently launched her luxury organiser brand, Agende, which sold out within an hour of going on sale - Belinda Jiao

Social media influencers have a bad reputation – entitled, vain Love Island-wannabes with gleaming white smiles and rock-solid abs who would rather jet off to Dubai than pay tax or work an “honest job”. Yet Isobel Lorna, who has almost 2.5 million followers across TikTok and Instagram, is fighting back against the negative stereotypes. Earlier this month, the 25-year-old launched Agende, Gen Z’s very own answer to the Filofax, in an attempt to persuade her generation to get off their phones and work harder and smarter – and it’s paying off. Since the brand launched on September 2, Agende has pulled in £700,000 in revenue. By the end of 2026, Lorna hopes to make it a million.

Those in the market for an affordable everyday organiser would probably gasp at Agende – prices for the basic binder, which comes in varying shades of calfskin leather, begin at £139, with costs rising to £299 for an all-in bundle consisting of paper inserts, a built-in purse and a vanity mirror. The high price point has caused considerable online backlash, with critics accusing Lorna of being out-of-touch and elitist. She doesn’t care. When we meet in a coffee shop in Belgravia to talk about her new business – and her haters – she’s quick to reiterate that this is a luxury product for people with deep pockets.

What would she say to those criticising its price? “Don’t buy it then. Buy a cheaper one. That’s the whole point of a market – there’s cheap things and there’s expensive things. You can buy a handbag from Primark, and you can also buy a handbag from Hermès.”

Lorna is part of a generation of British Gen Z female entrepreneurs who got their start on social media before branching out. The gang includes Grace Beverley, the 29-year-old Oxford graduate and millionaire founder of gymwear brand Tala; Love Island finalist-turned-multi-hyphenate businesswoman Molly-Mae Hague, 27, who has her own Amazon Prime Video reality show; and Jess Hunt, also 29, whose Manchester-based beauty company Refy reported revenue of £43.9m last year. Most of these women are beautiful and well-spoken, presenting a polished and extremely desirable version of themselves online: they carry expensive Hermès Birkins on their tanned arms, holiday in the Maldives and post regular updates on renovation projects or lucrative new brand partnerships.

Molly-Mae Hague is among the Gen Z women who have capitalised on their large online following to enter the business world - Getty /Lia Toby

But while Lorna looks every bit as sophisticated in person – dressed in a rich burgundy trouser suit, her hair meticulously styled – she’s refreshingly fiery and outspoken. She likes people who work hard; she has little sympathy for those who don’t.

This no-holds-barred attitude to success has rubbed some people up the wrong way. Lorna has been accused of being posh and privileged, an accusation she finds hilarious. “I went to a state school. My parents were both public servants,” she tells me, pausing every so often to sip her iced latte. “I had a privileged upbringing, but I didn’t come from a wealthy background. They [my parents] worked hard so that we could go on a couple of holidays a year, like every other kid does.”

She believes much of the criticism stems from her “posh” accent – in her social media videos, she speaks in Received Pronunciation, reinforcing the upper-class image projected by her luxury bags and cars (“It’s either a Birkin or a Porsche that people remember me for”). But in person, her West Country lilt is stronger. “When I calm my voice down, when I’m around Northern people, for example, you can hear I’ve got quite a lot of Bristolian in my voice,” says Lorna. “But when I moved to London, I learnt very quickly that if I wanted to be taken seriously as a young female business owner, I needed to talk properly.” She and some of her friends, she tells me – including a beauty business owner from Essex – “spent years working” on their accents so prejudiced people didn’t think less of them.

Lorna’s social media videos are slick and aspirational, following her as she shops for designer clothes in Paris, sips champagne in St Tropez or drives her Porsche to Harrods. She first started posting on social media when she was 19, and working as an apprentice at a London law firm. She turned down an offer from Cardiff University to study law because she didn’t want to get into debt, a decision she acknowledges is “controversial” but still stands by today.

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“The kids that came out of [my school] seemed to be horrendously smart. So we had two that went to Oxford, one that went to Cambridge, and there’s this picture of us all on results day, and I’m at the end. It goes: Oxford, Cambridge, red-brick uni, and I remember being on the end feeling like ‘Oh, I feel a bit left out that I’m not going to any of those places’,” she says. “I just knew that the education thing didn’t work for me, and I didn’t want to put myself through the pain of doing it.”

What would she say to current sixth-formers wondering if higher education – and crippling student loans – were for them? “Don’t just think: ‘Oh, I’m going to go to uni because everyone else does’. You need to really make a considered choice about: ‘Is that going to help me long-term?’ ‘Is it going to be worth the debt?’ And, ‘Is there an apprenticeship route instead?’” Plus, she adds, not having a degree hasn’t held her back.

Lorna advises current sixth-formers to avoid thinking ‘I’m going to go to uni because everyone else does’ - Belinda Jiao

She cites her corporate background as the main motivation for founding a business focused on self-improvement and productivity, rather than just another fashion or beauty brand. Agende was inspired by the online frenzy that broke out after she posted online about a Louis Vuitton organiser she’d bought. “I thought, well, flipping hell, if I can make people buy a Louis Vuitton one for £600 – and it’s actually made of canvas, it’s not even really made of leather – surely I can make my own that’s a lot better.” An organiser is also a product that doesn’t interfere with her day job: influencing. “If I launch a beauty brand, I’ve suddenly cancelled out all my beauty deals, and that’s my bread and butter,” she says. “So it was the perfect little gap in the market that I knew I could grab by the horns and run with.” (The head honchos at Filofax might think differently, but when I ask Lorna if she’s heard from their lawyers, she just laughs and says no.)

She hopes that other driven young people will save up to buy their own Agende, eventually using it to improve their lives – and persuade them to put their phones down for some much-needed respite from a “world of apps and AI”.

“The generation we’re in now, you see everyone living this high life on social media, and it’s so easy to assume everyone’s been handed it on a plate,” she says, adding that she got her first job at just 13, sweeping the floor of a local pottery studio. “Whereas I say all the time – nothing, literally nothing, is going to fall into your lap.” She has sage advice for her fellow Gen Zs who also yearn for luxury holidays and Birkins: “If you want something, you need to work f---ing hard.”

I ask whether she was concerned about launching a business in high-tax Britain, as Prime Minister Andy Burnham’s economic measures continue to bite. Understanding her audience, and how much they were willing to spend, was vital to success, she says, while the money she’d earned from her influencing career acted as a safety net. Budding business owners need to think about “what might happen if you go into retail – and they take 50 per cent and you’re left with 4 per cent, then you pay a sixth of it to VAT, and then you pay 25 per cent corporation tax”. It was pre-planning that resulted in Agende’s successful launch, with the brand selling £250,000 worth of pre-orders in the first hour.

Despite her material success, Lorna insists money isn’t the only thing that motivates her. She recently sent her mother a screenshot of the balance on Agende’s company bank account, to which her mother replied: “Oh my God, you must be on cloud nine!” But to her, she says, it’s “just a number.It’s great for the business, because I can do stock, retail, I can hire people, but I don’t look at it and think ‘Oh my God, I’ve made it’.” Her ultimate goal is for Agende to wind up in luxury stores around the world: Harrods, Selfridges, Saks in the US.

Having so many followers on social media means Lorna is under constant scrutiny; millions of eyes watch her every move, just waiting for her to mess up. I wonder aloud how she stays sane. “You have freedom over whatever you want to post, and family and relationships are always something I’ve just chosen to keep off of it [social media],” she says. “But it’s mainly because girls don’t follow me to see my family or my boyfriend. They follow me for me.”

When it comes to online hate, she’s frank. “I just don’t care. If I didn’t have those comments, I wouldn’t have this life. If people aren’t talking about you, then you’re not relevant. So I take it on the chin. Maybe that’s because I’ve got thick skin. But I think the more you care, the worse you’re going to do.”

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Source: “AOL Entertainment”