JEANS tycoon Shami Ahmed (pictured) cancelled a very special lunch date - with the Queen at Buckingham Palace.

The designer-label multi-millionaire - who began in the industry when he was schoolboy in Burnley - was said to be "grounded in the States" and unable to attend.

The globe-trotting entrepreneur, 37, who built his parents' market stall into a fashion empire, missed out on lunch with the Queen and Duke of Edinburgh, in the splendour of the 1844 Room.

Other guests able to attend included a top educationalist, an eminent plant scientist, an artist and sculptor, a trade union leader, two captains of industry and a churchman.

It was the latest of the Queen's regular lunch invitations extended to a broad cross-section of successful people.

Mr Ahmed was born in 1962 to a Pakistani family originally from Karachi.

Educated at Barden High School in Burnley he became involved in the clothing industry in the early 1970s and in 1986 founded the Joe Bloggs label which has current annual revenues of around £50 million.

In 1991 Mr Ahmed was awarded an honorary degree by Lancashire Polytechnic and in 1997 he was appointed to the Government's New Deal Task Force Committee.

In 1998 he received a best marketing campaign award and was voted Business Personality of the Year.

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