I was ridiculed for wearing leggings so set up up £5.5m business
Out hiking in an all-male group one day, Kasia Bromley was ridiculed for wearing non-traditional outdoor clothing. It was a lightbulb moment to create a women’s brand with “style, performance and fit”, a journey which started with a pair of charity shop jeans, led to near bankruptcy and selling a car and a sofa – with risk and reward aplenty.
Bromley’s Flintshire-based company, Acai Outdoorwear, will mark 10 years in business next year alongside her co-founder husband Joe. So will the Polish-born entrepreneur allow herself a period of reflection despite the business hardships?
“I love a good reflection,” smiles Bromley. “I am a forward thinker. I enjoy it now as I don’t feel what I felt when I did feel the pain. I kind of laugh at it now as it’s been all good learning and I have an anecdote or two.”
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Bromley certainly has the latter as she charts her story from fashion catwalks to mountain trails and a UK-leading women’s outdoor apparel company posting revenues today of £5.5m.
Growing up in rural Poland and dreaming of becoming a fashion designer as an eight-year-old, Bromley attended Edinburgh College of Art in 2012 before applying for an internship at Alexander McQueen. The highlight was working painstakingly on hundreds of hand-cut feathers for the butterfly dress seen in The Hunger Games film.
She returned to Scotland “drained” and soon had fears she might struggle working at the top end of the fashion industry despite having a fearless work ethic. Bromley took to the outdoors — a former boyfriend was a mountain leader who trained at Aviemore — and started hiking in a male group.
“One day I was wearing a T-shirt and a pair of leggings,” she recalls. “I didn’t look like your traditional hiker with the big over trousers and purple jacket. I looked different and they picked up on that. It was a moment of realisation that there was something not quite right with this space.”
She later ripped up her £5 charity shop jeans, started to create patterns and told new boyfriend Joe her idea for Acai on their first date. After quitting her job at a Scottish cycling brand, she then went with Joe to South Korea, where he worked in the oil industry.
Bromley set up a studio with a sewing machine in Busan and says it was transformational, being an hour’s drive from the home of performance fabrics. Soon, she had a collection of 14 handmade outdoor styles, including her soon-to-be signature skinny outdoor trousers.
Returning to the UK, Acai launched at wholesale trade shows in 2016 and received an order for 20 stores at House of Fraser before the retailer went into administration.
In 2017, the duo launched their e-commerce website, but encountered financial trouble six months later. They postponed their wedding, invested their house deposit, used all of Joe’s redundancy money, and sold their car and sofa to buy the stock and continue selling.
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By January 2018, Bromley had inspected their stock in China but were still short of cash. The bank turned down a loan and overdraft, before Joe turned to a pre-order app. It proved a fruitful decision; the strategy generated £10,000 in 24 hours. Its hero trouser product has since sold well over 50,000 units.
With her husband’s technical skills at budgeting on a ‘shoe string’ as well as dealing with manufacturing issues, which saw the company write off £20,000 of stock, Bromley worked as the product creative. Neither had marketing skills nor knew how to build a brand.
“We figured everything out ourselves. We just winged it,” admits Cheshire-based Bromley.
The pair continued attending consumer and trade shows to put themselves in front of customers. “It was really powerful to get us out there in front of our audience,” she adds. “People would flick through our collection, come across our hiking trousers and we knew we had a golden nugget.”
From the 14 original styles, the couple decided to pivot and focus on their trousers. “It’s what saved the business because of that one product,” says Bromley. “It was quite risky and brave to pivot at the time, but we were going to try and compete in that space and leave something special that no one else had. We both felt it was the right thing to do.”
At their first investment round in 2019, the Bromleys closed a deal five days before Kasia was due to have their second child. Post-birth complications meant that she missed their first board meeting, while COVID left its initial investors fearing any growth.
Acai stopped advertising and focused on gardening content — her parents had a flower business — on their social channels. Sales more than doubled and Bromley says they achieved their five-year plan in 18 months.
Its core demographic is for women aged 40-50, while Acai Outdoorwear has also expanded its product range and physical presence with tie-ups with Snow + Rock and Go Outdoors.
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Early this year, the company, which employs 20 staff at its North Wales headquarters, also hired e-commerce expert Beth Malkin as managing director.
“Having people better than you helps you shine in your own way and brings your skill sets to life,” says Bromley. “As a founder, I was losing my product skill set and I lost what the brand stood for after the early days when it was fresh and you know what you’re doing.”
As a result, having sold her first sewing machine, she points to a new one close to her desk. “To bring back the old me who created a product that stood out, I know I can do that more,” she adds.
Finding your niche
It’s important in business to be known and to be amazing for one thing and then branch out. Be niche-specific and build on that foundation. Had we not decided to sack off 13 pieces of our collection and focus on one, we wouldn’t be here today.
Being accessible
We launched our Outdoorsing Club in 2021 with the belief that being outdoors is so good for our mental core wellbeing. We sponsor accessible walks across the UK and looking back to that story in the Highlands, I didn’t look like the traditional hiker. The brand was about building the outdoors as accessible and that it should be part of our everyday lives.
Purpose
You go through a lot as an entrepreneur. Having something with a purpose that you enjoy and totally believe in makes all the difference. Otherwise, it can break you.
Being direct in business
I have made mistakes but the one thing I stand by is that being direct is not rude. It’s honest and sometimes honesty is not what we want to hear.
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