- You started your career as a city lawyer—what was the moment you knew you wanted to swap the legal world for fashion entrepreneurship, and how did you go about making that leap?
When I was a lawyer working in London, I remember being seconded out to a client for 6 months. During this time, I didn’t have my own office or designated space where I could leave my work bits overnight in the same way I did when I was at a law firm, as the client had a hot desk policy like many offices in London. This changed my commute as I was now carrying so much back and forth everyday (this was pre-covid when I was in the office 5 days a week!!) including a laptop, lunch, shoes, stationary… the list was endless. When I started looking for a suitable workbag to accommodate all of my daily essentials, I realised there were no brands on the market that were functional, aesthetic and affordable (mid-market price point) aimed at late 20’s upwards and suitable for commuting. There were a lot of bags available but none of the fashionable, minimalist styles were specifically designed for work. I therefore decided to explore this space and focussed on creating my brand, Lawful London, which was aimed entirely at the working woman who wanted an affordable, functional, timeless accessory for everyday wear.
- How did your legal background shape the way you approached building a brand—from operations to mindset?
My legal background taught me to order my thoughts and approach tasks big or small with a structured plan and use thorough research as the foundation for action and delivery. I used these three key learnings from the inception stage to where the business is today. It’s quite easy to get overwhelmed with the volume of tasks that you have to do (single handedly at the start) and also the amount of things that are new and unfamiliar to you that you need to learn quickly in order ensure that your business operates – logistics being a key example of this, so being able to structure your thoughts, plan ahead and research efficiently where required to ensure you’re confident in your decisions, are key skills that I’ve learnt in my legal career which have been helpful when building the brand.
- You work closely with a designer—what are the key principles or values you always bring into the creative process when developing new bags?
All of our products must add value to the customer beyond just aesthetics. The brand is aimed at functionality first so our products are always designed around utility and in most cases technology. We understand that our customer is often the commuter carrying a laptop amongst other daily essentials so when we are in the design process, we ask ourselves, what other things would the customer be carrying besides the laptop and where would these items be placed? How can we make this product more valuable to the customer using it every day? How can we make this bag comfortable when commuting? Is there a way this product can be used for work and weekends to ensure the customer is able to get maximum use of their purchase? We want our customer to feel calm, organised and put-together when using their bag – is this going to be achieved by the designs we are working on? These are key questions we explore when designing to ensure our core principles of functionality, utility and value-add are met for the new products we’re looking to launch as our products need to speak to our key philosophy of being ‘practically beautiful.’
- Lawful London bags are loved for being both elegant and deeply practical. How do you balance your vision for timeless style with the functional needs of modern women, especially commuters and professionals?
This is really difficult as everyone’s expectation of their handbag and its purpose is so different. Some people will only carry a laptop (or perhaps just an iPad), and a few other small bits whereas others will carry significantly more including a gym kit, shoes and a lunchbox so creating a product that is functional enough or small enough for a broad range of customers is challenging in itself due to the difference in expectation based on individual use cases. When we design, I therefore try to create a product in the middle of the two extremes which will incorporate the needs of both the light and heavy packer. This will involve being selective over the functionality we include and only incorporating features that are necessary to avoid the product being overwhelmingly bulky whilst also trying to include compartments and features that we believe our customers will get great use of, such as internal zipped pockets for key storage, as well as the pen holders.
- On a recent panel, you mentioned that you wish you’d taken more risks in your journey—can you expand on that? What held you back, and how do you approach risk differently now?
There’s no playbook for business so when you’re doing it for the first time, it’s quite scary – you really have to follow your instinct and accept that you’re learning on the job and some things will work out and other things will cost you in both time and money, but there’s always a lesson to be learnt.
I’ve been quite risk adverse in my business up until the last year or so. I wish I had tried new things sooner, like exploring more with creators and different types of content for the brand, releasing more products quicker to test the market and also hiring a little sooner than I did.
I didn’t take the risks because I was scared that perhaps these things wouldn’t work for the brand and would ultimately result in being a cost to the business that I would have to absorb which is difficult when you’re self-funded. However, I think it’s important to test and pivot as early as you can to understand your customer – what they like and don’t like and what they want to see more of, from both a product and marketing perspective. Knowing this would have helped me to achieve quicker growth. Now I have more of an appetite for risk, I’m willing to experiment with new products and projects and I’m more accepting that failure is inevitable and part of the business journey but I also recognise that it’s important to be sensible in my decisions whilst also remaining hopeful that a new avenue that I explore will help to grow the brand, even if other things that we’ve tested previously have not been successful.
- What’s something that went unexpectedly wrong in your founder journey—but ended up teaching you something essential?
We placed a large stock order that was delivered to our warehouses in UK, Netherlands, UAE and US. Some of the stock had been packaged incorrectly which meant it was badly dented and damaged in transit and therefore unsellable. We were made aware of this when a customer received a badly dented item – we then realised that a large proportion of the stock order which had been delivered to multiple warehouses, had the same issue.
This incident taught me the importance of involving quality inspectors in the manufacturing journey. Since this incident, we always book a third-party company who specialises in quality control to inspect all orders. Once an order has completed manufacturing, the inspectors visit our factory and check each product and confirm that it has been produced in accordance with the design documents and that it is packed correctly in the right size shipping box. This has meant that the majority of production and packaging issues are avoided and where they arise, they can be rectified by the factory before being shipped to warehouses, now saving us a lot of time and money.
- Lawful London has stood out in a crowded space—how do you stay true to your brand values while keeping things fresh and relevant?
When designing, we always lean into our brand pillars of being minimal, functional and affordable which helps to ensure that we’re consistent with the products that we launch whilst also staying true to the brand. It’s sometimes difficult to do this while also being fresh and innovative but it’s about finding the balance and exploring what we can do better or differently to other brands whilst still retaining the Lawful London look and feel.
- What’s been the most rewarding customer feedback you’ve received—something that reminded you why you started?
“Women should be in all places where decisions are being taken. This is true from the biggest to the smallest decisions … and when it comes to bags it was high time a woman stepped in to think about how the inside of a bag should be designed. Pretty and chic is one thing – but if you have to fumble around endlessly to find stuff, your bag becomes your worst enemy. For the first time I actually have an intelligent bag where everything has its place – it’s perfect! Now we need to find car designers who will consider finding a place where ladies can actually put their handbags somewhere decent as they drive (but that would take putting another woman in charge). Bravo for the bag!” (Ruth Ginsberg)
This was one of the most fulfilling and memorable reviews that we have received. This customer purchased the Iris tote and all the details that she’s highlighted about why she loves the product is exactly why I created the brand.
When I read reviews like this, it makes me feel like we’ve achieved exactly what I intended and released the right products for the right customer which is so satisfying.
- What advice would you give to someone sitting in a corporate job right now, dreaming of starting something of their own?
Just start! You don’t need to quit your job or make any bold moves (I wouldn’t advise doing that as you’ll only put more pressure on yourself). Start sensibly by dedicating a bit of time to your idea each day and figuring out what you want to work on in priority order so you start to see small progress which will give you the courage to continue. It’s the 1% that you put in each day – when you show up and push it forward even if it’s just for an hour after a long day at work, which will add up to the 100% that the world will one day see.
- What’s next for Lawful London—and where do you hope to take the brand in the next 5 years?
We are still very much focussed on laptop totes and serving the working woman’s accessory needs however we are also going to be focussing on smaller accessories which complement our large totes which are also focussed on functionality but packaged in a different way. Our laptop portfolio is an example of this, and we are looking to broaden this further with more small, functional add-ons over the next few years. We are also looking to explore opportunities for a physical presence in London which we will hopefully be securing in the next few months so our customers can come and shop in store with us and experience the products ahead of purchasing.
Shop Lawful London here.
