From fashion to fitness - meet the instructor behind boutique Shrewsbury pilates studio

Going from launching branches of Topshop and Topman in America to running a pilates studio in Shropshire is not exactly the usual journey for an entrepreneur to take.

But Vic Gidney is someone who has enjoyed a varied career which actually started with her aspiring to be a fashion journalist.

The 44 year old is now the owner of Runlates, a boutique studio housed on Shrewsbury Business Park which offers functional mobility classes such as traditional and reformer pilates and whole-body strength classes alongside coaching runners to improve their strength and technique.

And she is doing all of this while preparing to become a mum for the first time.

Vic grew up in Church Stretton and studied fashion promotion and journalism at University of the Arts London, later doing placements with magazines such as Elle Girl and InStyle as she tried to break into fashion journalism.

Having worked part-time at Topman and Topshop to fund her studies, she ended up taking on a full-time role and stayed with the high street fashion stalwart for 14 years, working in visual merchandising.

This included a two-year secondment in America where she was part of the team launching new stores in New York, Houston and Atlanta among other cities.

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After returning to London from across the pond, she was introduced to pilates by a friend and discovered the classes helped her avoid picking up injuries as she trained to tackle her first marathon in London in 2019.

She enjoyed it so much that she took a course to become a pilates instructor and started teaching classes in the capital before the covid pandemic scuppered that and she was forced to move her classes online.

By then, she was working for outdoor clothing and equipment retailer Cotswold - which included a spell on furlough - and admits it had become just a job so started contemplating her future.

"When I left Topshop after so many years it was a big deal for me," she recalls.

"I went to Cotswold and, even though it was fine, that was definitely a role that was about the job, the holiday pay and the pension. That furlough period gave me a lot of time to ask some questions and I had already started to ask myself how long I could continue to do this.

"One of my friends introduced me to someone who was offering free career coaching sessions. I did a few over video calls and they became quite emotional at times.

"I said to him ‘I think I need to move house and hand in my notice'. I just thought the time was now if I were going to take a risk."

Vic decided to move back to Shrewsbury, take redundancy from Cotswold and started to build up a portfolio of pilates sessions as a mobile instructor.

She rented rooms and led classes at Barnabas Community Church in Longden Coleham, Jenna Blair Yoga in Belle Vue and Optimal Movement on Shrewsbury Business Park.

She realised transporting herself and her kit from location to location was not a long-term solution so took the plunge and signed a lease for a small unit at the Hay Yard development, opening her first permanent studio in September 2025.

It has a treadmill and other kit to help runners improve their technique alongside eight, state-of-the-art reformer pilates benches and offers different types of memberships including pay per class.

For the uninitiated, reformer pilates differs from traditional pilates in that, instead of taking place on a mat or exercise ball, participants use a device akin to a rowing machine which has springs, ropes and a sliding carriage to add resistance.

Runlates offers more than 25 different classes per week which Vic teaches alongside a group of freelance instructors, including a former client of hers who will be joining the team soon.

In addition to running the business, Vic is also an England Athletics coach in running fitness and volunteers with the Shropshire Shufflers club - all of this is despite being a relative latecomer to the sport after taking up running at 36.

She even completed the Tour du Mont Blanc in September - a 104-mile, six-day ultramarathon - while 16 weeks pregnant.

Vic says she is proud of the community spirit which has built up among clients and she has created a 'Footprints' community wall to recognise 26 members who have each completed more than 50 classes during the studio's first year.

"The community feeling is one of my biggest achievements since this started," she said.

"The people who come to classes have inspired each other, made friends and they go on their own runs together. It's been really nice to see. Some have even gone on trips to support someone taking on an event while others just go for coffees after classes, having not known each other before.

"I think the community and people-focussed aspect of the studio helps us to stand out from other gyms."

Vic acknowledges the challenges of running her own business including keeping books and the fact owner-managers do not get benefits such as holiday pay or maternity leave.

She says she is planning to take three months off when the new arrival comes and is handing over charge of Runlates to one of her instructors.

She said: "I never wanted to be self-employed. As much as I enjoyed my retail jobs, I always liked that separation between work and life.

"There was a distinction between the two and they didn't blur into one another whereas this now is very much meshed but also it is the things that I love."

With gym memberships often seen as a luxury item when it comes to monthly household budgets, particularly in the midst of a cost-of-living crisis, Vic says she hopes they can be seen as something more than just a financial burden.

"As soon as you start to feel the benefits of exercise, you appreciate you're not just paying for that hour when you're there," she concluded.

"You are learning a set of skills which are transferable to everything else. You think about how you're moving in your day-to-day life. You prioritise that more highly as a cost and you don't think about it in the same way you might as a coffee you pick up on your dog walk, for example.

"I really hope that, with the cost-of-living crisis and as people feel the pinch, they see the value in sticking with something because of the effect it will have on everything else."

By Tamlyn Jones