Entrepreneurship can work in Bermuda — you just have to get your hands dirty.

Rebecca Hanson believes that’s been key in the development of her company, TABS.

Her line of men’s shorts hit the market on May 24, 2013.

Women’s wear, swimwear, pocket squares and belts are all now part of The Authentic Bermuda Shorts, which has expanded its store presence in recent months.

You can now find them at Singapore’s Chillax Market in addition to AS Cooper & Sons Ltd in Bermuda. Of course for the rest of the world, they’re easily accessible at www.tabsbermuda.com.

It all started on a holiday in Morroco with then-boyfriend Colm Singleton, in 2012. The couple married last year.

“I was working at [London advertising giant Ogilvy & Mather] on its Ford of Europe account,” Ms Hanson said. “I wanted to go back to Bermuda but there were no opportunities in advertising. Morocco got me thinking. If you’re there you can take home lanterns or carpets ... what do we offer in Bermuda?”

Her idea was to create the “quintessential” Bermuda short. Not only was it a viable avenue for her as a business, but she felt it’d give the Island a good marketing boost.

“I felt that Bermuda shorts had been misrepresented internationally,” she said. “People were using the phrase to [describe shorts when] the fit, the colours were all wrong. I thought it was a way to market Bermuda and decided to try and do it myself.”

The 32-year-old did tons of research and took courses at famed UK design school Central Saint Martins “to see if it was possible to really make it work”.

“At the time, the catwalk was picking up Bermuda shorts so I knew it had legs,” she said. “I had no experience in fashion, I came more from a marketing angle.”

A job at AAC Saatchi & Saatchi enabled her to return home. She also took on a part-time communications post at the Bermuda High School, for six months.

The jobs helped her to network, showed her how the Bermuda market worked, and provided cash for her venture. In May, she was able to leave AAC to work on TABS full-time.

“Peter Hebberd and Rhona Emmerson [at Saatchi & Saatchi] have been incredibly supportive,” she said. “I learnt how Bermuda works when it comes to advertising. It’s such a small place [compared with London]. I learnt who to speak to, how to make things happen. At Ogilvy, we had ‘people’ who did everything but in a small shop you don’t have the big budgets. I learnt to do everything myself — how to build a website, make money last longer, organise online advertising.”

She’d work on her brand during her lunch hour and evenings between 5pm and 10pm.

“So it was almost a day’s work,” she said. “I became very efficient with my time.”

It worked out to be cheaper for her to manufacture her shorts in Hong Kong instead of Bermuda or the US. She chose Portugal, where all the top swimwear lines are made, for her trunks.

“[TABS is] growing fast and been great,” Ms Hanson said. “I’ve had amazing feedback. I knew I was onto something because people kept coming back.”

Media attention has also helped. TABS has been promoted in several publications including The New York Times, Delta’s Sky magazine, Conde Nast and Travel+Leisure. The company will be mentioned in the style guide of men’s fashion bible GQ, next month. A number of awards have also come along the way. Most recently, TABS received a Made in Bermuda Award from The Bermudian magazine

TABS launched in Singapore a few weeks ago. Ms Hanson hopes to expand further.

“I was looking for places around the world that were similar to Bermuda. [In Singapore] they wear bright colours and it’s warm. So I reached out to a couple of boutiques and as my husband Colm was going there for work I went along. They’ll also be on sale in Dubai in a couple of high-end golf resorts ... so I’m slowly expanding.

“Ten years from now I hope to be able to show the world how Bermuda shorts are made and TABS will be the word for Bermuda shorts.”

Visit www.tabsbermuda.com or e-mail rebecca@tabsbermuda.com.