Mrs Elliot founded Lavenham in the Suffolk village of the same name in 1969, after growing frustrated that horse rugs of the era were made from wool that was slow to dry and wore out fast. Her solution, the world's first nylon quilted horse rug, led to a quilted gilet and then, in 1972, diamond-quilted jackets designed so a rider's coat would match their horse's rug, the move that turned Lavenham into an equestrian clothing brand. It still makes everything in a Suffolk factory six miles from that original site, employing more than 100 people in the process.