In 2020, a UK entrepreneur invested £12,000 in a fashion side hustle; 4 years later, it generated £6 million a year and had reached an estimated £24 million valuation

Aimee Smale left her fashion buying role at ASOS earning £20,000 a year. She understood how to commercialize products and make a dress sell, but lacked the startup capital to manufacture her own line. To fund the venture, she spent a year designing £10 logos for businesses emerging during the Covid-19 lockdowns. Working through the night, she accumulated £12,000 in savings.

Smale allocated £8,000 directly to production and £2,000 to shipping and sampling. She launched OD Muse in September 2020. Bypassing local manufacturing, she used her industry experience to identify Australian mid-luxury suppliers, securing manageable lead times and minimum order quantities that fit her tight budget.

How £12,000 Became a £6 Million Fashion Brand

Launch day yielded five sales totaling roughly £1,000. Her Instagram following sat at just 500. Two weeks later, the initial run of blazers sold out completely.


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Lacking the cash to scale inventory immediately, Smale tested a new approach. She listed a pre-order for 700 blazer units she had neither received nor paid for. Customers bought every single one, willing to wait five weeks for delivery. That single day generated £56,000.

Growth accelerated through an unexpected conflict. Fast-fashion retailer Pretty Little Thing replicated the signature OD Muse blazer.

A follower noticed the similarity and urged Smale to post the comparison on X. The post went viral. Influencers discovered the original brand and began buying the pieces independently. UK influencer Laa LS posted the OD Muse blazer on her Instagram story. That organic endorsement drove £15,000 in sales in a single day. Smale realized strong product design generated influencer marketing naturally, eliminating the immediate need for paid sponsorships.

OD Muse relies heavily on singular, high-performing items. The initial eight-piece collection saw movement almost entirely from the blazer. Two years later, the pattern repeated.

Smale’s 2022 revenue hovered around £500,000 heading into the fourth quarter. She launched the Pearl Dress for the Christmas season. That single garment grossed £1 million, pushing yearly revenue to £1.5 million. It took hitting that £1.5 million mark before Smale finally paid herself a salary, having reinvested all prior revenue back into stock.

By 2023, the brand generated nearly £6 million in revenue, retaining just over £1 million in profit. Recent individual drops now gross up to £500,000 in a single day.

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E-commerce drove the initial millions, but physical retail provided a competitive moat. Smale opened a Covent Garden location to capture a specific demographic. OD Muse’s customer base historically hovered around a 50/50 split between the US and the UK.

Covent Garden's heavy tourist foot traffic captures traveling American buyers directly. Between November 2023 and mid-2024, the physical store grossed £650,000.

The brand expanded into wholesale shortly after hitting specific internal revenue targets. Smale placed products in Harvey Nichols in the UK, David Jones in Australia, and Bloomingdale’s across the Middle East.

The company now ships 10,000 orders a month. Stock remains the largest overhead cost, deliberately absorbing profits to fund the next growth phase.

Operational gaps appeared early. Smale handled the first £100,000 in revenue alone, packing orders with family members before making her first hire at six months. Customer service suffered for over two years as order volumes outpaced warehouse capacity. Financial missteps occurred, including a lost £50,000 deposit on an aborted Dubai store expansion.

Today, a 35-person team manages the volume. Email marketing through Klaviyo stabilizes the revenue, accounting for 60% of total sales through automated flows and targeted retention campaigns.

Google Ads leads the remaining paid marketing efforts, supplemented by targeted TikTok and Pinterest campaigns, moving the brand past its reliance on purely organic, founder-led social media reach.