From Reality TV Star To Founder, We Chat With One Of The UK’s Most Stylish Young Entrepreneurs
There are many things I’m excited to chat with Eliza Batten about when we catch up one afternoon at The Rubens at the Palace – she’s the founder of The Cirkel (a pre-loved luxury womenswear shopping platform) and you know her from being one of the stars of Made in Chelsea, making her one of the UK’s most recognisable young entrepreneurs. But the first thing I have to get out of the way when we meet is the fact that we studied at the same uni – a place it turns out we both have fond memories of.
Batten studied Anthropology at Durham University, where she was at Hatfield College – if you studied at Durham, this might mean something to you. “I know it gets a bit of a stick – a bit rah,” she laughs. (It’s true, I did hear that, although I have personally spent a few evenings at the Hatfield college bar, and have found no reason to complain…) She played netball, participated in the uni’s most prestigious charity fashion show and also filmed Made in Chelsea while she was at Durham. “I was shooting in my second year, so I would take the train to London two or three times a week – I was like a yo-yo on that LNER,” she says. But three years before she made it on the show, her classmates manifested it for her. “I was voted most likely to go on Made in Chelsea in my school leavers’ book – clearly my peers knew me better than I did,” she says.
Fast forward to 2025, about eight years have passed since she was on the show, but Batten says it’s hard to shake off the title of being a reality TV star. When I ask her if she gets recognised on the street, she says, “In the grand scheme of things, need I remind you how irrelevant I am. But that’s what I will always be known for. The show has such strong branding that I could marry Prince George and I’d still be known first as Made in Chelsea’s Eliza Batten and then HRH,” she jokes. “It’s a hard one to shed”.
More often than not, Batten is recognised for being the founder of The Cirkel – a platform that sells womenswear that the brand says is kind to your wallet and good for the planet.
But lately, more often than not, Batten is recognised for being the founder of The Cirkel – a platform that sells womenswear that the brand says is kind to your wallet and good for the planet. At the Marylebone store or on the website, you can shop over 600 brands on resale, from major designers like Ganni, Gucci, Rixo, Loewe, Reformation and Chanel. And the big names aren’t just restricted to the designers – some of the UK’s biggest stars have casually walked through the doors of her store – Harry Styles, Kate Winslet, Demi Moore, and James Corden are just a few of them.
The economy of circular fashion
While at university, Batten was a top seller on Depop, a clothing-selling platform that prioritises keeping fashion circular, where users can buy for less and sell for free. Later, when she moved back to London, she launched an Instagram series called Secondhand Saturdays to promote boutiques in the city and to show people that buying pre-loved fashion really can be a nice and fun experience. She quickly noticed that while the clothes were great, the store’s online presence often wasn’t easy to navigate or particularly pleasing to look at.
My main aim in life is to get people to shop secondhand, and the only way to do that is to elevate the consumer experience.
“My main aim in life is to get people to shop secondhand, and the only way to do that is to elevate the consumer experience. It needs to be as easy as possible – is it going to smell nice? Is it real? What I’m striving for today is to make shopping secondhand feel like you’re shopping new.”
So where does sustainability fit in? “At the beginning, it wasn’t about sustainability – that came afterwards. For me, it came from a place of being able to access nicer brands for cheaper. I don’t spend a penny of my salary to buy new clothes; I sell my old clothes, and because my clothes were bought at an already reduced value, I can sell them or at least get as much value back as possible. So my wardrobe essentially is net zero. There are a lot of girl taxes out there, whether it’s hair or makeup, and clothes are just another girl tax. And if I can try to alleviate that and make it cheaper for women to still have fun and live a little savvier, then why not? It’s a more fun and rewarding way of shopping, and it costs way less, and then of course there’s the sustainability bit, so it’s a winner.
I feel that there’s a lot of girl taxes out there, whether it’s hair, makeup or tampons, and clothes are another girl tax.
I’m not going to come with a green placard and shove it in your face, but if I can make it easier for you to shop secondhand, then that will help with your decision-making. What I say is just try and see if you can find a secondhand first, before you go for fast fashion.”
A day in the life of a London entrepreneur
While her co-founder handles the technical side of The Cirkel, Eliza focuses on management, marketing, and content. And while it may all seem quite glitzy on the outside, Batten assures me that her day-to-day life is far from it. “I think it’s a misconception that when you’re a reality star turned founder, you just become the face of the brand and you don’t do any of the back end – I do all of it. This, for example, is an extremely glamorous thing for me, sitting and having an interview”. So what’s a day in the life of a reality star turned entrepreneur? No day is the same, and working 9 to 5 is a thing of fiction. Batten begins her day with emails and a two-hour TikTok live on The Cirkel every day, management tasks happen in between, and she does at least one weekend a month as a shopkeeper in the store.
“Our team is mostly young women around my age, so it’s really fun,” she says. When she’s not working on The Cirkel, she’s developing her own social media content, so there’s not a lot of time to switch off. “I’m awfully addicted to my phone, but I think for now, while I’m in my 20s and I have no responsibilities, I can afford to burn the candle at both ends. I can sleep later.”
While I’m in my 20s and I have no responsibilities, I can afford to burn the candle at both ends.
She recalls a career-defining moment when she attended a British founders’ event at Downing Street. “I met the then Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and his wife, Akshata Murty, who said: This is Eliza from The Cirkel – do you remember the platform I was telling you about? That was really cool, I couldn’t believe the prime minister knew about The Cirkel.”
Beyond the office
Batten might be a start-up founder and a respected young entrepreneur with bills and taxes on her mind, but also, she’s just a 20-something obsessed with the same show that everyone else has been talking about over the past few months (reality stars, they’re just like us). “I was Team Conrad from the first minute,” she says.” After every episode of The Summer I Turned Pretty, I’d get on TikTok and look at all the theories and memes. I love it,” Batten says, while showing me the audiobook she’s listening to. “I’m watching the show and listening to the audiobooks at the same time. I have to keep reminding myself that this is a fictional show and it’s not real.” (You and the rest of us, Eliza). Although she’s 28 years old (somewhere in between a millennial and Gen Z), Batten firmly identifies as a millennial. “The way I approach work and life – it’s so millennial. Also, Jacob and Edward were my whole childhood. The Twilight Saga sent me into a little bit of a dark place when I realised that I wasn’t ever going to be immortal. I was obsessed with Twilight – I have to watch Eclipse once a year.”
Looking ahead
For Batten, fashion can be a playful experiment, where small changes (like a haircut) can completely refresh a wardrobe. Her advice to future entrepreneurs is this: “Don’t wait for everything to be perfect to get out there. Just go for it.”
