Co-founder Kasia Bromley traded haute couture for women’s hiking gear.
One day, hiking in a group of men, Kasia Bromley was ridiculed for wearing non-traditional clothing outdoors. It was a light-hearted moment to create a women’s brand with ‘style, performance and fit’, a journey that started with a pair of jeans from a charity shop, led to near-bankruptcy and the sale of a car and a sofa – with plenty of risk and reward.
Bromley, Flintshire-based company Acai Outdoorwear will next year mark 10 years in business with her co-founder husband Joe. So will the Polish-born entrepreneur allow herself a period of reflection despite the difficulties in business?
“I love a good reflection,” smiles Bromley. “I’m a forward thinker. I love it now because I don’t feel what I felt when I felt the pain. I laugh about it now because it was a good learning and I have an anecdote or two.”
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Bromley certainly has the latter as she charts her story from catwalks to mountain trails and a leading UK women’s outdoor clothing company with a turnover of £5.5m.
Raised in rural Poland and dreaming of becoming a fashion designer at the age of eight, Bromley attended Edinburgh College of Art in 2012 before applying for an internship at Alexander McQueen. The highlight was the painstaking work on hundreds of hand-cut feathers for the butterfly dress seen in The Hunger Games.
She returned to Scotland “exhausted” and soon feared she might struggle to work at the top of the fashion industry, despite having a fearless work ethic. Bromley took to the outdoors – an ex-boyfriend was a mountain leader who trained in Aviemore – and started hiking in a group of men.
“One day I was wearing a T-shirt and a pair of leggings,” she recalls. “I didn’t look like your traditional hiker with big pants and a purple jacket. I looked different and they understood that. It was a moment when I realized something was wrong with this space.”
Acai Outdoorwear’s outdoor skinny pants have sold over 50,000 pairs.
She later tore up her £5 charity shop jeans, started designing and told new boyfriend Joe her idea for Acai on their first date. After quitting her job at a Scottish cycling brand, she 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 signature outdoor skinny pants.
Back in the UK, Acai launched at wholesale trade shows in 2016 and landed an order for 20 stores at House of Fraser before the retailer went into administration.
In 2017, the two launched their e-commerce site, but ran into financial trouble six months later. They postponed their wedding, invested their savings, used all the money Joe had laid off, and sold their car and couch to buy the stock and keep selling.
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By January 2018, Bromley had inspected his stock in China but was still out of cash. The bank turned down a loan and an overdraft before Joe turned to a pre-order app. It proved a fruitful decision; the strategy generated £10,000 in 24 hours. His hero pants product has since sold over 50,000 units.
With her husband’s technical skills of budgeting on a “shoestring” as well as dealing with production problems which caused the company to lose £20,000 of stock, Bromley worked as a product designer. He neither had marketing skills nor knew how to build a brand.
“We figured it all out ourselves. We got high,” admits Bromley, from Cheshire.
Kasia Bromley, co-founder of Acai Outdoorwear.
The pair continued to attend consumer and trade shows to get in front of customers. “It was very powerful to get us out there in front of our audience,” she adds. “People were browsing our collection, giving away our hiking pants, and we knew we had a golden nugget.”
From the original 14 styles, the couple decided to pivot and focus on their pants. “It’s what saved the business because of that one product,” says Bromley. “It was pretty risky and brave to pivot at that point, but we were going to try to compete in that space and leave something special that no one else had. We both felt it was the right thing to do.”
In the first investment round of 2019, the Bromleys closed a deal five days before Kasia was due to have her second child. Complications after giving birth meant she missed their first board meeting, while COVID left her original investors wary of any growth.
Acai stopped advertising and focused on gardening content — her parents had a flower business — on their social media channels. Sales doubled and Bromley says they met their five-year plan in 18 months.
Its main demographic is women between the ages of 40 and 50, while Acai Outdoorwear has also expanded its product range and physical presence through tie-ups with Snow + Rock and Go Outdoors.
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Earlier this year, the company, which employs 20 people at its headquarters in North Wales, 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 set to life,” says Bromley. “As a founder, I was losing my product skills 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, after selling 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.
Find your niche
It’s important in business to be known and amazing for one thing and then branch out. Be niche specific and build on that foundation. If we hadn’t decided to throw away 13 pieces from 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 well-being. We sponsor accessible walks across the UK and, looking back at that story in the Highlands, it didn’t look like traditional walking. The brand was about outdoor building being accessible and that it should be part of our everyday lives.
Acai Outdoorwear co-founders and married couple Kasia and Joe Bromley.
Scope
You go through a lot as an entrepreneur. Having something with a purpose that you enjoy and believe in wholeheartedly makes all the difference. Otherwise, it can break you.
Being straight to business
I’ve made mistakes, but the one thing I stand by is that being direct isn’t rude. It’s honest and sometimes honesty isn’t what we want to hear.
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