Millionaire business mums surviving — even thriving — in lockdown
Home-schooling teenagers. Sewing masks not swimsuits. And cleaning the office themselves. Meet...
This, the sixth year of the Daily Mail’s Aphrodite Mumpreneur Award, is clearly unlike any other. As Covid-19 ravages the world, and with UK consumer spending shrinking by more than a third, it’s the resilience and creativity of small business that may well help Britain weather the storm.
so this year’s awards are little different. This year, as well as looking for brilliant women who have founded and built up businesses while raising children, we intend to celebrate those who are successfully steering their companies through the pandemic — surviving, perhaps even thriving, in these unprecedented times.
so how are some of the previous awardwinners coping with the crisis? here, four of this year’s judges — all exceptionally talented, hugely inspiring women — set out their predictions for the future, explain how our shopping habits could change for the better, and describe the lessons they’ve learned during this nailbiting time. hint: they’re not all bad!
MY SWIMWEAR FACTORIES ARE NOW MAKING MASKS
Former model and 2020 NatWest everywoman Award judge melissa odabash launched her eponymous swimwear brand in 1999. She lives in London with her husband and two daughters, aged 16 and 21.
Designer Melissa Odabash, whose brand was once described by Vogue as the ‘Ferrari’ of swimwear, and whose bikinis are beloved by celebrities including Beyonce, Kate Moss and the Duchess of Cambridge, hasn’t made any swimwear since mid-March. instead, she’s made face masks.
‘We have five factories just outside rome and four of them have been converted to make masks,’ she says. ‘in italy, [the virus] came at people like a wave, they were petrified, and i take my hat off to those who still came in to work.’
The factories were redesigned to keep people apart, and the specialist sewing machines re-purposed for the task. ‘We were perfect for this because we have Lycra machines and we have the elastic.
‘The masks we’re making aren’t medical-grade masks, but they are protective and reusable if you wash them in hot water.’
The italian government is paying her 70 cents per mask, that’s about 60p (the average Odabash bikini, by contrast, costs more than £200), and Melissa hopes to send shipments to the UK too, though not for use in hospitals.
When i speak to her, all physical swimwear outlets are shut. At least, then, her business is still in business, albeit of a radically different kind.
A former model from new Jersey, based in London and married to technology entrepreneur nicolas de santis, who’s half-spanish and half-italian, she sells in 62 countries —and all 62 have been, or still are, in lockdown.
she has furloughed many of her staff in the UK and, at a time of stalled travel and cancelled holidays, few are buying expensive new swimsuits. Yet she’s defiantly upbeat.
‘i’m a resort product and this has happened at the beginning of my season. But i’m not anxious. The world will change and fashion especially will change,’ she says.
‘What i’ve learned is that we can all cut back and live quite well having much less. We’d gone crazy with the amount of clothes we were buying only to throw away. Yes, we all love to shop, but we won’t shop like we don’t care any more.’
Of course, Melissa, 50, hopes we’ll still buy her clothes, as a brand that in some ways represents the antithesis of fast fashion — though she’s also having to
rethink the business to take into account the inevitable hit on turnover.
‘We all need to re-strategise and look at where we were inefficient before — 50 per cent of an entrepreneur’s day is spent problem-solving under normal circumstances.’
Meanwhile, she is staying in her enviably located flat near Hyde Park with her husband and two daughters, Alaia, 21, and Avalon, 16, who have been studying in bikinis on the terrace whenever the sun shines.
On the Queen’s birthday last month, Melissa decided to take her daily walk to Buckingham Palace and saw her best friend, the designer Julien Macdonald, paying similar homage.
‘i know what is happening to some people is horrific, but for others there has been a positive side to this and we need to acknowledge that.
‘i walk through Hyde Park every day and i see things i’d never have noticed before.
Maintaining that positivity, she adds: ‘We have all slowed down — it’s the perfect time to rethink what makes us happy.’