‘the main thing was helping women feel good’
Mother-daughter duo on the idea behind their activewear brand… By
For Irish mother and daughter Paulette and Louise Egan, creating their activewear brand I-SPY clothing was about “helping women to feel good when they’re working out.” The pair set up the fitness and yoga clothing brand eight years ago when Louise was in her Transitionyear after they each noticed a gap in the market.
Paulette told Chic how things have gone from“strength to strength”since the first launch — as she opened up about the inspiration behind the brand.
She said,“i’m a yoga teacher for the last 30 years, and I’d always had an issue in my classes with see-through leggings.
“I said to Louise when she was in her Transition Year in 2016, ‘listen, I was thinking of starting a business and just designing some really good quality leggings’.
“I asked her if she would like to be involved — but of course, I thought she was going to say no.
“She said, ‘yes, I’d be delighted to be involved’ and that’s where it all started. Of course, we’ve gone from strength to strength — and our leggings have gotten better all the time.”
Louise added,“from my point of view — I’ve played sports for my whole life, basically.
“There was always kind of issues with things not being that comfortable — or sports bras and stuff like that being weirdly fitting, and stuff like that. That’s kind of why I decided to join Paulette.
“I think we both thought there were issues there and we wanted to make something that would make people feel good — that was the main thing, helping women to feel good when they’re working out.”
Paulette told how the response to the business has been“great”, which has enabled them to branch out into a variety of different pieces.
She said,“we’ve definitely gone from leggings into more, I suppose, the sports bras and the more casual wear with like, the sherpas.
“We have a nice range for all different age groups and we have a lot in the pipeline that we’re developing.”
Louise added that they“really have the best customers”, who have provided them with feedback throughout the journey — and plenty of suggestions on what to bring out next.
She said,“the response to our original leggings was so good, and we went from there.
“And our customers really helped us actually figure out what to do next — so we had black leggings and they’d be like,‘can you please do these in a capri version’ or ‘can you please do navy’ or ‘can you please do shorts’.
“It’s been really nice that we can use them as a resource, to tell us what to bring out.
“Everyone has been so supportive, we really have the best customers. They’re amazing. Everything we bring out, they love it and they buy it. We are so grateful to all our customers — we get support from all around Ireland,
as well as from abroad. One of our best customers lives in Spain and she’s had like, 30 orders so far.
Paulette added,“on top of that, our customers being the best, I actually think our customer service — I’m in charge of that.
“I will literally ring people, email them, do everything to make them happy. If they’ve got a problem, they can talk to my anytime and it gets sorted.
“No matter what we do, we’ll always sort their problems.
“Even if I have to ring them, people are like, ‘oh my god, Paulette, it’s you from I-spy’ — and I’m like, ‘yes, it’s me, I’m a normal person’. We’re normal people who want to do the best for you. That really works well.”
The businesswoman told how there weren’t really any nerves about the idea of the two of them working together — and how they’ve had “the best craic”along the journey so far.
She said,“we really bounce off each other. Louise, she has her degree in Business and Marketing and I’m kind of the person with, we’ll say, the wisdom and experience of being out there with all the see-through leggings in the world. We actually get on really well, don’t we?”
Louise continued,“yeah. I think it’s a really good partnership and we have a lot of fun, which is great — it makes it a lot easier. I think at the start, we talked about it all the time — our family were like,‘please stop talking!’
“We have learned as we’ve gone along to have time and to balance it. Now, at weekends, we just don’t talk about it. Or like, at holidays and stuff, we’re like, ‘we’re taking a break’.
“I think it’s about balancing it. In general, we talked about I-SPY all the time.”
Louise told how social media has been “core”to their business throughout the last few years as it has enabled them to reach a much wider audience.
She said,“we started on Instagram and when we first started out, we had literally no idea what we were doing.
“And then we kind of grew into it after a time. We got more used to being in front of the camera, and especially Paulette — she used to be so scared to be on camera when we first started out, and now she’s a natural.”
Paulette added,“it’s true, I was petrified. But I just thought, ‘you know what, I’m going to do a bit of practice’ — I’d be in the yoga studio, doing a little practice for myself, and I just thought, ‘you have to do this’.
“I don’t know how we would market without social media — how did people market before, you’d nearly wonder, wouldn’t you? And now she can’t get me off the camera, now.”
Louise told how Instagram was “massive for us”when starting out, as that’s where they“grew our following to start off with”— and things have grown as they have expanded to other platforms, including Tiktok.
She said,“more recently, Tiktok has been great as well — the nature of Tiktok, and how you can reach so many people.
“If you keep posting, you’ll eventually end up with a video that does really well.
“The two of them, I think, have been really, really important for our business.”
Last year, I-SPY Clothing was a part of Tiktok’s Advance Programme.
The pilot programme, which was launched in the summer of 2023, was launched with the aim to support and celebrate small and medium businesses around the country.
It ran from August until December. Each of the six businesses was assigned an account manager and given advertising support.
The goal of the Advance Programme was to learn more about — and provide more support for — the small and medium businesses around the country, as well as the Tiktok community in Ireland.
Louise told how they were“so grateful”to have been chosen to be a part of the initiative.
She said,“we’re so grateful to have been chosen, especially as there were six businesses chosen throughout Ireland. We couldn’t believe it.
“We went and did the initial day to meet them and it was great, I have to say — it was a really good experience.”
Louise explained that the “fantastic”experience enabled her to learn more about the best practices for ads on the platform — and that the whole being a part of the initiative was“really massive for us”.
She said,“the most important thing for me was to be able to learn the best practice and way of doing Tiktok ads.
“Obviously, as a small business, you only have a very limited budget for marketing if you have any at all — and then you don’t want to waste that budget, or put it in and not know what you’re doing. “For them to sit me down and say, this is exactly what you should do step by step, and have everything set up and help me along the way — that was really massive for us.
“And to have money to spend, as well, on Tiktok ads and be able to test everything out and see what works — it was fantastic.
“We definitely saw a rise in sales and a rise in followers on the platform, as well.”
And with a milestone anniversary just around the corner, the pair also opened up about where they see I-SPY going in the future.
Paulette said,“we reckon that by year 10, we’ll definitely be a household name — the next two years, we’re going to go with it.” Louise continued,“i definitely think that going forward, we’d love to get into more foreign markets like the UK or the US. To break into the UK, that would be great — I think that’s the next big step.
“Once we feel like we’ve got a good base in Ireland — which we do, but once we have grown our base in Ireland and have more people know about us — probably the UK would be the next step, to set up base operations there. It’s such a big market and it’s right next door to us.
“I think that going forward, we’re very positive about where we can bring the brand and what we can do with it, you know?”
“WE HAVE LOTS OF FUN WHICH IS GREAT. IT MAKES IT EASIER.”