‘I made £12k from a side hustle – now my fashion brand is worth £5m’

A young entrepreneur has revealed how she managed to accumulate £12,000 to kick-start her own fashion brand – which is now valued at a staggering £5m.

Aimee Smale launched her brand Odd Muse in 2020 while working remotely during the Covid lockdown – and it’s been an upward trajectory ever since.

In a candid chat with Working Hard, Hardly Working podcast host Grace Beverley, Aimee divulged how she initially got her business off the ground, which Odd Muse products have been most successful, and even some of the less positive experiences she’s encountered on her journey.

Aimee, who studied Fashion Buying and Brand Management at university, was employed as a buyer’s administration assistant at ASOS, and began developing Odd Muse on the side.

Odd Muse made its debut in 2020 with its first product – the iconic Ultimate Muse Blazer.

However, to realise her dream company, she needed capital. While working from home, Aimee taught herself basic graphic design skills and started creating inexpensive company logos.

Speaking to Grace, Aimee shared: “So this is a really other random story in my journey. So over COVID, I started making £10 logos.

“Why did I start making £10 logos? Because everyone had a baking business. Everyone had a small thing going on that they didn’t want a mega expensive logo for.

“I taught myself the basics of graphic design – this is such a weird story – and I was making £10 logos for all the bakers out there.

“I was making like 30 logos a day at one point. Really, finishing ASOS, closing my laptop, staying up all night to just make logos.

“And eventually it was menus for restaurants, some brochures and just random stuff. But it got me £12,000 for Odd Muse.”

This £12,000 went on stock for Odd Muse, including the Ultimate Muse Blazer, which sold out completely during the brand’s launch.

Aimee said: “I had to buy 50 of everything, minimum, but the blazer, I was like ‘I just really believe in this I’m gonna get 100 units’.”

She added: “I got 100 of the blazer and I just really believed in it, I felt like the rest of the products were just…I didn’t really believe in them, the collection as a whole didn’t really make sense. But the blazer worked, and the blazer sold crazily.”

“I remember we sold 100 units within the first launch and I broke even instantly on the £12,000 – and I had about 700 people waiting [on pre-order].”

Since the business launched during Covid lockdown, Aimee said she got a lot of interest as people were on their phones more – but it also meant people had no reason to get dressed up.

Instead, she explained that the entire point of Oddmuse is for the clothes to be worn for years to come.

She said: “I was really explaining my mission, I was like ‘guys I know we can’t go anywhere but I’m not selling you something that you’re only going to wear this weekend, I’m selling you something that I want you to wear for years and years – and don’t just take my word for it, look at the product, would you not want to wear this blazer? ‘”.

Aimee revealed a significant moment after the launch was when influencer Lorna Luxe purchased the blazer, leading to a massive surge in sales.

She added: “I remember saying to everyone – everyone would be like who do you want to wear your brand and I would say Lorna.

“Anyone in the world? Lorna, because she was just this creator I followed that I felt like she genuinely just had this really fab life that she was taking us along for – and she literally bought it [the blazer], put it on her story like ‘just got my shipping notification, getting it tomorrow, gonna shoot it in Paris’.”

Aimee continued: “I credit a lot to her, she’s very modest when I say this to her, but she really changed the game for me and she gave me that exposure early on.

“Don’t get me wrong, I’ve literally been running ever since that moment and I chased that stock, I put 700 units on pre-order – I knew these people wouldn’t be waiting long – I’ve been running since that moment, but she really set me up for that and she really gave me that I needed, it was the right time and the right person.”

Following the launch of the blazer, Odd Muse’s Pearl Dress was released and sold out within a minute. In October 2023, Oddmuse opened its first flagship store in Covent Garden, London.