Ethics girls are no ordinary rich kids

With Kate Moss, Sienna Miller, Natalia Vodianova and Sarah Jessica Parker at the top of their client list, you'd never think Beulah London was still nine months shy of its second birthday.

And the low-key, slightly ramshackle office from where co-founders Lady Natasha Rufus Isaacs, 28, and Lavinia Brennan, 23, run the "ethical luxury fashion label" is not immediately conducive to such a glittering collection of customers, either.

For when I met the striking couple behind the label that employs human trafficking victims in India to make its elegant, signature all-silk dresses, I was surprised to discover that ground control is a room in the entrance of a two-storey terraced house nestled away in the back streets of Parsons Green.

"Lavinia's mother has kindly allowed us to take over the sitting room with our clothes rails, noticeboard, business cards, dirty coffee cups and other junk until we can afford something else," explains Natasha.

Oh dear, if only the stars knew.

That said, the plummy-toned close friends, who met five years ago through their church - more of this later - do unconventionality rather well.

After all, despite being comely in close-fitting jeans, pretty camisoles and cascading brunette curls, their history of art degrees wouldn't automatically qualify them as fashion designers.

And then there's the background, too. Westonbirt-educated Natasha - whose great-great-grandfather was once a Viceroy of India - is the daughter of the 4th Marquess of Reading. Her father, Old Etonian Simon Rufus Isaacs, is a lifelong friend of Prince Charles, and as a result the 28-year-old, unsurprisingly, is one of Prince William and Prince Harry's oldest chums.

She was the girl to whom William was said to have turned in the wake of his split from Kate Middleton in 2007, and this April the prince repaid that friendship by inviting Natasha and Rupert Finch, her 32-year-old lawyer boyfriend (who, in a twist of fate, was one of Kate's first boyfriends), to the Abbey for his wedding.

We've grown used to the impenetrable firewall which friends of the new Duke and Duchess of Cambridge have protectively built around the couple: "Lavs" and "Nats", as they prefer to be called, have their "no comment" line down to a fine art.

The bashful hesitancy with which both stumble over questions about Prince William, his new wife and any other members of the aristocratic, party-going set is as endearingly representative of their loyalty as it is utterly frustrating.

Besides which, I sense the duo have much bigger fish to fry.

For while their first collection of alluring floor-length dresses - which range from £165 to £550 - has been busy attracting the celebrity world, the bleak story behind their brand proves this isn't just any old label.

It was on a trip to India two years ago, where they spent time working in slums with recovering rape and abuse victims, that they found their attention drawn to the horrific statistics of human trafficking.

"There were heartbreaking stories of cross-border organ smuggling and unimaginable abuse everywhere we went," Natasha tells me, influenced perhaps by her paternal ancestor, the 1st Marquess of Reading, a man who was passionate about driving India towards reform and self-governance.

"I remember meeting a sex-slave victim from Sonagachi, the red-light district of Kolkata (formerly Calcutta). She told me she was 15, but in fact she was 22. The idea that she had lost time somewhere was difficult to bear."

It was in government-protected safe-houses in Delhi and Kolkata, in which the pair provided victims with lessons in sewing and English, that Beulah London was born.

"The idea of creating a female fashion line came to us as we witnessed more and more women escaping shelter and needlessly returning to the streets, lured solely by the promise of money. We knew then that we had to build something that would give rescued women the opportunity to be involved in something worthwhile, in something that engaged their minds and talents, in something they could contribute to without restriction and with no shame.

"We'd heard about Freeset, the Fairtrade business that offers employment and salaries to women previously trapped in Kolkata's sex ring, and it seemed ideal to support it."

They returned to London with dress samples they had had made up in India and set themselves the goal of founding a company that could equally be shared between the UK and India.

Today, 18 months later, their kaleidoscopic Amazing Grace spring/summer collection hangs off the bodies of the rich and famous. But, more importantly, it is Indian women, the ones who once lived disease-ridden lives and faced the prospect of premature deaths, who have helped bring them to life.

"We design the clothes, have a sample mocked up, then send it out to India where girls who are fairly paid by the government-protected scheme get to work on producing more," Lavinia tells me. "Our dresses are made in Delhi, and while the Kolkata-based women are not yet sufficiently skilled to do this, too, they create our canvas bags, which come with every purchase.

"The aim was to show that alternative sustainable livelihoods exist, and the results have been heartening. Everyone who wants to be busy in a life that does not include depravity and demeaning behaviour has the opportunity to work for our brand once they arrive at the two shelters."

To fund Beulah, the girls have accepted undisclosed financial investments from their parents and friends, as well as taking out several business loans. But this hasn't saved them from accumulating debt, which they attempt to reduce by taking on side jobs. Natasha is a sometime babysitter, while Woldingham-educated Lavinia - in another nod to the moneyed scene about which they prefer to remain tight-lipped - is a table hostess at the Guy Pelly-owned Chelsea club, Public, favoured by Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie.

What really binds the two women together, however, is religion. Both Natasha and Lavinia have been Christians from an early age and met as members of "HTB", Holy Trinity Brompton, in South Kensington. "It's not your average 90-year-old congregation type church. There are interesting talks and lots of young people," Natasha says.

Beulah, I am told, is a biblical term meaning "to come from a place of darkness into one of light", which the two women picked together. But, as their office testifies, it's not their only message. "Believe in miracles" hangs by the door; "Live by the trinity of what is true, good and beautiful" hovers above their computers; and many of their clothes have these words written into the stitching: "Love like you've never been hurt, dance as though no one is watching, sing as though no can hear you".

"I think we both wrestled with religion," says Natasha. "You start to wonder in teenage years whether it's real or whether it's all a consequence of what your parents have taught you. But, over time, I think we each grew out of that and really found our faiths.

"That intense period in India brought us closer to those beliefs and, as a result, we often stop to pray out loud together in the office or just before we go into meetings. During times of real trials and tribulations with the company, conjoined prayer has got us through some sticky patches."

Lavinia concurs. "Religion helps in grounding us; it's comforting to know it's there."

I measure Beulah London's success not only by the multitude of evening gowns hanging from the rails but by the commendation the girls received at the UN-sponsored Business Leader's Award to Fight Human Trafficking in Luxor, Egypt, earlier this year.

"It was as much an honour as it was surreal to be invited, especially since we hadn't even started selling our clothes at that stage," exclaims Lavinia. "Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher, who run their own anti-trafficking charity, DNA, were there. Everything was overwhelming, so much so that when I sat down at my table, I asked the man to my left what his name was, only to be left red-faced at his answer.

"'I'm the King of Bahrain - and you?'"

When I bid farewell to the "social capitalist" girls - that's a self-styled nickname - they told me they were dedicating the rest of the day to "doing their accounts".

As they have just taken dress orders from Moss and Miller and were packaging a gown bound for Demi Moore in New York, things can't be going too badly. Especially since they are in talks about their sophisticated block-colour gowns, already on ASOS and at quirky high-street shop Katie&Jo, being stocked by Liberty next year. For now, the girls are looking forward to their autumn/winter collection, due out in September.

"People associate charity with more affordable, lesser quality clothes, but Beulah London stands to prove that there is an amazing customer experience to be had, especially since buying our clothes is helping make a difference to the world," says Natasha.

beulahlondon.com. To donate to Freeset Trust, http://freesetglobal.com/who-we-are/freeset-trust.html