Jemma, 22, and Catherine, 23, grew the bones of their business while in their final year of university. A year on, they run their clothing brand, Dirty Saint, full time from an office in West Sussex. Lara Spiller investigates the reasons to their success and their attitudes towards work and study.
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LARA/ What prompted you to start a business together?
J/ We bought a large stock of studs and created studded
CATHERINE/ We got a competition brief that was set by
customised clothing and then we made dip-dyed clothing
Graduate Fashion Week while we were in our final year of
last summer. There was some on Tumblr, but it wasn’t really
our Fashion Media and Promotion degree, and we thought it
around, and now our biggest seller is our dip-dye jumpers,
would be a good idea to enter as it would look good on our
they’re our most viewed item on our website.
CVs. The prize was to win space at GFW for a pop-up shop.
C/ And our t-shirts too. Even now, it’s a really popular
We’d already done some research and I’d found a product
product, it hasn’t dropped even though we started selling
that I knew was going to be successful, which wasn’t at the
it over six months ago. It’s good to have a staple product
time, and I knew where I could get it from; it was basically
because if people are buying that it means your income is
camo(flage) and army. I had spoken to Jemma about it initially
consistent, and it gives you the opportunity to experiment
and then we saw the brief and we thought it could fit in really
with new things. If anything stops selling, we’ll customise it
well with that and be our starting place.
and try and sell it in a different way because we don’t want
JEMMA/ We decided to do it two weeks before everything was
anything to go to waste. We give a percentage of what we earn
due in at uni. We didn’t really see it as a business, did we?
to charity and if there’s anything we can’t sell we’ll donate it
C/ No, we just wanted to make a bit of money for summer,
to charity or the homeless.
and just have fun.
J/ With a lot of the army jackets we bought, there was a
J/ We didn’t win the competition. Elle sponsored someone
hole in the cuff or there was a button missing, and we gave
who was established for six months, and had done a lookbook
it straight to the homeless as they appreciate that it’s really
and magazine to go with her company, and we weren’t at
durable and protective. Anything like that, we’ll donate
that stage at all.
because it’s not much of an expense and it’s rewarding to do it.
C/ At that time, we only had ideas and didn’t have anything
C/ The fact that we work for ourselves means we can donate
made, we were just going to make it if we won. So we made
to charity and we have time to volunteer; I’ve applied to
the product we had proposed and tried putting it on eBay.
volunteer for one day a week, whereas if I was working full-
J/ We were one of only two sellers at the time who were
time there’d be no way I’d be able to do that.
selling that product.
L/ How do you know which product is going to be a hit? Do
C/ We stopped selling it when the trend had massively hit.
you know that through trend research?
J/ It was still at quite a peak but everyone started buying the
J/ I think I unconsciously research all the time, I’m such a
same product so we decided to move on.
keen blogger.
C/ When we took our product off eBay, there were over
L/ So you don’t go through fashion magazines or analyse
a hundred people selling the same product, when at the
catwalk trends?
beginning there were two. We realised that was what we
J/ No, I look at blogs and what other people are
needed to be doing every time we refreshed our stock; buying
photographing on the street.
product that wasn’t widely available yet.
C/ We do historical research too, we look at a lot of films.
L/ So what did you move on to after that?
J/ I’m a huge film buff. At the moment, I’m watching every
C/ We started making our own stuff, we just figured that
eighties and nineties film I can think of and it’s amazing how
although some of our stuff isn’t considered ‘on trend’
much research you can get from those.
or fashionable, people are always looking for something
C/ I don’t research as much as Jemma.
different.
J/ We’re such a good partnership because we like doing