S3 E7, Changing your pants and changing the world, with Sarah Jordan, Y.O.U. Underwear

Ned Wells: Welcome to the Impact Files podcast. And this week Ally and I are joined by Sarah Jordan, founder and CEO at Y.O.U. Underwear
Ally Dunnett: Welcome Sarah, great to have you here.
Sarah Jordan: Thank you very much, you both. Lovely to be here.
Ned Wells: Sarah it's so nice to see you. and I wonder if we could start with an introduction to you and Y.O.U. Underwear ⁓ the work that you do.
Sarah Jordan: No problem at all. So yeah, as you said, I run Y.O.U. Underwear. We are what I describe as an ethical underwear business. Our mission is to change the world, basically one pair of pants at a time. Our is changing the world by getting people to change their underwear. Our focus is period poverty primarily because I discovered all about the impact of... not having a pair of pants effectively when I was working in Uganda in 2016. So 10 years ago. And it's not just the health and hygiene impact. It was actually the ability of women and girls to go to school. That was the biggest thing that really struck me because they were missing up to 25 % of their education. So a week every month when they had the periods, they didn't have a pair of pants, couldn't go to school. And the knock-on impact of that is so phenomenal at every level, kind of socially, economically. And I just wanted to do something about it. I know how important education is to girls. And that just got me basically that something that we take for granted, literally the first thing we put on in the morning has such an impact if you don't have it. So that's kind of the story. It's not my background. I don't know anything about fashion or manufacturing or any of the things that I'm doing now. But having discovered that and then looked into how can we provide underwear? How do you manufacture it? What's that story? And discovered all of the problems of the fashion industry, which is one of the most destructive on the planet. I didn't want to contribute to that on one side and well help on one side and contribute to all of those problems on the other. So that's kind of embedded into the way that we work basically in terms of trying to do something very different to traditional models of fashion business and supply chain or fast fashion and any of that side of it. So the whole principle is that we work in a very different way to try and tackle all of that.
Ned Wells: What was it that took you to Uganda in the first place?
Sarah Jordan: I was there with a program called the Uganda International Marathon. We were running a marathon. It was about bringing the community together through sport really, and supporting different local groups or local programs that you were interested in. So it was kind of self-funded, went out there, volunteered with different communities. I was working with a group of female business owners and trying to support them in getting their businesses off the ground. And one was making reusable period products and nappies. and struggling as a business. And it turned out that you couldn't use the product if you didn't have the underwear to put it in. And that's what the, issue with the business, but actually take that back through a personal level, a family community, ⁓ community level, the women and girls that didn't have the underwear and what impact that was having. So it went from being sort of supporting on one side to a very different, different piece.
Ned Wells: So talk me through the story. You you you then flew home from Uganda with this kind of shocking realization and this determination to do something about it. What what happened next? What did the early years look like for
Sarah Jordan: you? Well, I I actually broke my leg really badly while running the marathon in Uganda. So had the plus side of that was having the opportunity to not be able to do what I was doing. I was commuting to London, working for the MS Society and charities and stuff in, to that. So I couldn't do that, but I could spend a lot of time researching underwear, basically. So yeah, as you said, I couldn't get it out of my head that that problem was really. So I'd worked previously for Oxfam and others in the international development space. But underwear was never on our radar as something that impacts access to education and poverty. And you know, you've got all the traditional impacts and underwear just wasn't something that I'd ever come across as such a fundamental issue. So yeah, I wanted to do something about it. And then when I discovered, as I said, when I discovered how you make it and all of the challenges with the fashion industry in terms of the chemicals, the pesticides, the pollution, the impact on people, particularly women through the supply chain. I didn't want to be setting something up that could make a difference but cause more inadvertent problems by sort of contributing to that. I wanted it to be, again, from my background in the charity sector, I wanted it to be sustainable long-term financially. which is why I set it up as a business, not a charity, because I didn't want to be reliant on fundraising or grants or anything to make us last. I didn't think this problem was sadly going to go away in the short term. So I wanted it to be something that had a long-term life and a long-term impact and wasn't kind of continually in that cycle of fundraising. That's why we're a business, but we're a business for good, purpose-driven, however you want to call it. set up as a social enterprise and with all of those elements kind of embedded in from the start in terms of how we work, because I'm very, I was going to say stubborn, very stubborn, very values driven. It's really important to me that we're trying to do the best that we can do and leaving everything in a better place. So yeah, all of that was really important that we were kind of a good business effectively. And that's led to everything.
Ned Wells: Give me give me a a brief kind of picture of you're at home, you can't commute to London, you're researching underwear. I'm thinking you're gonna have to raise finance, you're gonna have to find suppliers, you're gonna have to convince your nearest and dearest that this mad idea is a good one. I mean, how w what did that look like for you?
Sarah Jordan: So it was quite a process. So I didn't initially come back with the idea of starting a business. I just had this nagging thing in the back of my mind. And it actually took 18 months, couple of years to kind of go from that seed of an idea, partly because I was on crutches for so long and partly because it just took a certain amount of time to kind of go, is this something that's more than just me being frustrated by it? The whole kind of business, ⁓ is there really a business there? I did very early a kind of pre-business accelerator almost to test some of those theories because I started to, when I wanted to do something and thinking about it as actually this can be something beyond just me helping ⁓ to bottom out some of the product side, how do we do this? How do we test it with customers doing customer research? All the kind of classic pieces because I don't come from a business background either. So I didn't really know any of that side of it from a kind of startup side. I met somebody very early on who introduced me to our first manufacturer. So he was running an ethical clothing business in Goa in India. And that's how I learned about some of the problems of the cotton farmers there. The immense pollution, the challenges that they face, they have a suicide rate equivalent to one every 30 minutes. because of the pressures of the cotton industry, the toxins, the chemicals, 200,000 pesticide deaths a year. It's horrific. And once I kind of, again, learned that side of it, we had to do something different. So he introduced me to a supplier that was organic, that was Fair Trade certified, that had the SEDEX, that aired about doing something different and worked with the small scale farmers. So we had that connection directly through to the supply chain. And then it was going through the... sort of prototyping. I only knew about underwear as a customer. So learning a lot about all the different styles, the sizing, the cuts, the colors, all of that piece from a customer side, as well as from the manufacturing side as well. So what that meant in terms of order quantities and how do you go through this process from getting cotton to it being carded and spun and knitted and cut and finished and all that sort of thing as well. So it took, yeah, we, it took a couple of years to kind of get that off the ground, get our first production run. We crowdfunded that. So that was a small Kickstarter project that we did to raise £20,000 to get the first production run in. In reality, that didn't, you you don't actually get, if you raised £20,000, it was a small amount, but you don't get a fraction of that by the time you've put the costs of kind of developing that piece through. But it did help us get started. helped us raise awareness. It helped us to go to friends and family and say, you know, this is what we're doing. Can you support it? And it got us started in 2018, beginning of 2018. mean, that's it. Sorry.
Ned Wells: That's that's a that's a huge amount of effort. I mean my mind's racing. Did you were you w were you mainly funding this yourself? D did did you ha did you h have a day job alongside this at the same time?
Sarah Jordan: Yeah, I mean, I've had a day job pretty much since day one. I've had a full-time day job. ⁓ I've had a part-time day job. I've gone full-time and then I've gone back out of it as well to support the business. So since that first bit, which gave us a kind of small cash injection, we've self-funded everything. ⁓ Completely bootstrapped while I work, basically. So I work to fund the business. And very much because I wanted to, I suppose, grow it sustainably again, in the broader sense. I wanted us to be confident as a business that we weren't taking on debt, that we weren't, that we were in control, I suppose, of what we were doing, particularly because of the values. really, it was really important to me that we did source it properly, make the products properly, pay people properly. And that gets challenged if you're in a more commercial setting. So it was really important that we maintained that, set it up like that. And we've carried on like that. So paying me is still as we did for the first time last year, 2025, like five, six years in. ⁓ Not every month and definitely not living wage, but I'm the only one that doesn't get paid properly. But it comes as we, and that's what we're hoping as we scale is that we can support ourselves. At the moment, it's all going back. Everything is going back into the business to help it grow.
Ned Wells: So when you're saying you're you're kind of working alongside it, does that mean you've got a job that's not related to the business that you're that you're working away at to fund yourself? Wow.
Sarah Jordan: Yeah. So I did that all the way through. ⁓ I was effectively freelance kind of contracting consulting in marketing and anything in the nicest possible way, anything that I can get that I could get that would allow me to do this alongside it. Sure. Because this was always ⁓ there in the back of my mind growing and a priority. So I had to kind of balance those. And I did that with an amazing company in Woking. for several years who actually matched our donations for a while as well. So they were incredibly supportive of helping me to work alongside this. I went full-time in 2025 last year, and then this year I've gone back out to do a bit to support us as we grow. So it's a kind of flexible model, but yeah, I'm still doing something else to keep us going.
Ned Wells: And would it be appropriate to to name check the name of the company in Woking I it sounds they've been yeah.
Sarah Jordan: They'd be very happy. They've been amazing. Cool. Yeah, as I said, matching our donations, allowing us to be buy one, give two for three years, but also just letting me do this and recognising that whilst I'm working for them, part-time, but while I'm doing some stuff with them, then I am doing something else on the side. So yeah, very happy to thank them.
Ned Wells: What a brilliant sounding company. I mean that's amazing. And what sort of scale ⁓ what what sort of scale has Y.O.U. Underwear reached now?
Sarah Jordan: We are now. Sorry, go ahead.
Ned Wells: Numbers of numbers of units or or revenues or w w whatever you feel happy to share.
Sarah Jordan: Yeah. we are turnover is a last year. We haven't got our official accounts audited yet, but about 350, 370,000. is 10,200. I've just done our impact report. So I know 10,217 pairs of pants shipped. So we have very rigorous reporting as part of our fair trade commitments. So we know exactly what items products, sizes, colors, we have shipped to all different countries. So that's how I know so specifically exactly what we're selling. That's a small team. There are four of us in the business, all part-time, all doing other things as well. And four, again, in the shop in Oxford, also all part-time, all doing other things. ⁓ So yeah, so we're now online as well as in the shop. We opened a shop as a pop-up in 2021. in the covered market in Oxford, which is Oxford city council. And there were lots of empty units at the time. they gave it to purpose. We didn't give, we printed it, purpose driven businesses locally to help bring the market back to life. And it's just been incredibly successful for us at getting us out there because it's a lot easier to get in front of people. Oxford as visitors have come back post COVID. We're now in a more permanent and a central space in the market. And it's just so good at increasing awareness, starting the conversations about what we're doing, what we're trying to tackle, showcasing other small businesses and just trying to compete because online you're competing with the big high street brands and ⁓ &S as well as the fast fashion brands and it's a competitive landscape. So actually having a physical presence has been really good ⁓ and at giving us credibility. and trust as well. We're a real business. Now we have a shop and people really see that they want to see it. They want to feel it. gives them confidence. ⁓ And it's lovely as well to meet customers. Great.
Ally Dunnett: I wonder if I could just chip in, Sarah, just for listeners who are hearing all about Y.O.U. Underwear business for the first time. Can you just just summarize for us the way the the purchase model or the purchase, how that converts then into underwear, ⁓ as you say, to solve the initial problem you were trying to solve, the to tackle that issue of period poverty and underwear for girls and women who wouldn't otherwise have it. How does the retail enable that.
Sarah Jordan: Yeah, sure. So we have a buy one, give one model, basically. So for every pair bought from us, we donate a pair to a charity called Smalls4All. So they are based just outside Edinburgh, Livingston in Scotland, and they then distribute the underwear on. So they work with local organizations on the ground in the UK and across Africa to identify vulnerable communities. women and girls in refugee camps, IDP camps, people experiencing homelessness, people in women's refuges here, and they provide the underwear. Because it's one thing that is very rarely donated in terms of homelessness and that kind of thing. It's just not thought of. and for school banks, food banks, refugees, people coming to the UK, it's not something that's regularly provided. So we support through that. It can be our underwear. or if it's to across Africa and rural communities, we buy and support locally. So we're not just shipping our stuff in, but we're actually supporting local markets and makers. And so it works like that. So if you buy a pack of three from us, we actually, I've got one of our cards here, we detail the donations. So we will basically say, thank you, this is what you've bought, this is where it's going. ⁓ So the core collection supports the charity Smalls4all, so that'd three pairs to them. They have a wear, wash, dry model as well. So for each person that's supported, they get given three pairs because you need to wear one, you need to wash one, you need to dry one. ⁓ It's not just one pair that's going to make a difference. So at least that. And then the other products, so the bright colors like the red ones you can see behind me are inspired by Mass Eye Beadwork. They support communities in Kenya and Tanzania. And then our light pink supports breast cancer charities, which is something close to my heart. So it's a very tangible model so that customers know the difference that they're making. So we can make it kind of real. I didn't want to do it on a percentage of profits because you can hide your profits if you want to, and that doesn't mean anything. even percentage of turnover, I wanted it to be really, really clear, the direct impact that people were having. by supporting us, essentially.
Ally Dunnett: That's so interesting. Yes, I think there's a huge value to that. And as you were saying, even the fact that the business seems more real for you having a physical presence in your shops, but that your cards are another piece of that. As you say, people know what's happening when they buy your product. So super interesting and a really complex ecosystem. That was interesting hearing about the charities, the third parties, the different directions and the different distribution channels. There's a lot. ⁓
Sarah Jordan: It's complicated. There is a lot there. It's sort of, I think I wanted to make it clear, I suppose, the kind of buy one, give one being really clear to customers so that they know their impact and it's really transparent. But as you say, there's so much more behind it, it then goes to smalls for all it then goes to local organizations, we know, when we started working with them, it was solely across Africa. including Uganda, which is where the kind of inspiration came from. But now it's more than 50 % in the UK actually, which is shocking in its own right that we have the same period of poverty access problems here. But it's a whole network basically, because I really wanted, I suppose I learned from my charity background, I wanted to work with the experts. It's not me in that case. I wanted to work with charities that could identify where the need and the impact was greatest and working with small organisations on the ground to do that makes it much more impactful, I suppose. They know what they're doing. I trust them. We support them to kind of do what they're doing.
Ned Wells: And I'm intrigued by the business model. I mean, I'm just thinking about ⁓ you know, how how you can afford to do this because you sell a pair of pants for what seventeen, twenty quid. ⁓ it's a hugely com Com a petitive market, you need to make something to pay your rent and staff, and then you've got the suppliers and stock and all the rest of it, and ideally something for you at the end of the day, Sarah. But how how how does I guess I guess part of it ⁓ I think it it I've understood that by not necessarily donating your underwear, that's gonna potentially take out some of the cost of donating another. Pair of underwear, is that is that right?
Sarah Jordan: I mean, yeah, it, it varies. It is, it is a big proportion of our costs. ⁓ our underwear goes from 12 pounds a pair through to yeah, 20, some of the different products. ⁓ so the proportion of that varies. ⁓ it's some things that we have embedded from the start. it's just, it's, it's factored into our costs. I suppose it's one of the line items to get us to the end point. It's not an option. Right. Right. It's a big chunk in, in reality, the biggest chunk is actually our fair trade commitment. ⁓ Buying another pair of underwear or providing another pair of underwear on the, on the end of that is a, is a chunk, but actually being fair trade certified and paying fairly. right the way through the supply chain from the cotton farmers right the way through the workers in the factories who make it to our team here. That piece is the biggest uplift and that's what has the biggest impact on our end costs. That for me is a deal breaker. It's paying people. So fair trade cotton is 75 % more expensive than conventional cotton, but you are all that means is you are paying people to produce it, to grow it. manufacture it, etc. So I think that's the biggest shock, I suppose, that I learned in all of this is how much difference it makes to pay people properly, which sounds terrible, because it shouldn't be something that's even an option in my mind. But that's the biggest uplift. So the biggest percentage, and that's where we often get questions in the shop. our stuff is, it's a Bit more expensive, but it's not compared to a lot of the high street brands and certainly a lot of the designer names that you would know. But when you break down where that's going, we are not making more. In fact, the example I always give is Primark sells a pack of five pairs of pants for five pounds. It costs us more than that to buy one of ours. So they are making more. on a considerably lower priced item. Now you can't make it fairly at that rate. Somebody is, you there's a cost, there's a hidden cost somewhere. And it's predominantly the people who aren't getting paid for what they're doing. So it's not a level playing field. It's not fully transparent. None of those kind of market prices include the kind of true cost, I suppose, of production. So it's a challenge, but as I said, it's baked. We don't have a business case for being sustainable. We are, that's how we work. And then we have to work out how we do it, how we make it work. It significantly impacts our profits. It means that we will grow much more slowly and we will never be as profitable or as large as a lot of the high street or fast fashion brands, because we're trying to do something different. And it means that's why I'm still working effectively. That's why we've got a trajectory. That's why we're doing it more carefully, more consciously. And we're never going to hit that size because I don't want to, I want to have the, I want to be able to sleep at night and know that I'm doing a fair job for people that are producing our clothes because it's so remote often. I don't think we think that it's people. I don't know how we think our clothing gets made. But I think we just don't have that awareness really. and push it to the back of our minds.
Ally Dunnett: It's interesting that you mentioned size and when you're talking about those, I was going to say competitors or other retailers, let's say, because I don't see you and Primark as being in the same space at all. But when you talk about size, do you think is there a possibility, a likelihood that if you're able to scale up in volume terms, that there are some economies of scale there? Again, they're not going to close that gap far.
Sarah Jordan: No, I don't, but...
Ally Dunnett: But is that something you anticipate? I'm just thinking about the manufacturing process and a lot of the costs of manufacturing, it's in the startup process, isn't it? Whatever the nature of your manufacturing is. It's once the machines are running, to put it simply, there are economies of scale.
Sarah Jordan: Yeah, I think some of it, and we've found that already. So we've gone from sampling prices to production prices because we're at a, we're now producing at a scale that is greater. That's one of the challenges, I suppose, because there are, so across fashion textiles, there's minimum order quantities. So for any order you, for anything, you have to make a minimum. to hit their levels basically to make it worth it from their side as well. So that's everything from buying the cotton to the dyes, to the elastics, the trims, every step has a minimum. What we're discovering is they're high and that every step. So it's not that just we place an order of a thousand pieces or 10,000 pieces, you then need at least 200 kilos in every color. to be dyed, you then need at least a thousand meters of elastics, trims for everything. They're all different. So our different underwear styles have five mil, 10 mil, 15 mil trims. So at every point you hit another kind of barrier that makes, you you need to have to jump up. ⁓ And to buy the Fairtrade cotton, ⁓ you have to commit and it has to go to a PO. So you have to commit to a certain amount upfront. So the example I gave at the start when I said we sold 10,000 pieces last year, we need to order a minimum of 25,000 to have the Fairtrade certified cotton to commit to it. We pay upfront as well for at least 50 % of that all the way through because that's a fair way of doing it. But that means massive cashflow issues from our side. And we've always got excess stock because we're always having to order a bigger range than we actually need initially to kind of keep us to be able to pay, you to afford it effectively. So there's that big investment that will does change, but it doesn't change in a kind of linear way. I suppose there's always big steps for every level and it's always yeah, it's always a challenge basically, because of the intricacies, particularly underwear, underwear is incredibly complicated in terms of the sizes, the styles, the kind of details of it. Had I known I might have done something a bit simpler. So yeah, the more you unpick of it, the more it's actually becoming, it becomes really complicated. So it's not just that we as we go bigger, we've got the economies of scale on the manufacturing side. At some level we do. And we do for things like packaging where we know that we can just buy across and you learn a huge amount as well. So as we go, we know what sizes sell better, we know what colors sell better, we know what styles, we can get packaging that sits across all of it. We can reduce the cost and reduce the footprint of everything that we're doing. So there is some scale advantage, but it's not as simple, I suppose. And there's big lead times as well. So it's about six to nine months, sometimes 12 months to get an order in. Slow fashion is really slow. the counter to the sort of six weeks of fast fashion brands, we're turning over, you know, they're producing a massive volume and bringing that into customers incredibly frequently, whereas we're doing, we've got a much slower, there's no seasonality, there's no... ⁓ So we plan in a very different way as well.
Ned Wells: It's absolutely miraculous that you've you've apparently finded this well you you yeah, survive but you managed to f fund it yourself. I mean that's that's extraordinary.
Sarah Jordan: Subah. ⁓ Yeah, I mean, one of the measures every year our accountant says, well, you're still here. Which is not to be taken like, know, it's, yeah, it's a massive challenge. It's something I'm very proud of that we are still going and that we have funded it ourselves because it does give us that control over how we work. It's, we're still thinking about it in terms of do we need, you know, we need constant hash. input into the business. So we're expanding, we're looking at a second location for a shop. That's another huge investment. Most of the investment so far has gone into product, basically all our money goes into buying pants. So my thing at the start was the worst case, I'm going to have underwear for the rest of my life, as well all my friends and family. But we're now at a stage where how can we invest in the business? How do we invest in our set, grow the team, grow do some actual marketing rather than just kind of doing bits ourselves? How do we develop more products, more ranges within quite a tight constraint because we want to still manage and work in the same way, but how do we do that and keep the business going without any external investment? that's, it's a bit of a question, but that's why I've gone back to work this year, actually, to try and get some more money in.
Ned Wells: And I think that's a that's that's a segue into into sort of your section really Ally on the sort of balance of how do you how do you stick to your values and survive financially.
Ally Dunnett: Exactly that. And you've described very clearly, ⁓ Sarah, the fact that the sustainability criteria are non-negotiable. So you don't have a point where you say, we could do this piece more cheaply or we could source this piece more cheaply if we sacrifice. And it's usually something to do with, as you say, it's to do with fair wage, it's to do with other aspects of the sustainability and the environmental impact. So having said that those pieces are non-negotiable, ⁓ Yeah, how do you first of all measure that you're being as sustainable as you want to be across all those pieces ⁓ and then that you're still able to make the profit to enable that investment that you need?
Sarah Jordan: Yeah, so it's definitely, I don't even think it's a balance of profit and sustainability, because that implies that they're on a scale and they both kind of balance each other out, which I don't think they do. I think you have to prioritize one or the other because something is sacrificed otherwise. We have definitely chosen sustainability. It has come at the cost of profitability. But we are still here. So it's trying to do that. slowly, carefully, recognising that and not comparing ourselves, I think. So recognising that we are going to grow more slowly than traditional business. You know, if you go out to any business event, it's like, how are you say or how are you doing this? How, what's your growth rate? What's the percentage increase? And you're under that real pressure to continually grow, to get bigger and faster and better all the time. And then you focus on the financial side and the profit and the sustainability. has to take a hit because it's not possible to do that. We haven't ⁓ even done it the other way. We just set it up differently. We align all our work to the UN SDGs. We're a B Corp. So we had the five pillars, now 12 pillars under the new standards. And it's all about our social and environmental impact. So when we report, we share it monthly with the team. So as well as turnover sales in the shop, it's What have we donated? What are we doing socially? What are we doing environmentally? How are we improving things? What are the challenges? We have quarterly stuff that we share. Externally, we have a full year impact report that we publish on our site, know, publish everywhere, that is fully transparent about all the numbers. Mostly actually, apart from financial, we don't, just report on the kind of social and environmental side when we're going externally about that. because that is the number one measure. So we actually track our progress based on underwear donations. We've got a target of hundred thousand pairs by the end of next year. We've always had some target and that's our big measure of business growth. So it's aligned in that sense. So the kind of measures and the business reporting is aligned very much to our impact goals. As I said, through the different ⁓ structures like B Corp, SDGs. and kind of thing, and then we share that.
Ally Dunnett: frameworks to Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it strikes me, tell me if I'm right or wrong on this, that that you mentioned that most of your investment, it goes into the sustainability and then into the people and the growth you need. But it sounds to me as if you must have made some investment in robust reporting and tracking systems, your data has got to be you've got to be able to rely on it, right? It's sounds multiple. And it's got to be robust.
Sarah Jordan: Yeah. Yeah, so we work, I mean, we do, and we do a lot of reporting to the different certifications that we have for each kind of vertical pillar like Fairtrade. So we've got all of that data that goes back in and that informs a lot of the reporting from there, because that's very much about, it's product based. So we know the weight of that, we know the kilos of cotton that we're buying, we know the kilos that we're producing. We've got a take back program, so we know how much we're collecting and and for recycling and that kind of thing. So we've got all of that. It's then how do you communicate it? How do you communicate it for a specialist audience, i.e. the awarding bodies kind of thing themselves? And how do you communicate that to the public as well, who don't necessarily want to know the intricacies of it? Some do, some don't. But showing that we're doing something different as well, kind of differentiate us because there's so much greenwashing in the fashion industry that we're very transparent and very based on our numbers and the data and the impact because we want to show that it's ⁓ solid.
Ally Dunnett: Yes, that's interesting. course, greenwashing is a theme, greenwashing and its twin green hushing come up a lot in the conversations that co-hosts have with people. as you say, if your data is there, it's transparent, it can be interrogated, it can be proved out. And because it's hung on those ⁓ frameworks, that, that's your secret source. ⁓
Sarah Jordan: Yeah. we do stuff like, I mean, we do the speak volumes. So we're trying to, I suppose, we do a lot around what we're doing and we do a lot around the broader industry, know, context in the broader industry as well, because I think it's important. We are at one level, we are definitely not trying to compete, but we are in that space alongside some of the more well-known brands. So where do we sit and what are the volume, you know, all the issues around the fashion industry and consumption and production and the kind of macro pieces. we're trying to put ourselves in that space as well. So people see where we are size-wise and broader considerations. So yeah, we're reporting on a lot. There's a lot of data if you're a sustainable business. Definitely.
Ally Dunnett: about, ⁓ because you were telling us you're a pretty small operation in terms of people and a lot of your staff are part time. So what are the sort of skills you recruit for and ⁓ what sort of people do you hire? do they need to be able to demonstrate?
Sarah Jordan: Mainly passion. Because it's, we've kind of got all the individual pieces in terms of we're a very small business. So you've got to want to work in a space like that where you get involved in everything. You see across the board, we're very transparent. So we do share everything. There's a definite advantage in that because you can see it all. You can see that everything that you're doing, where it has that impact on the business and on the... the people and causes and the kind of issues that we're supporting. But that's a lot. There's a lot of juggling. A passion for doing something different, sustainability, fashion, to, I was going to say change the world, but yeah, basically because it's not an everyday, it's harder. It's more, you know, we're in a difficult space in terms of what we're trying to do because we're really fundamentally trying to work in a different way. and change things. So that's complicated. So we're really looking for people that are interested in that want to get involved stuck in it's more aptitude and attitude and stuff rather than skill set. We pay well in terms of above living wages, but we can't offer competitive salaries for what I or any of the other members of the team might be earning if they were in a different sector, for example. So we're trying to attract people that are inspired by what we're doing, by the difference we're trying to make and want to be part of that. And we've been really fortunate that we've, being things like a B Corp really attracts helps with attracting people and retaining staff and the kind of mission that we've got. We've ended up with brilliant teams that we've had for, we always had very passionate people who are keen to work with us and keen to do something, whether that's in the shop or in the business who who want to make a difference. So it's very much about that and wanting to support customers, do a really good job for customers and do something different and be involved. And the flexibility that we have as well is a big pulling point. We will very much work around people's commitments and life because I know that happens. We try and accommodate that and work flexibly around everybody. So that's why we've got a smaller team of part-time people that we're all always shuffling and trying to juggle around everybody's schedules because it's more important that they can balance that and have a good and that they enjoy it.
Ally Dunnett: Yeah, that sounds like it comes back to your point you making much earlier on in a slightly different context about you don't want to solve one problem and create another. Wouldn't it be dreadful if you were doing this wonderful work globally and you were managing to adhere to your sustainability, very challenging targets, but had a miserable oppressed workforce, which it sounds like.
Sarah Jordan: I mean, and there are some, there's some B Corp examples that have, you know, a one well-known brand that did that. Yeah. We want to be a good business all around. We want to be a nice place to work. We want people to want to work for us to stay with us because we need that as well. We need people who are passionate and committed and enjoy it. And we spend a lot of time together. ⁓ one of our team last year when we did a survey said it's like a little family. And that's something I'm incredibly proud of because we want it to be a nice, you know, we're trying to create that because yeah, we can't, ⁓ we can't be nasty behind the scenes. That's not, that's not our values. It just doesn't work. yeah, as you say, trying to inherently do that, suppose.
Ally Dunnett: Yeah, yeah. okay, great. Well, moving us along slightly, you've told us so much about the journey, how you started out, how you got to where you are now and what's in your sights, I guess. Can you give us some examples of, on that journey, things which went particularly well, successes, and almost more importantly, because I think people love to learn from these things, things which maybe didn't go so well and how you dealt with them and... use them perhaps as learning points.
Sarah Jordan: Yeah, blimey. ⁓ Successes. Well, as I said, we're still here. That's good. We're growing slowly. think having our shop, opening the shop has been one of our biggest surprise successes, I suppose. It was never on my plan to go into kind of physical retail, but it has been brilliant at getting us out and in front of people, particularly in the tourist visitor market in Oxford. ⁓ And it's It's given us surprising credibility. I always thought with a background online that, you know, we were real, but when you go into bricks and mortar, people really do think that you're a real business. And it's driven a lot to online as well. So it's really strengthened that, which has been great. Becoming a B Corp. I mean, that's again, one of the things I'm most proud of. We certified in 2021 and we just recertified again last year and we got a incredibly high score, which I'm very proud of. And it just shows that you can do something different really. It wasn't about us. It was more, that was always been on my mind as something we wanted to achieve because it's the kind of pinnacle of holistic look at your impact and your commitment to people and planet and everything else. ⁓ And certifying as the highest as a small business and as a fashion business really showed that you can if you want to, because there's so much around it. It's difficult, it's complicated, it's expensive. And it's like, yes, it is. But you can, if you care, you really can. that's been very powerful. And being part of that community and adding our voice to other businesses trying to do something good has been really positive because again, it showcases a different way of doing business. There's a nicer way, there's a kinder way that you can also be profitable and be a good business in kind of every sense. And the donations hitting our 70,000 was a big one. Last year challenges. Blimey. There's a lot of those as well. So Brexit, mean, all the classics, Brexit hit us. ⁓ we had about 20, 25 % of our customers in Europe. ⁓ we lost those. would say overnight, but it wasn't, it was a very slow painful because the uncertainty and lack of clarity around it, but that had a huge impact and we've really tried to build it up over the last few years. ⁓ and we've just been impacted. We are being impacted now by the small parcel. issue and delivery into Europe, where the legislation is coming in to try and tackle companies like Tmoo, who are sending direct to customers small parcels, rather than importing and paying all the costs around import duties and stuff. But it means that they're putting a levy on end on parcels delivered to end customers. That's per item. That's having a massive impact. Well, that's just killed the European market that we had brought back. US tariffs are having a similar impact. it's always, it surprises, it shouldn't surprise me, it does surprise me how bigger things like that out in the world and the economy can impact you on such a tangible level, particularly when you're growing, it always impacts, it's not the big ones that are actually getting impacted because they can get around it, it's the small businesses that are trying to reach individual customers. So that's been a really interesting...
Ally Dunnett: .
Sarah Jordan: of learning and challenge how do we tackle some of those issues. I think our biggest challenge at the moment here is with the recycling program that we've So again, a few years ago, we introduced a take back program because end of life with textile waste is another one of the big problems of the fashion industry. It's something like a rubbish truck load is dumped every second, dumped or burnt every second. And I didn't want our stuff again to be part of that. So we introduced a take back program. We got so many questions about, you take anything that we said yes. And then we've got a backlog of nearly a ton of second hand underwear basically in my shed that we are looking for a solution for. So we can recycle some of it. But a lot of the partners we were working with to recycle that waste disappeared, couldn't afford it, it wasn't viable. It's not cost effective to do it. So until some legislation comes in to kind of tackle that, there's a bit of a gap generally in the market. That's one of the big challenges because I really want to keep offering that to customers. We've restricted it back to just our underwear or high cotton percentage because that can go into, it can be shredded and processed into roll mats, for example, for people experiencing homelessness. But the synthetics will never go anywhere. They need to be... processed and dealt with and there isn't really a viable solution. So it's a challenge that we're continually looking for solutions ⁓ that are affordable because it was costing us about 10 pounds a kilo to deal with that. And the 900, that's a lot. We're not a recycling business and it's kind of an added cost. So I'm hoping things like that. It's not something that we've necessarily been able to overcome ourselves, but we're working on it and we're trying to find different partners that can sort of help. improve that. So a lot of the challenges are bigger, I suppose, ⁓ in sort of bigger behavioral changes, sector pieces that we're trying to tackle, as well as all the usual day-to-day stuff of how do we just keep going as a business, fulfill orders, we still do it all ourselves. So we have our fulfillment, our warehousing, our global distribution center is basically here at home. which is really nice to have a personal connection with customers and I write the cards for each order that goes out and that is really nice for me and also people feel really connected to it. How do you scale that? So there's a lot of questions around each piece as we grow, how do we manage it ourselves until we can't? And then how do we develop an affordable, sustainable solution that helps us get there? I suppose, I don't know whether that's answered your question about the challenges.
Ally Dunnett: So interesting and there's tons we could follow up on there, but I'm going to hand back to Ned at that point.
Ned Wells: So interesting. ⁓ Sarah, I think that I I wanted to move us on to something that you hinted at earlier, which I think is going to be very exciting, which is your perhaps in the next year or so opening up your branch and your second branch down in ⁓ Brighton. How are things how are things developing there?
Sarah Jordan: Well, it's still work in progress. It's a big piece of work with lawyers and estate agents and all sorts involved, but we've been looking for, coming up for a year to find a suitable place that has got a nice shop floor plus the storage. have a lot of underwear. We need to store that somewhere dry, but we... signed the lease on a property in Brighton yesterday and we are hoping that that all goes through, still needs to be finalized with the lawyers. ⁓ But we're hoping that goes through in the next few days or weeks and that we can open in the next couple of months. So that will be another very exciting, huge step for us because that feels like a proper shop. Having one locally in Oxford feels a bit closer to home and this is now branching out literally. So... But yeah, that's coming in the next few months. Hopefully we'll be having you Brighton as well as you Oxford, fingers crossed. ⁓
Ned Wells: The kind of the seed of that idea, I mean, it it sounds like you you were sort of ⁓ pleasantly surprised when the Oxford shop did so well. And is was the sort of idea of opening another one, was that off the back of realising that actually the sort of
Sarah Jordan: We couldn't ignore the numbers. on the business side, we started the Oxford one as a pop-up, so it was always going to be temporary. November 21 into sort of February 22. So we had to do the two busy months, the two quiet months, and we just stayed. So it was a bit of a risk beyond that first period, but we recognized that it had potential. And we stuck with it basically, and then invested ⁓ in a larger space, more centrally in the market. And as you said, it's just been good. It's been really successful and we couldn't ignore the numbers that actually the retail space plays a big role in supporting the whole of the business. So looking at a second option was a bit of a no brainer really in terms of financially. We had a lot of customers in Brighton. we've had a lot of people coming into the shop from Brighton going, ⁓ my gosh, this would be amazing down there, perfect place for you. And I couldn't ignore it. There's only so much I could ignore it. yeah, whilst it wasn't necessarily part of the plan, I think it's, I'm hoping it will be a real boost for us ⁓ and that it can support itself in its own right, but also feed into the business and help support the business and help grow the business and drive people more online. and increase just awareness of us and get out there. It's marketing. It's just marketing in a very physical way. But yeah, that should be coming, fingers crossed.
Ned Wells: That's so exciting. ⁓
Sarah Jordan: I haven't told anybody yet, so this is kind of exclusive. This is breaking news. Our team do know, but nobody else.
Ally Dunnett: Yeah.
Ned Wells: And thinking longer range, I mean, I know that your metrics and your your ambition and your values are around donating more pants and you want to hit the hundred thousand mark. I guess thinking about the sort of the 10-year horizon, I'd love to hear A what's the ambition for donating pairs of pants, but also What is the business gonna look like to fuel that? What would your vision be for the mechanism to enable that wonderful ambition?
Sarah Jordan: So, yes, so a hundred thousand is for next year. I want us to be a million turnover business. I want that to be millions of underwear donated. It will need to be high financially to achieve that and support that because it's the very direct relationship between sales and donations. But I do want us to hit a scale where we are having a significant impact to a point, I suppose, because I want it to be something that we can still manage and control and still have those values. So as I said, we've legally embedded them into our company objects. This doesn't need me. It is, we are committed to doing this, but I want it to be something where I'm really confident that we are still doing that. So it's not got an kind of exponential world domination plan for us. It's just getting it to a point where we are having a impact. We are known in the space. We are the go-to for ethical underwear. if you want pants to make a difference. And we're really having those big numbers because everything that we do impact wise will grow with it as well. And ⁓ there's so much that I want to do to make a difference to charities and organizations locally and beyond that it requires some scale, I suppose. 10 years, I want us to not be talking about sustainability. I really want this to not be a thing. We're not an ethical business, we're just a business. And this is a way that we're not talking about it. We're just doing it. This is completely normal. This is just the way you do business. And everything has changed to enable that because I think as I've ⁓ made, it's not a level playing field. It's not, we're not competing on an equal footing when we're trying to do something very different. And in that space where you're in a very commercial capitalist extractive market, it's not. possible to continue to infinitely with a finite set of resources and without thinking about the planet and people. It's like we're just going to destroy ourselves clearly. So this has to happen. I would hope it takes less than 10 years, but I would hope that in 10 years, whether it's Becore or any other sort of just a different way of doing business and a different way of consuming, not consuming, just creating and being part of ⁓ a more socially environmentally aware society to make all this happen. I think where everybody is paid and treated fairly because it shouldn't be the unusual one. shouldn't be the kind of case study. It should be just the normal way of doing things. So that's what I would hope for 10 years time. No fast fashion.
Ned Wells: Where we're ⁓ living within the boundaries, yeah. And the final question is your one piece of advice for businesses that are pursuing the twin objectives of sustainability and financial stability.
Sarah Jordan: Planetary boundaries. Absolutely. Yeah. ⁓ That's a tough one. Do it. Definitely do it. I think recognizing that they're twin objectives, but you have to focus on, you have to... You've got to work out what's important to you and your values and go for that and commit to that because accepting the slower growth, don't compare yourself. If you're trying to do something different, not comparing yourself on traditional measures takes one level of the pressure off. Compare yourself with other businesses that are doing similar. Build that network, work together, collaborate, do something very different because I think there's so many... You've to be careful with the trade-offs. If you're looking at the financial side all the time, you will make compromises on the sustainability. And that I do believe both are possible. I don't think they necessarily come balanced because I think you have to focus on one and then hopefully the other, focus on sustainability and the business side. But I'm hoping that we're showing that you can do it and be a small business, but one that's surviving and profitable. I think just, yeah, building something sustainable in the widest sense, not comparing yourself and just trying to.
Ned Wells: I I I think that's a really interesting reflection and and I think to achieve that within a market like ⁓ clothing and underwear where it's ferociously com petitive, I think as I think as you say, you you have to f focus on one rather than the s the the twin.
Sarah Jordan: Yeah, I just, mean, I don't think it can be an equal balance. I think I'd struggle. There are very few examples that are really equally balanced. ⁓ People are prioritising one or the other, but I think there's always, you just got to be very careful when you're focused on how much money you're making that influences your decisions. And there's, could make so much more profit and so much more money and turn over all the kind of traditional economic metrics, if we did something different and did it cheaper and didn't respect the people and the planet. But I don't want to do that. And whilst I could earn more and then put it in, I'd still be causing more harm. And that's something that I, I don't want to do. So if you, yeah, for me, it's about having a clearer conscience and sleep. You know, I know I'm doing the best that we can do. And there are compromises with that. I could be a faster growing business, more well-known, everything else, but that's not what's important to me. So think finding what's important to you and measuring yourself against that and ignoring some of the pressures and the voices that will come and criticize it because nobody knows what's going on in the background and nobody's you. You've got a unique opportunity to do something different. And I think having the courage to do that is phenomenally difficult, but it's worth it.
Ned Wells: Well, that's a wonderful note to finish off on. Thank you. I mean so interesting to talk to you. Sarah I've hugely enjoyed that. Just before we go, ⁓ how can people find out more about you and Y.O.U. Underwear?
Sarah Jordan: They can come visit us in our shop in Oxford or potentially in Brighton soon. Otherwise, youunderwear.com www. and we're on all the social channels with at youunderwear.uk.
Ned Wells: Awesome. Brilliant. Thank you so much. Really, really enjoyed that.
Sarah Jordan: Good, I hope it was interesting, useful.