163. Clare Hornby | On Building ME+EM

Summary

Podcast Summary: What We Wore – Episode 163

Guest: Clare Hornby, Founder & CEO of ME+EM
Host: Laura Vinroot Poole
Date: September 25, 2025

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Overview

In this episode, Laura Vinroot Poole sits down with Clare Hornby, the creative force behind UK-based fashion brand ME+EM. Their conversation delves into Clare’s unconventional path from a background in advertising to building a respected international fashion brand. Clare shares personal anecdotes from her upbringing in Manchester, the formative experiences that shaped her entrepreneurial spirit, and the brand values that make ME+EM resonate with modern women. The episode is rich with insights on resilience, building a business through challenging times, and how to stay true to a brand’s vision.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

Clare’s Early Life & Influence

• Growing up in Manchester

  • Clare describes Manchester as “an industrial town, famous for its cotton mills” and recounts how the city’s signature rainy weather shaped her personal style.
  • Memorable Quote:
    “I'm very good at dressing for the rain. So one of our signature styles is the hoodie that we put the style under blazers. And that's my fear of the rain.” (01:12)

• Family, Fashion, and Early Entrepreneurship

  • Clare’s parents, though “working to middle class,” were part of a stylish community:
    “My mum was a very talented seamstress and we used to go and buy Vogue patterns together and make clothes together. So my eye for detail and a cut of a trouser was sort of born from a very young age…” (02:00)
  • As a teenager, Clare sold shoes at a local market stall—her first taste of business:
    “I think I was doing that when I was about 14...I think I enjoyed making my own money.” (05:20)

The Path from Advertising to Fashion

• Career in Marketing & Brand Strategy

  • Clare started her professional journey at Harrods aiming to be a fashion buyer but pivoted to advertising for a better work-life balance.
  • Advertising taught her the fundamentals of brand building:
    “Finding that single minded thought that you stick to and then you build everything out from that single minded thought...Everything comes from one thought and sticking to that.” (08:49)

• Sparking the Idea for ME+EM

  • Clare noticed gaps in her own wardrobe as her life got busier—working, raising children, managing a packed schedule.
    “How hard that outfit's got to work to get you right to the end of the day...the insights around clothes, I think, become really interesting because you've got to serve a very demanding lifestyle of a woman.” (11:18, 12:03)

Founding ME+EM and Brand Evolution

• Launching Pajama Room & Transition to ME+EM

  • Pajama Room, Clare’s first label, was direct-to-consumer but quickly proved too niche. Mentor Anoushka Ducasse encouraged a pivot:
    “Your name's wrong, it's too—you’re too narrow, you've got a much bigger idea here, just change the name. She just made us a bit braver.” (14:36)

• Navigating Early Challenges

  • The business launched in 2009, against the backdrop of the Great Recession:
    “It's been...probably been the hardest thing, 16 years that you could possibly...I mean, you know, don't you?” (16:18)
  • Clare credits her “naivety” as a secret asset:
    “If I'd known anything, I just wouldn't have done it. I always say naivety is—and was—my best friend.” (17:47)

The Four Fs: ME+EM’s Brand Values

Timestamps: 19:02–21:40

Clare outlines the guiding pillars of ME+EM, known as the “Four Fs”:

1. Flattering:
   “If you don’t get [fabrics] right, it’s almost impossible to create the perfect silhouette.” (19:06)

2. Functional:
   “That’s the busy woman, the multitasking. It's got to work really hard for you. We put a lot of design details into our clothes.” (20:17)

3. Forever:
   “Making sure we back things on the right side of a trend...women want to feel modern, but they don’t want to feel like fashion victims.” (20:49)

4. Fair:
   “The gap in the market between very expensive clothes and cheaper brands...And that fair also covers sustainability and the factories we use.” (21:14)

Growth, Scaling, and the Omnichannel Strategy

• Team and Growth

  • The company has grown to over 200 employees. Clare emphasizes learning every role in the company:
    “I’ve posted my own packages...There is a great sense of, you know, no one can really pull the wool over your eyes, really.” (22:07, 22:59)

• Physical Stores’ Impact

  • The first store was “tiny,” but real business impact came with scale:
    “A customer recruited in store who then shops online is three times more valuable than a customer that shops single channel.” (23:53)

• US Expansion

  • ME+EM used catalog mailers (lookbooks) and data-driven site selection to target US markets, beginning with East and West Coasts:
    “We had a lot of customers...We also produce a lookbook and we’d been mailing the Lookbook in America.” (25:01)

• Catalog and ROI

  • The catalog remains an important (if nuanced) conversion tool:
    “We now roll that [profitability analysis] into one pot of money and then it’s what comes off the back of that spend. But...you are able to match those customers back…” (26:12)

Resilience, Mistakes & Advice for Entrepreneurs

• On Making Mistakes and Building Resilience

  • Clare sees each challenge as a growth opportunity:
    “Every challenge, every mistake, is a great thing because it’s the only way you move forwards...You become stronger on the other side.” (27:09)

  • She relates this to parenting:
    “If [children] don’t ever hit those barriers in childhood, then they don’t look, then they’re learning on their own when they’ve left home.” (28:16)

• Support and Self-Doubt

  • On her decision to start the business at age 37:
    “No one believed in it at all. Neither did I. Once you’ve started, you have a responsibility to that first employee.” (29:06)

• Would She Do It Again?

  • “No, but I wouldn’t start a fashion business. No, but I’ve loved every moment of it as I’ve enjoyed every moment of being a mother.” (29:44)

• Advice to Aspiring Fashion Entrepreneurs

  • “Make sure there’s a consumer need…really identify very early on why you’re doing [it], why the customer needs it, and then…really build a sort of framework around how to deliver that idea and stay very true to that, but pivot as well.” (30:29)
  • “If you come off the track of not believing in what you’re doing, I think that’s potentially...which is why at the very beginning you’ve got to be really clear on what you want to achieve.” (31:08)

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Notable & Memorable Moments

• On the value of old-school skills in fashion:
  “Most of our designers design by hand...It’s only when you actually sketch something do you really think it through...If you’re doing it on a CAD, it’s too easy. You don’t think it through as clearly.” (04:02)

• ME+EM’s focus on real women’s lives:
  “You realise then how multitasking what you decide to put in the morning, how hard that outfit's got to work to get you right to the end.” (11:18)

• Growth mindsets:
  “Learning everything. So I know every job of everyone in the business...There is a great sense of, you know, no one can really pull the wool over your eyes, really.” (22:07)

• On parenting and resilience:
  “Childhood is the only time that you can let them run into issues where they've got your support that help them navigate it.” (28:16)

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• Clare’s Manchester roots and rain-thwarted style: 00:27–02:46
• Early entrepreneurial experiences: 04:49–05:31
• Advertising to fashion: lessons and pivots: 05:35–10:19
• Motherhood, multitasking, and the seed for ME+EM: 10:24–12:58
• Origin story of Pajama Room and ME+EM’s pivot: 13:04–16:03
• Hardships of launching during the recession: 16:18–18:15
• The 4 Fs – Brand values deep dive: 19:02–21:40
• Building the team, scaling up: 21:51–22:59
• Retail store impact and omnichannel model: 23:20–24:41
• US market strategy and lookbooks: 25:01–25:56
• Resilience, responsibility, and advice: 27:09–32:05

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Final Note

This episode presents a candid and inspiring look at the journey of an “outsider” building a fashion brand with heart, logic, and grit. Listeners gain both a practical blueprint for entrepreneurship and deeply personal stories about resilience, motherhood, and the ever-changing lives of women. The exchange between Laura and Clare is warm, insightful, and peppered with memorable moments that capture what it takes to build a brand from scratch—rain or shine.

Transcript

[A]

Foreign. I'm Laura Vinroot Poole and this is what we wore. Claire Hornby is The founder and CEO of UK based Me&M. Claire's inspiring entrepreneurial story includes a mid career pivot from advertising to fashion and becoming a respected leader in an industry she knew nothing about. Claire, where are you from?

[B]

I'm from the north of England, a city called Manchester, which was a very industrial town, famous for its cotton mills. And then it's risen to fame more recently with Oasis.

[A]

Gallagher's. Yeah, exactly.

[B]

I mean in the 90s Oasis, but now again with the Oasis tour and obviously Chanel did their show there, so we've launched a store there very recently. But yes, I grew up in the. On the Pennines above Manchester.

[A]

How did you experience style as a child actually?

[B]

Well, first off, it rains the whole time, okay.

[A]

Unlike the rest of England. Wait, hold on.

[B]

No, no. If you think the rest of England rain, it really rained. In fact, it's nicknamed the Rainy city.

[A]

Is it really?

[B]

I'm very good at dressing for the rain. So one of our signature styles is the hoodie that we put the style under blazers. And that's my fear of the rain. When I moved to London when I was 21, realized I don't think it actually rains in London. I'm so used to so much more rain. What you realise when, if you ever go to the north of England, it's the warmth of the people, they're just, they say it exactly as it is, they don't mince their words. They're wonderful, down to earth, lovely people. And I came from a very lovely, supportive sort of working to middle class family. My mum was a teacher, my dad ran a small building company and they had a very strong work ethic. It's a great place and you go to love the rain.

[A]

Yeah. What was your first experience of style or fashion?

[B]

Because of the cotton mills and the textile industry actually the Northern ladies are actually very stylish and my parents came from a very stylish friendship group or that they were part of a very stylish friendship group. So I really learned to love fashion because my parents and their friends were all super stylish. I used to make clothes with my mum. My mum was a very talented seamstress and we used to go and buy Vogue patterns together and make clothes together. So my eye for detail and a cut of a trouser was sort of born from a very young age and I worked in denim factories and I ran my own stall on a market and you know, that sort of work ethic, entrepreneurial spirit and love of clothes was born quite early on.

[A]

One thing I remember was going with my mom and looking at patterns and picking out patterns as a little. Little girl, five, six years old. Do you remember doing that with your mom and having opinions about what you wanted her to make for you? Or was it just, oh, strong opinions. Opinions.

[B]

Yeah. We went and we chose the patterns, then we chose the fabric. We came home and made them together. And I had very strong opinions about pocket position and shape of a pant and. And I think it's funny, isn't it? I always think what you do with your children, you don't know what you're creating. Then she just was making, you know, we're making clothes together, actually. Needs must. In a way, something was forming in those early years.

[A]

I'm thinking what a lost art it is. And that I, you know, I haven't seen a Vogue pattern except for in vintage stores. I mean, I don't know how people, I guess, do kids not do that anymore at all? I don't know.

[B]

You're so right. And in fact, we ran a, you know, in the kids holidays, we want to get the kids of the, you know, mums and dads that work in the business. And we actually ran a sort of little fashion center for them all. And it was amazing. They all obviously loved it, love seeing their parents working in head office and. But I do think. Think it's. It's something that, you know, particularly with AI.

[A]

Yeah, right, exactly.

[B]

We want to bring those core skills back. But interestingly, most of our designers design by hand, which I hadn't really appreciated. But it's only when you actually sketch something do you really think it through and you can rub it out and add a detail and that's when you get the best design. So we recruit designers who can draw really well because if you're doing it on a cad, it's too easy. You don't think it through us clearly.

[A]

Do you remember a piece that you and your mom made that you loved?

[B]

Striped trousers.

[A]

I love it.

[B]

So there's some. We actually became quite famous for striped trousers a few years ago when it was a big trend. And there must have been something in my love of striped trousers from that pair of pants.

[A]

When you were a kid, you had a stall at the Oldham market.

[B]

That was my dad meeting a guy at the golf club who had a whole load of faulty shoes that were sort of Italian. Italian shoes with faults. And I went down to his factory, made the selection and then queued for a stall with my dad and then sold the shoes on the market and then worked out which were the popular ones and then went back the following week and got the curation better and then went again the following week and it was good early learning. I think I was doing that when I was about 14.

[A]

Wow. And did you enjoy it?

[B]

I think I enjoyed making my own money. I'm not sure I enjoyed speaking freezing cold. The freezing is an outdoor market.

[A]

You went to university and did you study fashion?

[B]

No. Well, no, I studied business.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

My first job was at Harrods on the graduate training scheme at Harrods. And I did that because I wanted to become a fashion buyer. On the graduate training scheme. If you went into fashion buying, you had to work Saturdays. And I was really enjoying my move to London and the social life, so I decided to go into marketing.

[A]

Okay. And what did you know about buying? I mean, what led you for that first instinct of wanting to get into buying?

[B]

I think just because I love clothes, I love fashion, I love clothes and I thought I'd make a really good buyer. And my mum took me to a careers fair and they talked about fashion buying as a career. I didn't really know anything that I didn't know you could do that.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And I love the sound of it. That's why I ended up at Harrods and on the graduate training scheme. But then this sort of social life thing took over which then led to a career in advertising, which I think was the right route to take.

[A]

So how long was the program at Harrods?

[B]

So I was only there for just over a year and then I moved to an ad agency.

[A]

What was your takeaway at that point about the fashion industry?

[B]

It was my first exposure because in those days we're talking early 90s luxury fashion. Didn't. There was no luxury fashion outside of London in the uk. So I was overwhelmed with the, the, the glory of the luxury floor, the womenswear luxury floor at Harrods. And I had a very big staff discount. And if you were really canny, you could run down just as they were setting the sale out, slightly hide the things you wanted, nip in and use your discounts and get really great bargains. But I just remember being at full price, just I couldn't believe how much you had to pay for a really well cut pair of black trousers or, you know, a nice white shirt or whatever. So I think that was a. There was a seed sown there. That luxury was really, really expensive. And why did that have to be.

[A]

And so moving into advertising and was it fashion advertising or was it just standard?

[B]

No, it wasn't actually. It was everything but. But it was all consumer advertising and advertising is. And back in the days of advertising, you know, you work with really clever people. It's about positioning brands, brand strategy. It's about managing the process of an idea that is just a script and realizing that as a great TV commercial there's a lot of budgeting and you know, galvanizing the troops and organization. And I worked on the sort of account direction side. So I was the go between, between the creatives and the clients. So marrying up creativity and commercial, I think there's just many transferable skills along the way that you adopt and you can, and you can move into fashion. But yes, I think building brands and understanding customers and information and data and strategies is something that I've taken with me into me and M. What do.

[A]

You think the biggest Learning from the 12 years in advertising was definitely brand strategy.

[B]

How to build a brand. Finding that single minded thought that you stick to and then you build everything out from that single minded thought. You build your culture, you build your product, you build your tone of voice, your marketing, your messaging, everything comes from one thought and sticking to that Car marketing is very good for that. Owning something like whether it's reliability, which was owned by Volkswagen or safety, that was owned by Volvo, some of those are transferable into what we've done at.

[A]

M during that 12 years. Are you noticing that you're not able to find things that you want to wear?

[B]

Yeah. So then you become just a customer. In fact, we had a huge top shop just around the corner from the agency and I used to go in all the time and look at, I mean they were replenishing their collections all the time. But I got my daily hit of fashion. I didn't go out and buy a sandwich or an apple, peruse the collections. I wasn't always buying. But yes, and the other thing is obviously the love of the customer, really knowing who you're targeting with what you're doing and why you're doing it. So yeah, customer strategy, brand positioning. But yes, never lost my love of fashion. And then I think as I moved through advertising and I kind of got frustrated and wanted to start my own thing and every idea I came up with was in fashion.

[A]

I think also having children. Yes. In that during that period I'd written.

[B]

Lots of business plans for different ideas. One was an essentials business and then I had children, but I also had three stepchildren and my husband had started his own ad agency, and we lived in two places. And I just got very, very, very busy very, very, very quickly. And so I needed to start my own thing.

[A]

But I think there's something in that. I think in having children and working and just the way your life changes. But your lifestyle, your body, your, you know, the requirements of what you have to wear during each day, from getting children to school to getting to work, to going to cocktails after, like, all that stuff, it starts being, like, really complicated, I think, and in a very different way than it was in really, for me. I think you realize the holes in the market when you have such a. Just a full life that requires so many different things from a woman completely.

[B]

And I was running a business in London, but also dropping the kids off in the countryside that was an hour and a half away from London, and sometimes going back to watch a match and then back to London for something in the evening. And you realize then the. How multitasking what you decide to put in the morning, how many. How hard that outfit's got to work to get you right to the end.

[A]

Of the day, and how big that bag has to be to put heels in it and trainers and, you know, like, all of the things. It's crazy.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And I think the other thing that is interesting is you start to meet other women, the soccer moms and then the people at work, and everybody's having these challenges, and you get even more perspectives than just your own frustrations, it seems like.

[B]

Yes. And we all put so much pressure on ourselves because we can. So, you know, we can now stand in a Starbucks queue and make the food order or whatever it is, so we. We can multitask so much more than perhaps our parents could. So we. We do therefore embrace that. And therefore the insights around clothes, I think, become really interesting because you've got to serve a very demanding lifestyle of a. Of a woman.

[A]

Every woman. I mean, every woman has such a compl. Complicated, I think lifestyle. And as compared to men is so different. Like, they need one thing during the day. I don't know.

[B]

And once they've had that one thing, they then buy 10 of them only.

[A]

But I have a men's store. They only do it, like, every couple of years.

[B]

I need another five navy jumpers, please.

[A]

Exactly.

[B]

You have a navy jumper. I know this slightly different.

[A]

And so you finally started your first brand, which was Pajama Room.

[B]

Pajama Room, yes.

[A]

Yeah. And tell me about that. That must have taken a lot of courage. Just to jump in and do that.

[B]

That was my advertising being too narrow. So the idea was too narrow. It was a wholesale idea, but I launched it direct to consumer, so launched it online. But the ethos of that brand was a good one in that it was all about beautiful fabrics, amazing shapes and silhouettes, and very flattering because at the time the loungewear market was. Wasn't as exciting as it is today. And so it was a gap in the market. And in fact, we designed this trouser that's still one of our best sellers today. It was a. It was a really beautiful trouser to let. It was this sort of idea that you could lounge at home, go to supermarket, come back. But it very quickly moved to me because it was too narrow an idea, but the ethos is still there.

[A]

And was it successful from the beginning?

[B]

It was, it was and. And took those customers with us. We were worried that those customers wouldn't follow us, but. But they did. That got a lot of press at the beginning and it had great sales. But of course, when you're starting a business, it might have good sales, but it might not necessarily be profitable for a while because of the working capital requirements that go into these businesses. So it was a very, very hard graph in the early years.

[A]

You had a partner at the time. Did y' all have people that advised you or friends that, that, that did this?

[B]

I did actually. We won this award very early on called Walpole Luxury Brands of Tomorrow. And they loved the packaging, they loved the logo, they loved the design of the clothes. But my mentor there was a wonderful woman called Anoushka Ducasse, who had started a business in the UK called Links, which was. Yeah, do you remember? And she had sold it and had gone on and produced a luxury version of that, which is now called Anoushka, a much higher end version of that, as I should say. And she said, your name's wrong, it's too. You're too narrow, you've got a much bigger idea here, just change the name. And we were worried about the customers and she said, look, the good ones will come with you. And those that don't probably never were anyway. So she just took out the. She just made us a bit braver. And then my husband was a great mentor the whole way through and an early investor. So, yeah, I'd say those two were great.

[A]

And your partner, Emma, was that hard to be on the same page, I guess, with a partner. I've never had a. A partner other than my husband.

[B]

It was. And then actually Anishka took the debate away and was, in that very good way, mediated those discussions. So she got us onto the same page very quickly. She was very good. Emma didn't stay. I think Emma's been out of the business now for, gosh, about 12 years.

[A]

What year did pajama room start?

[B]

Pajama room was 07.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

And then me and M was. 09.

[A]

Oh, wow, that's very quick. I always. I mean, it always kills me when people start a business in 2008, 2009. I'm like, well, I mean, it can only go up from here. I don't know that it affected y' all as badly as the states were. Affected. The Great Recession.

[B]

Oh, no, no. I mean, it was just like if you'd started a business in the 20 years or the 10 years or the five years before that. I mean, I think this has been probably. So. It's been. We're now 16 years old, so it's probably been the hardest thing. 16 years that you could possibly. I mean, you know, don't you?

[A]

I do know. I really.

[B]

When did you start yours? In 2000.

[A]

No, 1998.

[B]

Oh, so you had. You had the glory.

[A]

I had nine, 11. Then the great Recession, then the pandemic. Yeah, I've had it all. You had a bit of time?

[B]

Yeah, yeah. Gosh. Okay. Yeah. It's not been. It's not easy, is it, running a business?

[A]

No, it really isn't. And I think it is kind of like. It's. It's these tests. It's like kind of like knocking you. You know the thing when the doctor kind of knocks your knees and make sure you're awake. It's like these things that are, like, jarring you out of, like, oh, my God. Okay, yes, I'm awake. I'm here. I want to do this, you know, because you do have to. You have to really, really want to do it, because it is not that fun. It's not a hobby at all.

[B]

No. Yeah, yeah. You have to have a lot of resilience.

[A]

You really do. So in the early days, in the beginning of me and M, how many collections a year were you producing?

[B]

In the very first year, we probably did one and then went, oh, how do you. How do you now learn from this and then make another one? You don't know.

[A]

Right. When you don't have results from the last one. Exactly. Yeah.

[B]

It's really hard. The first. Yeah. And I'd worked at Harrods, where you saw an end product. I hadn't worked in a supply chain business before, so I didn't know a single fashion journalist, didn't know a single supplier. I mean, it was just. I mean, honestly, if I'd known anything, I just wouldn't have done it. I always say naivety is. And was my best friend.

[A]

Claire, did you. Do you know anybody like Anya Hindmarch or. I mean, anybody like that that kind of could talk to you about that part of it? Nobody.

[B]

No one?

[A]

Wow.

[B]

No one. I know her now.

[A]

Too late. So from one collection a year and all directed to consumer. All dtc.

[B]

Yeah. Always online. I mean, that was just this online thing. Looks like it's doing really well. I mean, I remember going to my first fabric fair in Paris, and I was on my own, and I went up to the stall and said, oh, I really like this. These fabrics. And they were like, who are you? I said, well, I'm. You know, I'm this person from this completely unknown brand, and I'd like to buy some fabric. And they said, well, where is your store? I said, oh, it's online. And they said, oh, we don't do online. It was not. It wasn't as glamorous as it is today.

[A]

Will you share with us the four Fs that you defined as values for your brand?

[B]

Yeah. So they are the underpinning of the positioning, which is intelligent style now and forever. The four Fs are. We always say, if you miss an F, it fails. So the first one is flattering, and that really starts with amazing fabrics. If you don't get that foundation piece right, you know, all this. If you don't get that foundation piece right, it's almost impossible to create the perfect silhouette. Yeah. And it has to be right for the style. And there's a lot of science goes into fabric. And I'm also. I don't like fabrics that crease and like fabrics that move with you, but I like fabrics that hold their shape. So I'm a bit of a. A stickler for great fabrics, which gives you, you know, flattering. And obviously, there's lots of other things that go to making something flattering. But essentially, if you don't start with great fabrics, it's. You're fighting a losing battle. And then there's functional. So that's the busy woman, the multitasking. It's got to work really hard for you. We put a lot of design details into our clothes. Sleeves that look really authentic, but they might have some hidden elastic in, so you can, you know, sauce. You know, you can roll the sleeve, pull the Sleeves up to do the washing up or cook or range the flowers or whatever you might be doing. But it's sort of lots and lots of really amazing design details that work to. To help the outfit be more flattering, but also functional. We also look at how, you know, how many times can you wear it through the week, through the year, you know, so that's functional. And then we've got forever, which is making sure we back things on the right side of a trend. Women want to feel modern, but they don't want to feel like fashion victims. So making sure that we're on the right side of the trend curve. And then the final piece is fair, which is the gap in the market between very expensive clothes and cheaper brands who don't spend as much time on the things I've just talked about.

[A]

Is that the hardest f. Well, that's.

[B]

The one you need to keep the track of the most because the competition's moving all the time.

[A]

Right.

[B]

That's the one that you need to just always make sure that you're hitting that sweet spot on price and quality. It's also fair, also covers sustainability and the factories we use. And we've just got an accreditation called Positive Luxury, which is run by this amazing woman in Brussels who's very ahead of the sustainability evolution. So we're really good on our supply chain, and that fare also covers that.

[A]

So you went from working in advertising, obviously, I would imagine, as a part of a team, but to running. Sounds like a really big team. How many employees do you have now?

[B]

So head office is probably just over 200 now. It does feel quite big now.

[A]

Yeah. How did you learn how to do that? You just learned along the way. And you obviously had to do every job, I guess, like, from going to the fabric fairs to.

[B]

Yeah. So the first. Well, that's the great bit, is learning everything. So I know every job of everyone in the business. So the marketing team is where I have my strengths. But, you know, I measured my own clothes, spoke to my suppliers, found the supplier. So there is. I. I've, you know, I've posted my own packages. You know, whatever there is, I've done it. There is a great sense of, you know, no one can really pull the wool over your eyes, really. It's about hiring the right people at the right times and great people. And it's. That's incredibly hard at the beginning because you can't have, you know, you're. In the beginning, you're hiring generalists, and then as the business grows, you're hiring Specialists. And if you get those specialists right, then your life is a lot easier.

[A]

That's interesting.

[B]

And I would say that my board of directors now are, you know, all very strong. And that makes life a lot easier. But, you know, you've got to be patient. That takes a long time. And someone said to me, whatever stage of business you're at, you're always two hires short of perfection.

[A]

And so when did you open your first store?

[B]

Well, our very first store was actually our first office. So we opened this very tiny store which was on a street called Connaught street just off Hyde park in London. And then when we moved to a proper head office, we moved. Our second store was in Marylebone. We've now just upgraded that store and that's now our flagship. So Marylebone High street and around that area has always been kind of the center of our gravity, and that's now our biggest store.

[A]

How did that change the business, opening a brick and mortar store?

[B]

Probably not that much in the early days because it was such a small store. When we really noticed the impact of stores was probably when we got to about five or six stores. And you can start to really feel that you've got an omnichannel business and you've a store recruit, you know, a customer recruited in store who then shops online is three times more valuable than a customer that shops single channel.

[A]

Right.

[B]

So looking at those data points and understanding the role of stores to feed the online and the online to feed the stores and how it all links together, probably was around five or six stores when we really started to understand that effect.

[A]

And how many are there now in the UK?

[B]

There are probably heading towards about 15, with concessions in Harrods and Selfridge. And then in America, we've got four, and soon to have about seven or eight.

[A]

Talk to me about opening up your business to the States. What is that like and what are your learnings there?

[B]

I think we'd recruited a lot of customers in the States through our stores in the uk. So, you know, busy global traveling audience. So we had a lot of customers. We also produce a lookbook and we'd been mailing the Lookbook in America. So we'd had. We'd looked at where the center of gravity was. It was very much East Coast, west coast originally. So we started building those audiences out with lookbooks and then digital.

[A]

And was the Lookbook like a traditional catalog?

[B]

Yeah, we still send those out. We still have a lot of customers who love, you know, because everything's gone so digital, everything's so on Screen. It's actually quite nice to have a punctuation with paper. Isn't it sometimes just nice to read a book, not your Kindle. It's like, I think, you know, sometimes nice to read the papers on a Sunday, not on your iPad.

[A]

Absolutely.

[B]

I think there are moments in the week where you just want some paper.

[A]

I want to ask you this about the catalog because we do a Christmas catalog and we, we look at the data and we're like, well, we sold this, but we didn't sell any of this. How do you, I guess, consider the catalog profitable or not profitable?

[B]

Back in the early days, we absolutely understood the profitability of catalog because in 2009 when we started, that was our only really recruitment channel. So we, we were lucky in that we understood the profitability of them very early on. But now when you've got multi channel so you're, you know, you're, you're, you've got your meta audience, your Google, you've got, you know, influencers, there's so many more channels to acquire and stores that we now rol that into one pot of money and then it's, then it's what comes off the back of that spend. But what you do get is you, you have, you are able to match those customers back because you've bought that name and you can match it back.

[A]

Right.

[B]

So there, there is a bit more science to it than, yeah.

[A]

Than there was originally, I guess.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

That's interesting.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

What's been your biggest personal and professional challenge over the last 15 years of starting? Me.

[B]

And the list is long. I mean, where do you want to. But I, I, I mean I would just say that every challenge, every mistake is a great thing because it's the only way you move forwards. Right. And we were talking about that earlier on. Resilience and actually challenges, you know, meeting challenges head on and making huge mistakes and working around them and is, is great because you, you become, you become stronger on the other side and you, you become more inventive on the other side. And you know, we've all worked through the pandemic, but actually if you survived the pandemic, you were a much stronger business on the other side because you had to be so innovative. Yeah, you had to think quickly. So I'm now 56. There's so much been thrown at me. I actually like bring it on.

[A]

A lot of the women I work with have children and I tell them over and over, you know, I know you don't want to let them get hurt or fall or Any of those things. But truly it really is the only way people learn. It's the only way they're going to be resilient kids. I mean, quit trying, quit trying to grab them when they're about to fall.

[B]

I, I once spoke to this great guy who, when my daughters went to their new school and he did a, a chat on resilience. And I'd never really thought about it like this, but he said childhood is the only time that you can let them run into issues where they've got your support that help them navigate it. But if they don't ever hit those barriers in childhood, then they don't look, then they're learning on their own when they've left home. So actually the more mistakes.

[A]

Right, exactly. Exactly. Earlier. Exactly. Can you imagine starting a fashion business with what you know now? I mean, can you, can you believe that you, that you jumped into this and you weren't, I mean you weren't 20, like you were.

[B]

Yeah. 37 or something. Yeah.

[A]

I mean, did you have a lot of supporters from friends and peers and I mean, or were people like, you're crazy. What are you doing?

[B]

I mean, no one believed in it at all. Neither did I. Once you've started, you have a responsibility to that first employee.

[A]

Yes, yes, absolutely.

[B]

You've got some customers, you've got a couple of employees, you suddenly feel very responsible. You've had to leave your children behind, sometimes with a nanny, sometimes with a parent in law or whoever it is and you want to prove to them that that was worth it and something drives you to keep going. But it's a bit like, like, I think it's like, it's very similar to bringing up a child, isn't it? You know, in the early years you're just in the fog.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

You don't even know what you're doing. You're functioning and you don't even know how you are. And then suddenly you, they start looking after themselves and then suddenly they're actually, I mean mine are the same age as yours, so 20 and 21. And now they look after me, so it's great. Would you, would you go back and have a baby now? It's not possible anyway. So it's the same thing. No, but I wouldn't start a fashion business. No, but I've loved every moment of it as I've enjoyed every moment of being a mother. And I wouldn't change any stage as I wouldn't change any stage of being a mother. I wouldn't change any stage of running A business.

[A]

What advice would you give to budding entrepreneurs that want to start in the fashion industry?

[B]

I would say make sure there's a consumer need. So really identify very early on why you're doing, why the customer needs it, and then when you've identified that need, really build a sort of framework around how to deliver that idea and stay very true to that, but pivot as well. You know, even though pyjama room became E M, the idea of beautiful, well made clothes for less was still at the heart of it. But I was still able to pivot.

[A]

The very beginning of Pajama room. Did you have those four Fs or. That was something that came a little later.

[B]

It was actually working with a. It's actually my husband's agency that listened. They were very good at putting ideas at the heart of businesses. They did it for lots of businesses and they listened to what I was doing and what I was passionate about. And then they created the intelligent style now forever positioning. And then I put the 4s underneath it. And I've expanded that out as the business has grown because the businesses evolve as well. But I think staying true to your vision originally is what gets you there. And then obviously you've got to evolve and you've got to pivot. But if you come off the track of not believing in what you're doing, I think that's potentially. Which is why at the very beginning you've got to be really clear on what you want to achieve. And it has to be a consumer need. It can't be. I want to make some money. It has to be an insult.

[A]

No, it's like, what problem are you fixing?

[B]

Exactly. Yes, exactly that. Yeah.

[A]

I've learned enough. I've had enough British guests to know that you don't have proms there, but you have. I think they call them marquee events. Is that something that you had in high school?

[B]

That I didn't have that growing up, but I think it is a big thing now.

[A]

Okay, so there's nothing in Manchester like to for the end of school or anything like that where you dress up and have a date, Any of that.

[B]

It's called a leavers ball.

[A]

Okay. And what did you wear to the leavers ball?

[B]

I never had a leavers thing.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

Because I went to. I didn't go to a posh school. I went to kind of in the States.

[A]

It doesn't have to be posh in the uk.

[B]

I think they do have them now in my children have their leavers book which is their big graduation thing and they do a dress up and there's a big dress up there.

[A]

But do you have something from that time from when you were leaving Manchester? Do you have a favorite outfit from the time? Favorite dress?

[B]

Probably my first big event was my friend's 21st. There's a dress there that was I, which was a black velvet dress that there's nowhere I could wear now. Very short, very fitted at the top with a. With a sort of balloon skirt. Cool. End of the 80s. So it was.

[A]

We're the same age. Ish. So, yes, I get it. Sounds really chic. Well, thank you, Claire, so much for doing this and I look forward to having the clothes in Brentwood.

[B]

It's so lovely to meet you.

[A]

What We Wore is produced by Capitol and Balto Creative Media. The original song Someone so Enchanting was composed and performed by Britt Drazda. Please follow us on Instagram hatweworepodcast for additional content and show updates. QueenCityPodcastNetwork. Com.