In Her Shoes..
In conversation with Hayley Thomas, founder of Eleven Loves.
We're back with the third guest on our In Her Shoes series, where we're talking to female founders of small businesses that inspire us.
The lovely Hayley Thomas of Eleven Loves joins us to talk all things comfort, confidence and the spark that it takes to start your own business.
The Spark:
What inspired you to start Eleven Loves, and what was the first step you took to bring your idea to life?
I'd always loved fashion from a young age, shopping with my mum and nan who both loved a good outfit. I then went to spend many years working for high street fashion retailers.
The elements that make up Eleven Loves as a brand came to me gradually over many years. I've always been very entrepreneurial and creative and known that I wanted to run my own brand one day.
It was setting up the first Corporate Social Responsibility function for a high street retailer and learning about sustainable fashion that made me certain that I wanted to find better, kinder and more sustainable ways to produce garments.
It was going from working in fashion to being a full time mum that made me realise that I wanted clothes that combined comfort and ease with personality and confidence, and that other women did too.
Running my own brand had always been a dream, however, I finally got the push to get started when my husband was diagnosed with stage 3 bowel cancer.
He was 40 at the time, fit, sporty and seemingly healthy. Thanks to the fabulous NHS he's now fully recovered but that period really made me realise that life is short and we just need to stop putting our dreams off.
I'm a planner by nature and had got a bit stuck in writing business plans for my dream business but I decided to put them to one side and just start doing - testing things out, get feedback and go from there.
So I created a small collection of statement sweatshirts and t-shirts, set up the bare bones of a website and went from there. We've continued with that test and learn approach ever since.
Early Days:
What was the biggest challenge you faced in the early days of Eleven Loves, and how did you overcome it?
My two big challenges were finding the right ethical, sustainable manufacturers for my garments, and factories that would embrace working with a small business.
It's taken a lot of hard work to find our brilliant factory partners, who are all fully audited and who now work with us as a team, know how crucial quality is to our brand and know how to source the best sustainable fabrics.
The second challenge was getting our products in front of customers with no budget. I'm naturally quite an introvert, don't love the limelight, hate having my picture taken and had never shared on social media, however, I love the direct conversations I was having with customers in the early days.
And so I enrolled in some instragram training, studied others who were doing a far better job than me, took a very deep breath and tried a few posts and stories.
I discovered that customers really appreciate hearing directly from the person who designed and conceived of the pieces that they're buying.
For me, social media became the best tool for two-way conversations, sharing ideas, understanding our customers more and more and finding solutions to the challenges they face dressing well, with confidence in their busy everyday lives.
My weekly lives and stories are now one of my favourite parts of the job, and I feel so much closer to our wonderful community as a result. I feel that as a team we can design our collections with a true understanding of our customers and their needs because of this.
Highs and Lows:
Can you share a moment when you felt on top of the world as a founder, and a time when things didn’t go as planned?
Our highs and lows come daily - small business life really is a rollercoaster.
Some of my biggest highs come on our photoshoots when I get to not only see the collection come together in all of the many outfit variations we'd imagined, but I also see my small but brilliant team working together to create something that we're all so proud of.
Another high is my monthly "review review". I set aside time to read our customer reviews every month and invariably end up with a tear in my eye reading them.
Yes, we've had our pieces worn and endorsed by celebrities, and included in the press, but it's the five star reviews from our customers that bring the real highs.
We even share them with our factories!With any small business, there is always a lot of firefighting. Ships full of our products that get stuck in transit, Royal Mail going into meltdown pre-Christmas, our website crashing on the launch of a highly anticipated sample sale.
Thankfully, we're a team full of fairly calm heads and problem solvers, which is so important working in retail.
Comfort & Confidence:
What does comfort mean to you, and how do you bring this into your product design?
Comfort is not just physical, it's about feeling like yourself. Being able to walk into a room feeling comfortable in your own skin, and that your clothes reflect your personality.
We not only fit our garments with meticulous attention to detail, as a team we wear them ourselves before we launch them with our customer.
I personally try on, wearer trial and comment on every single item in our collection. This way, we can be sure that the fit and comfort factor is perfect.
Small Wins:
What’s been your proudest small business win so far, something that made you think, “Yes, this is why I’m doing this”?
While hitting milestones and getting recognition are important to us, it's those individual moments with customers that really drive us.
I collect the customer feedback that's really moved us and reflect back on it during the challenging moments.
Just a few of my favourites are:
"I felt I'd lost my way and your brand has made me feel like me again"
"For the first time in a long time, I've felt confident in my style."
One of the most heartfelt moments that we will never forget is when a very dear customer who was so sadly in the last few weeks of her life after battling bowel cancel, and kept placing orders because she said our clothes bought her joy.
.
The Community:
How has the support from your community or customers impacted the growth of Eleven Loves?
Our community is at the very heart of everything we do. The creation of our collection is a two-way conversation.
We explore the style challenges / needs of our customers, consider the fabrics, shapes and end-uses that will work best for our community and then use our insta lives to test and learn, tweak.
We've even spent a morning with a customer and our designer to work through designs with her direct feedback along to way.
Sometimes we have to say goodbye to a design during this process, but it's far better to do this than to create and produce it without any feedback and then find that our customers don't love it. It helps us avoid waste and stay as sustainable as we can be.
Founder Favorites:
What’s your favorite product from your collection, and why does it hold a special place in your heart?
The Iris Tulle Skirt is our best selling style. It was named after my late grandad's favourite flower and so I feel very sentimental about it. It's also been the piece that has brought style confidence to so many women.
I love it when women challenge themselves in their outfitting - to be a tiny bit braver in their choices, to find the joy in dressing.
We've had so many women say that they could never wear our Iris Tulle Skirt, and then when they've tried it, they've come back for al of the colours.
It really embodies our ethos of delivering inspired outfitting.
Looking Forward:
What’s next for Eleven Loves? Any exciting plans or dreams for the future that you’re looking forward to?
We're at a really exciting stage in our growth and have so many plans and ideas.
We're continuing to grow our collection, building on styles and concepts that our customers have loved, but want to grow in a sustainable, sensible way.
It could be so easy to get wrapped up in the successes we've had a rush to launch lots of new styles, but everything we produce needs to have a clear purpose and earn its space in our customers' wardrobes.
We get such lovely feedback on how much our outfit inspiration and lives help our customers and we really want to find ways to deliver that through other channels - either in person or digitally.
Our dream is to become more than just a brand that sells clothes. We want to be a trusted partner to bring outfit inspiration and style confidence in lots of different ways.
And Finally:
We have to ask! What is your favourite pair of Air & Grace, and why?
I love the Cru Black Star Trainers. For me, they're the perfect combination of comfortable, classic and modern.
A classic shape with an inspired twist.
