Juliet Hamilton grew up wanting to be a Hollywood star until a Sex Pistols concert totally rocked her world.

“The whole punk thing grabbed me at the right time and the right age,” she explains. “I knew something big was about to happen, I decided to go to art college off the back of that because I’d always loved painting and drawing and illustration.

“I could see this music and fashion movement going on that was really quite different and really quiet rebellious and I was really attracted to that. That’s what took me into fashion. By the time I finished my art foundation course I decided to do fashion and I went to Liverpool College of Art.”

Juliet had opened her first clothing shop in her home town of Chester three months before finishing her degree, where she sold a combination of her own designs and commissions as well as vintage items. At that time, the early ‘80s, vintage was not seen in the same light as it is today.

“At the time that was a quirky thing to do because it didn’t have the same value as it does now. What happened was, a decade later, you would get certain people wearing vintage clothing, like Kate Moss, and that’s when it became an acceptable thing to wear preloved clothing. When I was doing it there was still the ‘oh it might be vintage, but it’s still secondhand’, again there was still that snob value.”

The shop was so successful that she later opened another, but within a year she was invited to join the design team of Hyper Hyper in Kensington High Street where her career really took off.

Juliet built up a well-known clientele including the likes of Cindy Lauper, Sinitta, Joanne Catherall and Pepsi and Shirley.

In the early ‘90s Juliet decided to pass her passion on to others, but it didn’t go quite as smoothly as she hoped.

“I started teaching at a couple of local prisons, I quite enjoyed teaching but I’m not sure about teaching in the prison environment. They would always want you to get them drugs or cigarettes or alcohol and I just wanted to teach art.”

Juliet admits she only last about a year and then, after taking some time out after her mother died and, later, having her first child, she decided to teach again and completed a PGCE.

“Before I knew what had happened I became head of fashion at Amersham and Wycombe College, in about 2002. I was there for quite a long time, ten-12 years, building the course up and teaching fulltime, which I absolutely loved.

Then I went to Oxford and Cherwell for a year and was head of fashion over there, then I got shop sick and felt the need to open a store again.”

Juliet then came to Wycombe and opened quirky boutique Kitsch Me Quik in 2010, getting herself fully back into fashion working on designs, for commission and putting a lot of effort into the creative community.

Today she does most of her work from her home studio, as well as creating dresses for her shop and her brand, Little Miss Retro UK, she does a lot of unusual commissions.

“Now I design and make a lot of wedding dress and alterations. I’m making a pole dancing outfit for somebody at the moment for a championship.

“People come to me if they want something a little bit different and a little bit quirky. I can make things from pictures, I don’t need patterns. A particular bride brought me a Gainsborough painting and said she wanted a wedding dress the same as that so I made it from the painting.”

Juliet will join hundreds of artists to open her studio to the public for the furst time as part of Bucks Open Studios, one of the largest visual arts events in the county in which artists and makers open their workshops.

“Little Miss Retro UK is rockabilly dresses, so I’m selling those and on June 16 as part of Bucks Open Studios and I’m having a retro tea party in the garden. You can have retro makeovers, get your photograph taken, try on the dresses and have tea and cake, and tarot as well.”

More than 500 artists will showcase their work in over 200 venues and studios across Buckinghamshire between Saturday, June 11 and Sunday, June 26. Details: 01296 614283, bucksopenstudios.org.uk