Co-founder Kasia Bromley swaps high fashion for women’s hiking gear.
Kasia Bromley was out hiking one day with an all-male group when she was teased for wearing unconventional outdoor clothing. It was the eureka moment to create a women’s clothing brand of “style, performance and fit”, a journey that began with a pair of charity shop jeans and led to near bankruptcy and the sale of a car and a sofa – with great risk and reward.
Bromley’s Flintshire-based company Acai Outdoorwear will celebrate its 10th anniversary next year with her co-founder husband Joe. So will the Polish-born entrepreneur give himself some time to reflect amid business difficulties?
“I love a good reflection,” Bromley said with a smile. “I’m a forward thinker. I enjoy it now because I don’t feel the same way I felt when I was in pain anymore. I kind of laugh at it now because it was all good learning and I have an anecdote or two.”
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Bromley certainly has the latter, as she tells her story, from fashion shows to mountain trails, and as one of the UK’s leading women’s outdoor clothing companies today announced revenues of £5.5m.
Bromley grew up in rural Poland and dreamed of becoming a fashion designer when he was 8 years old. In 2012, he studied at Edinburgh College of Art and later applied for an internship at Alexander McQueen. One highlight was the hundreds of hand-cut feathers crafted for the butterfly dress from the movie The Hunger Games.
She returned to Scotland “burned out” and soon feared she might struggle in a high-end job in the fashion industry, despite her fearless work ethic. Bromley loved the outdoors – his ex-boyfriend was a mountain leader who trained in Aviemore – and started hiking in men’s groups.
“One day I was wearing a T-shirt and leggings,” she recalls. “I didn’t look like a traditional hiker in long pants and a purple jacket. I looked different, and they noticed that. That’s when I realized something wasn’t quite right about this space.”
More than 50,000 pairs of Acai Outdoorwear’s signature skinny pants have been sold.
She later tore off the £5 jeans she bought in a charity shop, started making patterns and told new boyfriend Joe her idea for acai berries on a first date. After quitting her job at a Scottish bicycle brand, she traveled to South Korea with Joe, where he worked in the oil industry.
Bromley said it was transformative when he set up a studio equipped with sewing machines in Busan, an hour’s drive from the home of performance fabrics. Soon, she had amassed a collection of 14 handmade outdoor styles, including her soon-to-be-iconic skinny outdoor pants.
After returning to the UK, Acai launched at a wholesale trade show in 2016 and received an order for 20 stores at House of Fraser before the house went into administration.
In 2017, the pair launched an e-commerce site but ran into financial difficulties six months later. They postponed the wedding, invested the deposit on the house, used all of Joe’s layoff money, sold the car and couch to buy stock and kept selling.
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By January 2018, Bromley had reviewed their inventory in China but were still short of cash. Banks turned down loans and overdrafts before Joe turned to booking apps. It proved to be a fruitful decision; the strategy generated £10,000 in revenue within 24 hours. More than 50,000 pairs of its hero pants products have been sold.
Bromley used her husband’s technical skills in “shoestringing” budgeting and dealing with manufacturing issues, which led to the company writing off £20,000 of stock, with Bromley acting as product creative. They have neither marketing skills nor know how to build a brand.
“We figured it all out ourselves. We just winged it,” admits Bromley, from Cheshire.
Kasia Bromley, co-founder of Acai Outdoorwear.
The two continue to attend consumer and trade shows to get themselves in front of customers. “Having us in front of an audience is really powerful,” she added. “People will browse our collection and see our hiking pants and we know we have a nugget.”
Of the original 14 styles, the couple decided to turn their focus to trousers. “It was this product that saved our business,” Bromley said. “The transformation was quite risky and brave at the time, but we were going to try to compete in this space and leave something special that no one else had. We both felt it was the right thing to do.”
In its first investment round in 2019, the Bromleys closed the deal five days before Cassia gave birth to her second child. Postpartum complications meant she missed her first board meeting, while the pandemic left original investors worried about any growth.
Acai stopped advertising and focused on gardening content on social channels (her parents run a flower business). Sales have more than doubled and Bromley says they achieved their five-year plan in 18 months.
Its core demographic is women aged 40-50, and Acai Outdoorwear has also expanded its product range and physical presence through partnerships with Snow + Rock and Go Outdoors.
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Earlier this year, the company hired 20 staff at its North Wales headquarters and also hired e-commerce expert Beth Malkin as managing director.
“Having people better than you can help you shine in your own way and put your skills to work,” Bromley said. “As a founder, I was losing my product skills and what the brand stood for in the early days of freshness and after you know what you’re doing.”
As a result, after selling her first sewing machine, she pointed to a new one near her desk. “To get back to the person I once was who created a great product, I knew I could do more,” she added.
Find your niche
In business, it’s important to be famous and amazing for one thing and then grow your business. Target a specific market and build on that. If we hadn’t decided to throw away the 13 pieces in our collection and focus on just one, we wouldn’t be here today.
easy to approach
We launched the Outdoor Singing Club in 2021, believing that spending time outdoors is great for our mental core health. We sponsored accessible walking tours across the UK and looking back at Highland Stories, I don’t look like a traditional hiker. The brand is committed to making outdoor activities more convenient and part of our daily lives.
Married couple Kasia and Joe Bromley, co-founders of Acai Outdoorwear.
Purpose
As an entrepreneur, you go through a lot. Having something purposeful that you love and completely believe in makes all the difference. Otherwise, it might break you.
directly engaged in business
I’ve made mistakes, but one thing I stand by is that being direct is not rude. It’s honest, but sometimes honesty isn’t what we want to hear.
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