SPEAKER_02 0:00

And maybe we will all just not have jobs and we can go land on the beach and sip on cocktails.

SPEAKER_04 0:04

Yeah, and that's just that's how the world works, really. Once there's wealth that gets spread equally amongst everyone, there's a really good track record of that. Welcome to Legaliz's Big Fish Stories, the podcast where we showcase local Salafan entrepreneurs, their stories, and their big relevance to the world around them. As lawyers working with startups and established businesses in the tech and creative industries, we get front-row seats to some incredible business adventure rides. The problem is that as lawyers, our work is confidential. With Big Fish Stories, we're going inside the room with some proudly Salafan entrepreneurs to talk about their airy highs, lonely lows, and creamy middles of the road to success. As a country deep in economic development, there is massive potential for smart entrepreneurs to build something great. Join us as we meet some of these big fish and find out how they're looking to make their ponds even bigger. I'm your host, managing director of League Leads A Tunstone. Okay. Hannah, it's good to good to meet you. We're not actually meeting for the first time. We do know each other. But why don't you introduce yourself? Who are you and what do you do for a living?

SPEAKER_02 1:15

My name is Hannah, and I have a clothing brand in Cape Town called Hannah Lavery. My name. And we have shops around the country, two in Cape Town, one in Joburg, almost two, opening on the 1st of April. One in Celenbosch, one in Plate. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:33

Can I just make a disclaimer on this? If you hear what sounds of the this is to the listeners, what sounds like a lapping sound? It's not me, but me or Hannah. There's uh my poodle Matilda who's walking around. Uh and I thought it would be a good idea to bring a poodle to a studio to record a to record a podcast. Um, can I ask you, how do you land up? And this is where I say we actually do know each other. We were at law school together. So how do I know that you studied law? How do you land up as a fashion designer? What do you call yourself? You're a fashion designer? Do you own a fashion label? What is your job title and how do you land up there?

SPEAKER_02 2:05

I say clothing label because I think that we the whole idea behind the brand is that we're making clothing that is like simple and easy to wear and is not sort of high fashion. Yeah. Um, I mean, I think sometimes we like branch out into fashion a little bit, but for me, it's like the person that we're serving is not necessarily they could be a fashion girly and they're like styling it in a cool way, but mostly it's just the person that kind of almost wishes they had a uniform to go to work in.

SPEAKER_04 2:37

I do want to dig into that in a few minutes about about yeah, what what what is fashion or why how you work in fashion. But I'm very curious just to just to lay the foundation. How did you get you?

SPEAKER_02 2:47

So just but in terms of choices, I was like always the sort of creative girl in school.

SPEAKER_04 2:54

Matilda. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 2:57

And so I was always doing art and drama, you know, I was that girl. So I actually thought I was gonna be an actress.

SPEAKER_00 3:03

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 3:03

And I studied drama in the beginning when I first went to UCT. Oh, wow. Um, and then I was doing drama and philosophy, and then I went on a gap year, and literally my dad just called me and said, You need to come back. If you come back to law, you don't lose any credits. And I was like, Okay, I could be a lawyer.

SPEAKER_04 3:23

It's like it's like someone in a midlife crisis instead of following their dream, following not their dream. And then going back to follow your dream.

SPEAKER_02 3:34

But at that point, like I thought I'd always thought I wanted to be like an actress or in theater or something like that. And by that point, I was like, absolutely not. That's not what I want to do. And I was always quite strong academically. So, like, law actually, if you're strong academically, not in science and maths and in English and history, like law is a very obvious choice, right?

SPEAKER_04 3:54

Yeah, something concrete. I mean, it's a it's similar, it's I think that exactly mimics why I studied law. Not that I was strong academically, but I certainly wasn't strong creatively. But it was like there's something, there's something like concrete here, and I think like I can do it. And if I can do something, probably do law.

SPEAKER_02 4:07

And I don't know if you were like good at like debating or being on like committees and leading, and it just sort of feels like the way to go. I don't know, you know, everyone, everyone, including myself, thought that I would like it.

SPEAKER_04 4:20

Yeah, and did you like it?

SPEAKER_02 4:22

Uh I kind of went in with the expectation that I would like save the world, like I would love constitutional law, and I would became a commercial lawyer. And then I didn't enjoy that at all. And then I actually really liked like law of persons and marriage and property law.

SPEAKER_04 4:42

So, what was the decision to to leave? And ultimately, I wasn't happy in it.

SPEAKER_02 4:46

Like at the at the end of the day, I liked like the way that I was thinking, I liked the way that my mind was being trained to think, but I preferred the ph I was still doing philosophy because I was doing an undergrad with two majors. Um, and I preferred philosophy to law, but obviously there's not much like a career. Well, for me, obviously, like I wasn't gonna be an academic. Yeah. Um, and law I just found incredibly difficult to sit down and focus and read for a long period of time. And it's you know, ever since then, it's very evident to me that I'm not that person that can sit and like read and concentrate, and I can do many things at once, but that's not me. So I was pretty miserable and I just I went to therapy at every um big decision in my life. I have been in therapy, and that was helpful. And she sort of said to me, Cool, okay, you're not happy doing this. Like, what is it that you wish you were doing? And I didn't really have the words or even the thoughts for it, but like over a few sessions, it sort of came out that what I wanted was to create something to actually have something come from like an idea into something tangible. Um and she was like, Cool, so what do you want to do and create in like the creative industries? And I had no idea because my whole family is quite academic, and you know, it just wasn't anything that I'd ever thought of. And she just pretty much sent me out doing homework. She was like, Cool, go and find a photographer that you can speak to, go and find a fashion designer you can speak to, go and find a graphic designer you can speak to. There was a lot that was excluded because I wanted to do something creative, but I'm not artistic, and that is very important. I cannot draw, I cannot barely even write well that you can read it. Um so and then I went and like asked a few people, shadowed a few people, and ultimately I realized that fashion was something that so fashion was something that I could study that was creative, but still had a like a corporate leg to the industry, so that if I wanted to, because I didn't want to leave law and just float. And float and end up being a starving artist. I still wanted a backup of being able to like have a real career that I wanted. So that was really the reasoning. Like nothing uh it wasn't like I was like, oh, I love fashion.

SPEAKER_04 7:12

Then how did so okay, wait, so then I'm curious for you to get to the whether that where did it lead to fashion then?

SPEAKER_02 7:19

It was really the decision was that there is a very established corporate career path that you can take in South Africa. That was the reason, and that was pretty much the only reason.

SPEAKER_04 7:29

So you decide one day, cool, I'm just gonna open a clothing label.

SPEAKER_02 7:32

Well, then I went and studied fashion.

SPEAKER_04 7:33

Oh, I see, okay.

SPEAKER_02 7:34

I went and studied fashion then. And that was um that was when I really started loving it. And actually, if I look back on my life, like when I was on my gap year, I wanted to, I went and worked in an American camp that and I was wanting to be a director, but I ended up in the costume department.

SPEAKER_04 7:51

Okay. And I really once you look back, all the pieces kind of.

SPEAKER_02 7:55

But when I was little, I changed four times a day and I made dresses for my Barbies. And you know, then the thing the it sort of makes sense looking back, and I could tell the story that way around, where like all of these things led to this decision, but that's not how it felt in reality.

SPEAKER_04 8:10

It's interesting. I think the the the the the theme that runs through it, it sounds like there's an entrepreneurial theme, right? Because you're describing when you the stuff that you were good at like doing, you weren't good at focusing, but you're like you're good at doing many things at once. Yeah, you you knew you wanted something that you could kind of build a business around because it was a corporate or however you described it a second ago. So I mean, did you always think of yourself as an entrepreneur or was that a surprise to you as well?

SPEAKER_02 8:34

That was also a surprise to me. I um I mean, I guess yeah, I I kind of expected to after I finished studying fashion just go and get a job as a buyer or something.

SPEAKER_00 8:46

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 8:47

Um, but by the time I had finished and I had done a couple of those sort of mock interviews, which I had done terribly in.

SPEAKER_04 8:53

What's a mock interview?

SPEAKER_02 8:54

They um so like all of the big companies like Truewers or these and stuff, they will actually hold sort of mock interviews, which is almost like a first round of interviews with the college students to like prepare the students, but also they get a sense of who they might want to really interview. And it was very clear to me that I wasn't, and maybe this is in law and wherever, I wasn't gonna fit easily into a corporate structure.

SPEAKER_04 9:17

Right, yeah. And because you're an entrepreneur.

SPEAKER_02 9:22

It's like a rebellious nature. Um, and and at that time I was working for, I was like working at the biscuit mall for another designer, and she had was opening a sto a shop on Clove Street, and she just sort of said, Hey, I saw your final year range. Like, do you want to stock me in three weeks' time?

SPEAKER_04 9:41

Okay, oh wow, and that was it.

SPEAKER_02 9:43

And that was just said yes, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 9:45

So then, so I mean, if you're not good at drawing, maybe this is my ignorance around how fashion or clothing works, but who do you I imagine had to do your first drawing? So you are the one that designs, I don't know if you still are the one that designs your clothes, but you are the one that had to design the original range.

SPEAKER_02 9:59

Yes, and you have you can design it, but a lot of the designing happens inside of my head. Like I have an image of what I want, I can't easily get that onto paper. Yeah, I would usually do like a sketch to help me figure out the pattern, but for the first eight years of my business, I made all the patterns for the clothes. So it the design happened during that process because is that not typical?

SPEAKER_04 10:26

So what normally someone would draw the d the the design, the the clothing how it's meant to look, and then from there you work out the pattern. Yes. I see.

SPEAKER_02 10:33

I think that is atypical. Okay, and also I would often not even have like a clear, clear, I would have a sort of more or less idea of what it looked like in the drawing, and then as I'm making the pattern, I'm like, ooh, it'll be nice if that seam matched up with that seam.

SPEAKER_04 10:48

And oh, it'd be nice if so it was much more of like a sort of 3D or it's interesting that you say that's a non-typical way that it works, and then maybe what I'm hearing is that you don't really understand the typical way that it works. And maybe, I mean, if I reflect on myself and my journey as a lawyer, I think one of the strengths for I said league leads was that I I had I had very little experiences working as a lawyer, or certainly in a in a law firm. So it was designing the whole thing in a way that felt right to me, and I think there's been success in that. It sounds like you're saying something similar, like you didn't have the the blueprint for how fashion works, and so you just did it what worked for Hannah, and that's seemed to resonate.

SPEAKER_02 11:23

Yeah. And it's been a bit of a transition now that we have a design team, and um I can't really draw the things for them, but luckily some of them are good at drawings. I describe things in detail. Um but I think similarly it took me a while to figure out that you know, when I first started, I was like designing things that I thought people would want to buy and we were doing okay. And then eventually it was only really when I started being like, Oh, why am I feeling this pressure? Let me just design the things that I want to wear. Then it started working, you know. So yeah, there's something about the like not knowing what you're meant to do, feeling the pressures of outside, you know. I if even even now I sometimes feel a bit like, oh, I can't draw it, you know. But it actually doesn't really matter in the end.

SPEAKER_04 12:19

No, well, I think your business has grown past that point. And again, if I reflect to myself, I'm I'm not the strongest lawyer anymore at my company, and that's kind of the way it's supposed to be. Yeah, right. But uh it wasn't always like that. The value is in the journey to get there because at some point you had to be the strongest at every role.

SPEAKER_03 12:33

Yes.

SPEAKER_04 12:34

Um, do you remember was there because I mean, just to fast forward, today your your brand is quite successful. You've got stores and it's it's uh you've got an online presence, you this is your career and your business. Do you do you remember a moment that it became a success, or was that more of a kind of slow burn? So you had your first range in that lady's store, she's like said, cool, we need it in three weeks' time. And then what was it after that? Was it like a waterfall that the jobs kept coming, or was it a more of a slower process? And at what point did we like cool? This is now my company and this is what I do.

SPEAKER_02 13:03

It took a while. Um for the first few years, I was really just in sort of one or two shops. It was really hard to get even people even to stock my brand. Um, I was working at the biscuit mill selling there, which was like an amazing thing for designers back then. You really just get cash in your hand that you can go and buy. I think so, but remember at the time it was the only market. Right, now and it just had like incredible attention.

SPEAKER_04 13:32

Yeah, basically.

SPEAKER_02 13:35

It was it was one of the very few places at the time that you could even buy local design. So people came in like spending. Yeah, I have no idea, maybe it's still like that, but at the time, there's so many designers that I was at the Biscuit Mall with in the beginning that now have like very successful brands. Alexander Hoyer, Marion from Good Clothing, Mungo and Jemima, uh okay and Stephanie Roop, uh Sitting Pretty, I think was there. So these are AKJP started there with Adrian Cater's.

SPEAKER_04 14:05

Yeah, yeah. So that's amazing. So everyone started off at this little hub. I love that.

SPEAKER_02 14:10

Yeah. Then uh we opened at the watershed sort of two years in, and that was extremely difficult for the first year.

SPEAKER_04 14:18

Why?

SPEAKER_02 14:19

Because it was a new concept. It was remember it had moved from the it had changed over from the like blue and red shed.

SPEAKER_04 14:26

So yeah, and became a much more high-end. I mean, that's that's sort of it's funny that you mentioned the biscuit mills, the place that all the young designers cut their teeth. It feels to me like the watershed is like it's like once you took a step up with your business, you got something in the watershed. And I know for a lot of our clients who are in fashion or small brands, like it's been incredibly successful. Incredible, yeah. Do you still have a store there?

SPEAKER_02 14:45

I don't, but I we we moved, we like graduated out of the watershed into the Alfred Mall, which is where Africa is. But I mean, we were there from the day it opened, and it was just that first year that was hard. And I was also figuring out my brand, what I was trying to sell, what I was trying to say. Plus, it was like it's a huge step to go from pretty much just you and the company to hiring your first person that now is open seven days a week, and like you get called if they're sick, and like it's just quite a hardcore thing, and so that was 2014. So what was it? I would say for the first five years, I was feeling like I don't know. How many years have been around? Now we are we up in 2012, we 12, well, 14. Math is also not my strong point.

unknown 15:39

14.

SPEAKER_04 15:40

No way. Um okay, so what was so was their moment in your mind?

SPEAKER_02 15:46

So for me, which I know is quite late, um, we already had opened up in Parkhurst, and that had done pretty well, but we were just kind of it there was growth at a very slow and steady pace. And for me, it still felt like maybe this isn't, maybe the work doesn't really match the reward. Maybe maybe I should cut my losses and do something else. We were still had a very small team, so I was still doing a lot of the work and and in and in operations a lot. For me, the time that I actually felt the big success was actually quite late. It was just after COVID.

SPEAKER_04 16:24

Oh wow, why what happened?

SPEAKER_02 16:26

Um, COVID was like interesting because we had stores, we had staff, we had so much, but I sort of hadn't graduated in my head to the leader of a company. I was still like the fashion designer and I was still making patterns sometimes and sometimes doing my own grading and like just madness. And that uh and I also am like the reason why I get a bit like prickly about calling myself an entrepreneur is because I am pretty risk averse, you know. So I don't throw myself easily into I think I'm much better at it now, but I didn't in the beginning throw myself into risk, which you need a bit of that pressure.

SPEAKER_04 17:04

Yes, yes, and no. I mean, there's variants of the of that. I think there's a lot of power in being a risk-averse well as an entrepreneur, you're one of the more risky people in society, but you don't need to be the r risk everything for a risk it sort of entrepreneur. I think there's a lot of power in being conservative as an entrepreneur.

SPEAKER_02 17:20

And I think that the so during COVID, we obviously had to go home, and that gave me time to sort of reassess what I wanted this business to be, what who we were, what we were selling, what made us. All of a sudden, I had to now make myself visible online. And in order to do that confidently, I had to have a good answer, you know, for what I thought we were, and I didn't up until that point. It just wasn't clear to me at all. And I spent some time, my sister was staying with me at the time, and she would just like ask me questions, ask me questions, ask me questions, like what is it, what is it, and then just like write down.

SPEAKER_04 17:55

Is that Roz?

SPEAKER_02 17:55

Sean's okay.

SPEAKER_04 17:57

I gotta because I can just picture Roz doing.

SPEAKER_02 18:00

They both help, they both help, but Sean was actually in my house, and and at the same time, we obviously um had to go online, which we hadn't been before. We we had been online, but like we would forget that we even had an online stuff.

SPEAKER_04 18:13

Wow, as late as 2020s, yeah. Okay, it's amazing.

SPEAKER_02 18:17

I just we just didn't have the time to focus on it.

SPEAKER_04 18:19

It's funny. Maybe if I like zoom out, it feels like like South Africa's had an online culture for shopping for ages, but you're right, it probably was very, very different not that long ago, just before COVID.

SPEAKER_02 18:29

I don't know anyone that was doing extremely well before COVID online.

SPEAKER_04 18:32

Yeah, you know. I mean, I did one of these episodes with Nick from Shelf Life, and I think he had a very similar story around COVID there. Online became their biggest um biggest.

SPEAKER_02 18:40

Everyone expected you to have an online shop.

SPEAKER_04 18:42

Yeah, but no one wanted to buy it online.

SPEAKER_02 18:44

But no one bought from there. And it was and because no one bought from customers are the fucking worst. Because no one bought from there, you would all of a sudden randomly get like an online sale and realize that's like from two years ago you don't have that thing anymore. So it was more of a headache. Um so then we're at home. So so number one, we were working on our online store. I was figuring out who what I wanted to say our brand was. I also had to do like all sorts of things like tours applications and all of this sort of more like like background running the company stuff, which kind of for the first time clicked me into the headspace that actually this is what I need to be doing, and and doing the strategy and figuring out and having other people. And remember, we our team, like the manager that had been at the watershed um and and anyone in the team was now working with me directly and I could delegate to them. Yeah, and it made everything go a lot smoother, you know, because they were they didn't have their normal jobs because the stores were closed. Yeah, yeah. So I just had more people able to actually execute things so I could plan and they could execute, and which I number one enjoy more, and number two, you just get a lot more done.

SPEAKER_04 20:01

I think it's it's again to reflect on on that time for me, it was um I have a similar memory of it where and I resonate with what you said a second ago around you didn't think of yourself as the head of the company, and there's something around the crisis of COVID where it was like, cool, this is very real, like there's no guarantee that we survive this. And I think maybe it's like a privilege point of view that for a lot of people, like we didn't have to in our business deal with the real crisis. Maybe I mean uh my business is a little bit younger than yours, but roughly about the the same age, and it's and there's an aspect of like maybe maybe we didn't have to deal with crisis, and crisis became this was the first big thing, and that forces you to be like, cool, if I want to get this done, there's a lot of people that now relying on you getting it done. Um, their jobs, their rents, their bonds are relying on you making this work.

SPEAKER_02 20:49

So no one else is gonna do it.

SPEAKER_04 20:50

So pull up your socks, you are the head of this company. And like what does the head of this company do?

SPEAKER_02 20:56

And for me, I I enjoyed it, you know. That was the section that I actually that was the part of it that I enjoyed.

SPEAKER_04 21:03

Yeah. So Hannah, clothing to me, I mean, and you've kind of uh um said this, but to me, like the one of the things that I've marveled at clothing labels is that it feels like it's a it looks from the outside like a lot easier than it is, right? It's like you've got a couple of products, just manufacture them. Like it's but my experience in working with uh with clothing labels as clients is that it's it's a much, much harder business than what it looks like. Um and you said, for example, that first year at the at the watershed was tough. Why was that why is clothing so difficult?

SPEAKER_02 21:35

I think the product is quite complicated because remember, you are each style has got um multiple sizes, you've got multiple colors. You then also have to be involved in the manufacturing process, which like a million things can go wrong.

SPEAKER_04 21:52

Okay. Um Do you manufacture yourself?

SPEAKER_02 21:54

We manufacture partly ourselves and partly externally. Sometimes I have these dreams where I just imagine myself having tried to sell a more simple product. So a product that doesn't have sizes, that doesn't decide aspect.

SPEAKER_04 22:06

Is it the sizing aspect?

SPEAKER_02 22:08

Remember, it's not only sizes like size eight, ten, twelve. It's like um if you're selling a certain type of garment, it'll only work on people with a certain type of body type, really. You know? So you're working with all the different shapes and variations in people's bodies, plus all the different shapes and variations in the styles, then the sizes of those but that's not your problem in the sense of like you you release something.

SPEAKER_04 22:36

It's and it that feels like it's the customer's problem. Like it's we you you're either going to be able to shop at Hannah Levery or you're not going to be or is that not the case? Or you are you trying to get a garment that works for as many body types as possible.

SPEAKER_02 22:48

Those are the garments that will ultimately be your bread and butter. I see okay or the vast majority of people.

SPEAKER_04 22:55

Okay. That's not that so that's that's complex to get right.

SPEAKER_02 22:59

And that's complex to get right and we've gotten it right with a couple of styles over the years but when you get that one right um it's magic. And it's also uh you know it's it's the customer's problem but it's it's definitely your problem. Because in order to sell a lot of them in order to make people feel good you've got to have the right range of things some things that are made specifically for certain body types some things that are made for more general um you've also you're also contending with people's like weird warped um body image issues um it's a very um clothing can be quite a like sore spot for people when they're shopping you know there's emotion involved it's interesting to me to think that as a as a person running the label I mean yeah that that that you get involved in the idea of like you maybe that's the why in what you're trying to do right there's something about you're not just selling something to cover people's body you're selling something which is their armour for the world right and maybe that's and I think one of the things that I really resonated with when I was having those discussions with my sister in my lounge was that there isn't you know you people take on that it's their bodies that are wrong when something doesn't look nice. And actually weirdly I do find this different with men and women like men will walk into a store and be like all these shirts are so terrible because the sleeves are too short. Whereas if a woman tries on that then she'll be like oh my gosh my arms are so long and it's it's like incredibly satisfying when you can have multiple people walk into a store of all different shapes and sizes and everybody can find something that they genuinely feel good in. There is something incredibly magical and satisfying about that because people because you do you do behave differently you feel differently if you look really good. And sometimes you know in the past I think there was a big focus on trends. I do think it's dissipating a bit at the moment. So if your body type just didn't work with that particular trend then then you just like looked terrible for the next year.

SPEAKER_04 25:15

Yeah I mean I I mean I see it a bit more now I mean I I'm the sort of person that does most of my shopping in in one batch and mostly at Woolworths or like never owned any jeans that weren't Levi's most of my shirts or my shirts are country road I've got my specific things that I do but I've seen like there are to like for some reason the Slimfoot shirts are in now and there's those textured material t-shirts and it's and it does feel like it for me it goes through like every couple of years very thin material shirts with a wide neck t-shirts are in and then I'm like brilliant I can buy clothing this year. So maybe maybe I mean it feels still feels like they're trends but yeah you're right definitely still trends but you can still go to certain you can still go out and find things that aren't that there's a lot more variety I suppose as well um okay so the product is difficult you're dealing with people's sensitivities that are difficult. Manufacture I imagine is quite difficult the sourcing do you deal with needing to source from other countries is that is that difficult?

SPEAKER_02 26:13

No we need to source from other countries. I think I mean fabric supply the choice of what we have here is quite slim because um because most of the time you're not big enough or capital rich enough to be able to import it yourself. So you're buying from what the suppliers are bringing in the suppliers are bringing in what the big retailers are asking for and then yeah so you're quite limited in the the the options of fabrics.

SPEAKER_04 26:42

We have decided years ago to simplify the fabrics that we use so we really only use a handful of fabrics and we just buy those on repeat and different so it seems to me I mean a lot of what you're saying is that everything around what you do is kind of keeping it simple keeping to like the basic staples that people need and that doesn't maybe that's reflecting back to where you started and saying it's not a fashion brand it's a clothing brand.

SPEAKER_03 27:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 27:03

Um do you I mean are you someone that follows fashion do you find do you follow these Milan fashion weeks and and see what's the latest trends and and kind of update your your knowledge base and your designs around that or is it again you kind of ignore the world and make what feels right.

SPEAKER_02 27:18

Yeah I I don't and remember again this wasn't like this wasn't like a childhood passion of mine. So it's not like I've ever been doing that really you know I used to do it as homework in college yeah but it's not like it's not um it's not a major interest of mine. So no and also sometimes what we found is that a lot of our customers are coming to us because they want to they they know that they can find sort of more classic styles that aren't going to be very trend specific. And sometimes when we've done a little bit too much research we see that we end up producing very similar to things to everybody else. Okay. And we're along those lines and we don't want to be that you know we don't even want to have the same colours necessarily we don't want to have the uh and for us it actually dilutes what we're trying to do.

SPEAKER_04 28:02

Yeah which is yeah so so one more question just on the fashion behind it then I want to dig a little bit more into your into your actual business um I'm cheating here because you you've told me this answer before but I I found it so interesting and that's kind of one of the reasons I wanted to interview you. You mostly do women's clothing and because you've told me in the past men's clothing is really difficult but I found the answer interesting. Why is it that men's clothing is difficult? Just men we are just difficult. Men. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 28:32

I do think that because the clothing is even more simple with men like a t-shirt is a t-shirt a shirt is a shirt a pair of pants is a pair of pants then the variations in men's bodies are more problematic. If the sleeve just sits two centimeters too short it looks weird. If it sits two centimeters too long it looks weird. If the sleeve on your arm or you know those little tiny details make a difference. Whereas in women's clothing they're able to belt things they're able to roll up their sleeves they're able to access accessorize so the so the the width of people that can fit into that one garment is bigger like them um do you find men are going into boutique stores and buying clothing not ours. Okay.

SPEAKER_04 29:14

So even if even if you nail it you still don't have the cut you rely on birthday presents and Father's day.

SPEAKER_02 29:26

And our clothing is beautiful and it's great.

SPEAKER_00 29:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 29:29

But also remember we're not like advertising ourselves as a very masculine brand so it's walking it's usually a customer walking in that is female and then she's got her son or her brother or her husband. Yeah. And that is the market that we like to catch and we will continue to catch that tiny little bint but nothing makes me happier than when Leah comes home with an item of clothing nothing.

SPEAKER_04 29:52

It's my favorite it's always nicer than I would have bought.

SPEAKER_02 29:57

But you know we started making this menswear line and we made a classic linen pair of pants a classic shirt and an oversized t-shirt and another linen shirt and a pair of linen shorts and then we branched out in winter and we made some really cool styles like mandarin collars and out of slightly different fabrics and the things that sell are the linen shorts the linen shirt and the linen pants and we will continue to make those got you and maybe that also goes back to your question about why fashion is hard. I think if you are a like if you are really passionate about your own designs and it's difficult for you to listen to that customer what's actually selling you can really easily get yourself into trouble. Right. Yeah because you can love your way into bankruptcy of your stuff yeah very often the styles that I love in our current range are not the ones that are selling the best.

SPEAKER_04 30:54

Yeah well I think that that's a that sounds to me like a power in your business that you just listen you're build basically building for your customer and not for not for what you think is going to work or or the risk that you want to do. And I want my business to succeed over. So so I want to dig further into that so my first question is is one that's I've always wanted to ask this of someone in your position and so now finally have an opportunity because you're here to answer questions. What's it like to have your name as a brand? So when you see your name the brand in a magazine or you walk through the garden centre and you see it there and you're just seeing your name what's that like I don't love it.

SPEAKER_02 31:28

Okay I don't I don't love it.

SPEAKER_04 31:31

I wish you had gone back and named it ladies' clothing too pretty well why why did you name it Hannah Levery and why don't you love it?

SPEAKER_02 31:40

Remember go back to the beginning where I started in like three weeks. Okay and I you didn't have time for brand words and I literally had designed a logo in my third year. Okay and it was Hannah written halfway forwards and halfway backwards in palindrome. Yeah very very trendy in the early 210s yeah and that's what I called it it was Hannah collection.

SPEAKER_04 32:04

Oh gosh and let's say if your first iteration didn't make you cringe then you didn't release fast enough and clearly you release quick and it makes you cringe and then soon after that I just like knew we needed to change it because it was such like a childlike looking logo and I couldn't come up with a name.

SPEAKER_02 32:25

I just like could not think of a name and eventually I settled on one which was like noon and then realized there was like a whole bunch of other clothing businesses that were called noon. And eventually I just quickly changed it to Hannah Lavery with the intention to not keep it that for very long.

SPEAKER_04 32:40

Got you.

SPEAKER_02 32:41

The thing about branding is 10 years later and now actually I always threaten that I'm going to change it. The first shop that I opened where the name was actually written like on the wall outside in metal was in Park Earth and I I didn't hold a launch. I didn't tell anyone that we were opening because I was so terrified and I was like if we fail it's my name that it's just gonna be this empty store that quickly closes down.

SPEAKER_04 33:10

So I found it terrifying now it's funny when I see it up in like um stores and stuff now the logo and the brand is so separate to me that I almost don't like connect them in writing but I still would prefer it to be something else I just still can't think of a name can you I can Hannah Lavery I I think that no there's something about clothing that if I think about a lot of the the the the local clothing stores or not even local a lot of the big yeah you know international brands Kelvin Klein um I mean it shows my name Fag Gucci I'm trying to think of other clothing brands uh Versace these are all named after people maybe that is just a trend in fashion if local ones Jane Falcon or or yeah you know that there's something about fashion that that is more of the trend whereas in I don't know tech you know obviously not I think it is I mean I think that's what I was going with when it was like the simplest thing it speaks to the designer behind it.

SPEAKER_02 34:06

Eventually I might just change my own name.

SPEAKER_04 34:08

Okay but I can imagine I mean it's uh yeah I can imagine that's you know reading is a learned reflex. You know we're not born w knowing how to do it but once you do it you can't unread something you can't look at writing and not read it. Your brain does it's a reflex. Your brain doesn't have the capacity to see letters and not interpret them. And so every time you see your name up there you've got to register that. So it's interesting that in some way you've kind of it's become the name of the business and not your personal name.

SPEAKER_02 34:40

And I mean I guess you know I say that I don't like it but um I guess it's probably also like you've got to have a little bit of stab of dopamine every time you have a little like ooh that's me.

SPEAKER_04 34:53

Yeah I think maybe one of the trends that I I see again I reflect on it my myself I think maybe our entrepreneurial journeys just seemed quite similar our personalities seem a little similar like this but there's something about the quiet success of an entrepreneur. Somebody didn't plan for success it wasn't their big passion that they went and rode out to do this thing. It just sort of happened almost by chance and because they the dots of their skill set was put together they were like they match the dots be like oh I can do this thing. And I think that myself that as a as a commercial lawyer I was also into public law didn't know I'd be a commercial lawyer and it just turned out I understood it and was good at it and I liked running a business. But I think there's something about the quiet the there's a little bit of uh I don't want to say embarrassment or a little bit of a lack of self-confidence around what you like um maybe imposter syndrome a little about what what you your success but something in that it like it just it's attractive it makes people it makes it more successful you know like you think so I think so I think that there's something maybe maybe the words humility humility there's something about the humility in it that makes people attract to the brand yeah and attract to what you're doing and so I guess that is the feedback we get a lot on like my social media presence is that I'm just like lilya just being 100% but it's but it's good right and it makes it it makes people intrigued in it and it's maybe there's something about you it means means you keep to s to a brand and clothing which is quite simple in what you do because you're not trying to do you're not trying to be high fashion you're just trying to be Hannah and there's there's a lot of value in that for business. Yeah maybe that's my uh my little psychological assessment on your good um who do you see as your competitors is that other sm clothing labels is it wool words that Timu like like what's a competitor to you at the moment in the the position that you're in what do you mean by competitor like people that I have to like steal the sales from yeah I guess like well that's a great question right and it's interesting if you maybe you don't think about this much but like what is the who who if people are buying clothing your your target market who are they buying from if they're not buying from Hannah or do you not is that not something that really comes into I think there's two types of competitors the one is that we always have to make sure that we are that we are different enough and that we are getting our story across enough so that people see the value in buying from us and not from like HM and Zara.

SPEAKER_02 37:28

Yeah right and that is a real competition of sales I think that's like a sort of direct um because we're we're never going to be as cheap but so our quality is something that we have to keep um banging on about the story the quality of your of locally made small factory is going is it going to be better the quality than Zara or Woolworths? Yes I think than Zara and Woolworths but maybe not necessarily like country road. Gotcha. Right? Because remember that's all about cost and and we are still making things handmade and we will still make mistakes and we will still have slip stitches and we will still have but we spend more time on it than I think the average HM clothes for sure. Yeah and the average Zara clothes you know but if you're going to sort of more high-end international brands then no not necessarily just to to pause for a second I I listened to this podcast a while ago about Hermes the um the leather company or the fashion company and they they do everything but all their stitching is done by hand.

SPEAKER_04 38:31

There was an interview with the with their CEO and that's a I mean the company's been around for almost a hundred years and they said they're not they don't stick to by hand because of any ethic around it or any belief in like they it needs to be handmade. They said the minute a machine can do a better job hand stitching than a hand, they will move to a machine but at this point they still haven't found like the machine doesn't exist. So they still stitch by hand because that's the best way to do it.

SPEAKER_02 38:54

I mean just to be clear we're not hand stitching our garments we're using a sewing machine.

SPEAKER_04 38:59

I think you're not hand stitching it but there's something about like like intimate care in each garment and doing something small about it.

SPEAKER_02 39:09

I'm just pictured you're sitting there still knitting your garments in front of the fire imagine oh goodness no okay so HMs the HMs and Soros of the world they're a competitive competitors they're a competitor in terms of like cost for cost cost um comparison right and uh then obviously like in terms of competitors of brands that are other local brands those local brands are we're obviously all vying for a similar group of people because the socio like the group of people that are in a demographic socioeconomically that can afford our clothing is pretty small in this country and we're all vying for the same um group but we still haven't gotten to the point that we have enough of those brands that they aren't yeah the more of them that are doing better the more the more trust in local brands.

SPEAKER_04 40:05

Well exactly I think if the rising tide ra raises all boats and essentially if you think about the market as you you local brands or boutique stores are trying to convince people not to buy fast fashion yes then you're all in the same boat against the the the big retailers.

SPEAKER_02 40:18

Yes and there's something about that sort of clustering of those brands like a garden center yeah there's so many local brands now and that's only increasing everybody's yes you know because now you're a destination as a group.

SPEAKER_04 40:29

And are there are there like new Hanners popping up and uh with with like young in the like young fashion brands that are popping up all the time or do you not see that? Presume so you don't have people saying hey I'd love to to prick your brain about how you did it.

SPEAKER_02 40:45

No no we actually don't get that very but I mean I guess um more recently I I don't know when they started but like um re threads I think started quite a few years after us and she's doing incredibly well um such a big fan of what she's doing and she's doing it in a very unique way. Me and B started way after us and they're huge now you know it's been amazing to see their growth.

SPEAKER_04 41:12

And the and the Timu I mean one of the trends I think that's popping up in the world of fashion right now is stores like Timu Machine where people order like directly from suppliers in China. Is that is that something which is in your like I suppose fast fashion do you see yourself as like is that as this competitor this this this existential threat to local brands or oh there's so much talk about this and I I I I don't think that's a huge threat on us at this stage because the the whole value of Timu is that it's incredibly affordable.

SPEAKER_02 41:43

So those you know it's so much more affordable than ours that it's almost hitting a completely different market. And that quality we definitely are better than and since since Timu has been around we haven't seen we've only seen growth on our online stores you know okay so yeah so for me I don't I think that is a very different customer. Gotcha you know yeah I mean and I think it has a place in South Africa because there's a lot of people with very low affordability that had now have access to such a bigger I think the thing for me it's like I mean not that I've ever shopped in Timur it's really not not my cup of tea.

SPEAKER_04 42:17

I mean I try I'm not trying to introduce new social media and consumerism into my life. But I think the thing which I think it adds value is it gives people such a wide uh such a lot of choice that they can suddenly choose things that they couldn't have chosen before and the the the expense part is almost secondary in my mind. The fact that it's affordable is secondary with the fact that you can see a leather jacket that's that you like which I don't know where you would maybe like yeah just maybe people have the ability to find things that they want to wear and ordering leather jackets off Timu? I assume so people I don't know I have no idea is that is that not what they're ordering I have no idea you really don't follow competitors I would be surprised I mean it's funny but maybe when I think about where we started off talking uh just before the mics came on about AI and uh the existential threat there is something about in the the you know career safety going forward where where when you started in growing up and you you know your dad said you go to law school because that's safe. Whereas it turns out you know software development professional services these things were safe careers whereas the truth is it's like that's very unclear at the moment and almost the safest career is if you can do something boutique irreplicable handmade like my wife is an artist that's you know that those seem to be the careers that that people as as everything becomes immediately available and replicable if you can do something unique and human made that might be the value that's that stands you so maybe yeah as as the rise of fast fashion happens sticking to boutique and not following that trend might be the thing which which is sustainable.

SPEAKER_02 43:57

And human stories that come behind the products because that is people people love a story. I mean people just like to connect with things.

SPEAKER_04 44:05

Yeah. You've mentioned that a couple of times today in the story about behind you guys. Uh why do why do you feel that that's so important communicating your story and your your I think it's just that there's people behind it.

SPEAKER_02 44:14

You know it's that there are people that you can imagine as b being part of your like wider circle or something that are actually behind it and that you're actually supporting yeah. And I think that that there's a connection in that and you know even our social media team that is now all over our socials they have their own sort of almost individual following yeah and and I do think that there's something about the knowing actually who makes your garment just I think it's got power in it. And maybe I'm just being stupid about the like competitors and the and the threats and the and that the story's gonna matter but at the moment I haven't seen it. But for instance in in one way it is mattering in the instance in jewelry at the moment there is a huge shift to this tarnish free jewelry which is so different. What's that? Tarnish free jewelry I don't know if you it's everywhere now that you'll put you'll wear gold that is gold plated but it's not really gold plated that looks gold but isn't obviously the price of real gold and then it'll stay gold even if you swim and you wash and you shower and you spray perfume and all of that. Whereas in the past the especially like local brands were like making jewelry in silver which is you know obviously like a valuable metal and then plating it in gold but that never lasts very long but it's a more valuable substance it's been made and designed locally whereas now there's a really big demand from customers to have tarnish free jewelry and tarnish free jewelry cannot be handmade. It's machine made and synthetic. But because it lasts longer there's almost a shift happening in like that it's that more it's better. Yeah which is like a tricky thing. So like maybe that sort of thing is also going to start happening in clothing. I don't know.

SPEAKER_04 46:06

I don't think you you're feeling yourself by not following your your competitors I think there's I think whatever recipe you're doing I think what strikes me the most about this conversation is whatever recipe you're doing seems to be working. And I don't think there's a necessity to go retrofit the stuff that you're not doing. It's more just interesting to understand well why does this work? I mean and I guess that's my my my my next question kind of as we start to wrap up a lot of this conversation appears that you it kind of comes across easily like this happens this this business feels easy to you and uh or like the journey's been kind of easy and it's just the pieces have fallen into place. Is that your when you reflect back on it is that your feeling around it or is it is there moments of turmoil and difficult days and long nights that I think there has been definite moments of turmoil.

SPEAKER_02 46:50

For me there was a period in the middle there that I really struggled and it was before I had an established and big enough team. Okay. Um where I was transitioning where I had where it was just me still and I had to build a team and I wasn't following my gut and my intuition and my gut and my intuition just says hire nice people that you like that are kind and I was going for people that maybe seemed a bit more skilled or I was um not hiring fast enough because I was scared. But now that I have a team that I really trust and systems in place so that people can leave and it doesn't break us. Yes. That has been incredibly enjoyable for me and it's freed me up to do the things that I actually love which was the conversation we had when we were at the Iridium event is that you know ultimately I spend maybe four weeks in the year designing clothes and the rest of the time you spend reviewing management accounts but the part that I really enjoy is figuring out which way the company should be going. Yes where we should be opening a new store why things have gone wrong in manufacturing and then going through and sitting down and drawing out process flows of the entire process of the way that a garment moves through and how to make that more efficient and where we need where we have gaps in checks and quality where we you know that sort of that part of the business I love like I love that I love a great spreadsheet yeah there's something the the power of the power of a team is a is is a huge thing.

SPEAKER_04 48:29

And then the power of a team once you've got your business to a point that's just what people see as success right once you've got your business to a point that you can focus on the stuff that you're good at and you've got a team to support you in the stuff that you're not is just yeah I think they'll call it like business coaches will call that the flow state or you know I would call it success. Like it's uh it's it's just a great feeling.

SPEAKER_02 48:50

And that's something that I'm good at you know I'm good at like working out even in areas of the company that I don't work in often I'm very good at going in and looking at it and figuring out where the problems are, you know, and then solving for that. What I'm not and then creating a very structured way of how things should go. What I'm not good at is then doing that implementing that and then I have other people that are good at that.

SPEAKER_04 49:14

No it gets I've I'm working on a legal matter personal legal matter at the moment and I've got one of the lawyers and I drafted a letter of demand this week to to someone and then I had one of the lawyers read it and redraft it and I was like wow amazing I'm so much better at this than I am um what is the what's the next what's the end goal? What's the next step? Is it uh what is is it being acquired by Woolworths? Is it going international?

SPEAKER_02 49:40

Is it keep doing what you're doing and just keep growing what what what what's success what what is success in the next step look like for you for a long time I would have said being acquired but um and with no idea how I would do that and um realizing that I would have to really remove myself out of the company a lot to do that. But in the last few years I've just been really enjoying it you know so um for me it's continuing to grow at a steady and safe ish pace that we've been growing in. I would like to get a few more local stores so that we are able to sort of serve as customers in all the provinces. Gotcha not all the provinces sorry but like in a few of the provinces we would like to open a couple more stores in Gha Teng and then maybe like a Durban area.

SPEAKER_00 50:30

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 50:31

And then another area that we would like to look at is eventually trying to do some small scale exporting okay yeah okay so that is ambition.

SPEAKER_04 50:40

Yeah um yeah again I mean I'm very similar viewpoints and ethics on this but I think the there's so much value that's not talked about with entrepreneurship and just growing a business that grows sustainably each year means you can focus on your life have a good life and I think it's great. I mean yeah I also am had this ambition for a while of being acquired and then we kind of interact with the question well if you acquired and you're successful you'd go back and do the exact thing that you did. I would literally I would you would have all that freedom to go back and do your current job.

SPEAKER_02 51:14

Exactly but maybe it'd be nice to have like a year break in maybe it'd be nice to have and then maybe sell a product that doesn't have sizes that would be lovely. What product doesn't have size well not not pertinent field bar that's always right I always think they've met they've come up with a great product there.

SPEAKER_04 51:30

It's an incredible product I heard the story I don't know if it's true but I think the the the field bar product is designed by someone who had worked a corporate and high powered job or was a successful businessman basically left it then to f to figure out a the ideal product and then built that so that's matt's that's the story that I know about I will be so happy because that validates it wasn't something that's like I'm then it just happened upon no it wasn't like it wasn't like I've got a passion for cooler boxes and to make them better. No fill bar I I got given a fill bar for my as a wedding present and I looked I was like who the fuck gives someone a fucking cooler box today I think it is the only wedding present I use I use it every week since it's in our kitchen I love the fillbox and when you walk around seappoint every single person is carrying yeah but I think so I think that was so maybe that will be Hannah's next life when you go and find you think about the product this product yeah that someone uh a friend of mine said to me the ideal business is no stock no employees and recurring revenue and I spent a lot of time thinking about that ideal business if I ever did something after legalese it would I'll try at least two of those yeah the no stock thing is you've got none of those actually Hannah none of those exactly that's why it's hard and my last question is is working in your passion often means that your passion becomes your work that's an unbelievably poetic sentence. Do you still feel passionate about your work or has it just become work to you?

SPEAKER_02 52:57

Yeah I mean if you ask that question separately if you said like do you have a passion for fashion you know then I would say no I'm not like in my I hate shopping.

SPEAKER_04 53:06

Okay. Do you wear your own clothes?

SPEAKER_02 53:09

Sometimes okay but not a lot I mostly wear exercise clothes or jeans. Okay. But I do love pieces of them I just I'm I'm a wake up and go kind of girl. I'm not like thinking about what I'm wearing that much. But I do wear sorry I wear some of them all the time. But do I love my business and running this company as a whole and what that means you know in all of the different roles that I play in it. Absolutely I love it so much.

SPEAKER_04 53:40

So what drives you to get to the studio every day is to run the business and to be the entrepreneur and not to go and design the clothing anymore.

SPEAKER_02 53:45

And I have like I can I have a lot of flexibility in my life and I often you know every time we open a new store I have a whole new project that is brand new and exciting. Every time something goes wrong in the company I have another focus where I'm going in I'm almost like a consultant where I can go in and go and just ask everyone what's happening, what's going wrong and then if I have a new strategy. So I love that. And like in Cape Town I don't have to go into the studio every day but I go in every day because I like it.

SPEAKER_04 54:14

You get to see the people you work with I really enjoy it. Well that's that's me and I appreciate it. I love the I had a feeling this would be an interesting conversation um I didn't realize there'd be as many similarities between a legal practice and and and a clothing label or maybe it's just entrepreneurs of a similar age of similar sized businesses that the stories are often quite um uh there there's trends in them but uh yeah thanks for sitting down with me I appreciated it and I'm sure people are going to get good value and listen to it to your story. It's been fun thanks for having me this podcast is recorded by Simon Atwell the intro music is by PH Fat. I'm your host Aton Stern for more information about Legalese catch us on legalese.co.today or on the socials