Designs for the famous as OBi goes into orbit...

The curvy pocket Venus who beat Cindy hands-down for sex appeal was Lynn’s favourite toy from the age of five.

She became an avid collector of Barbie clothes, but that wasn’t enough... By the age of 10, the Thorne schoolgirl was running up nifty little dolls’ outfits on her very own sewing machine.

And 34 years on, she’s dressing the real-life, modern day versions... the gorgeous stars of Hollyoaks, Emmerdale and Coronation Street.

The actresses often wear sexy, feminine clothes from Lynn’s OBi label both on and off screen.

Pop’s glamour girls also love OBi. Singer Lisa Scott Lee is a regular customer - and a dragon-emblazoned white mesh OBi dress gave Emma Bunton a bit of girl power in her Spice Girls days.

Lynn now has her own label, and a boutique to boot. And as if that’s not success enough, she also sells her designs wholesale to shops right across Britain and Europe.

It’s down to her talents of course – but it’s also thanks to a woman who saw her potential while she was a lowly YTS trainee.

“I was learning how to use the sewing machines at Stainforth factory Shani Fashions - I’d told the careers people at school that I wanted to be involved in fashion, so that’s where they had sent me. They probably thought that was all I’d aspire to,” remembers Lynn, now 44.

But the teenager who made all her own clothes because she hated wearing what other people wore soon found factory workers were clamouring for her to create outfits for them, too.

“I’d got quite a sideline going and when the personnel manager Mary Hammond called me into her office, I thought I was in for a telling off.”

That wasn’t the case; Mary knew talent when she saw it and urged Lynn to take a HND in fashion design at Doncaster College.

She never looked back, bagging a place at fashion college the University College for The Creative Arts in Epsom.

It gave her the chance to party hard with Eighties London’s New Romantics at clubs like Steve Strange’s Blitz. Her best student blag was getting herself into an after-fashion show party staged at Olympia by Vivienne Westwood and Malcolm McLaren.

It was the closest she was ever to get to the designer she had always worshipped...

“I had a college work placement lined up at her World’s End base, but it fell through - Vivienne and Malcolm fell out and she headed off to Italy to work with Fiorucci,” Lynn remembers.

“I was gutted. Particularly when I discovered I had to go to Courtaulds instead!”

The British manufacturing giant who made for M&S turned out to be the making of her, though.

“I learned so much about the industry - and the people were really cool. They would take me to lunch at Escargot in Soho and when I told them I planned to launch my own fashion label, they told me I had to march into the big London stores and demand to show my work to their buyers.

“I launched my label a year later and did exactly that - at Harrods’ Way In boutique and at Harvey Nichols.”

She didn’t get any orders, but she did gets loads of advice about how to design ahead of the seasons - and to think of a name no-one else had.

Lynn came up with OBi - the name of a Geisha Girl’s belt, which also had a hint of Vivienne Westwood’s famous orb design about it.

She linked up with other small designers to sell at specialist sites around London. But Lynn wanted to go back to Doncaster to develop her label. In 1994, she set up shop in the town’s Scot Lane, along with husband Al, her boyfriend since their school days in Thorne who had also taken up a career in men’s fashion. He is now OBi’s pattern cutter, while the third partner in the business is Tracey Storr.

Tracy has helped OBi to expand beyond all expectations. As well as being a mecca for Doncaster girls, it is now a label known throughout Europe. In the UK, top boutiques catering to the tastes of the soap actresses and footballers’ wives love to stock OBi’s sexy clothes.

And last week OBi reopened with a classy refurb at Scot Lane.

“What has happened to us is pretty amazing,” says Lynn. “I still can’t quite believe it when I see the orders flooding in - we now employ five machinists in our sewing rooms above the Scot Lane premises because we’re so busy. It’s an incredible feeling when we see our clothes on celebrities in the pages of women’s magazines and on TV.”

Hollyoaks character Stephanie Dean wore an OBi dress at the wedding of her on-screen mum recently. And Kelly Windsor, the Emmerdale bad girl played by Adele Silva, was also on screen in an OBi creation recently.

Meanwhile In Doncaster, OBi’s high summer collection of glamorous dresses - many with figure-moulding corsets and others in floaty wisps of silk chiffon - are being snapped up by those bound for Ladies’ Day at the St Leger.

Lynn’s seamstresses are busy upstairs, putting the finishing touches to the autumn/winter collection, though. It promises to be a sexy season... fine tailoring with a sexy, sassy twist, says Lynn.

Moss-toned greys and greens are being carved up into curvaceous suiting inspired by the screen sirens of the 1940s. Deep corset belts to wear over the top are to be embellished with sequins and jewels, and highlights will be picked out in gleaming metallics for an expensive and luxurious feel.