Sylvie Lovegrove

Established in 2020, BILA is a London-based fashion brand specialising in handmade tie-dye sets. It was founded during lockdown by Becca (19) and her sister Olivia (16). Now, you might read that and think: so what? As COVID seemed to gradually become synonymous with 15 year olds sporting an Urban Outfitters, Topshop, or ASOS tie-dye hoodie, is there anything really that special about one of the many hopeful businesses which decided to hop on the craze?

The answer is yes. BILA discovered the trend before it was a trend. They spotted the growing popularity of tie-dye, assumed the general UK public were in need of loungewear and decided to mix the two together. The result was the establishment of a hugely successful ‘lockdown company’. With an Instagram following now reaching 26.1k followers, influence endorsement ranging from TikTok stars to the cast members of Dance Moms, and a third clothing line imminently dropping, it’s safe to say BILA isn’t any other new brand hoping to reap the benefits of tie-dye hysteria.

We sat down with Becca, now a student at Durham, to find out more about BILA and how they made it so big.

1. So how did BILA begin?

When we first locked down in March I realised that loungewear was selling quickly and tie-dye was starting to become a trend. So I bought loads of white trackies, along with just plain white jumpers, from shops like Pretty Little Thing and my sister and I started dyeing them. Initially we sold them on Depop, but soon I didn’t want to pay the 10% Depop fee – so we set up our own website.

2. And how did the business begin to grow?

So then we decided to focus on growing the Instagram account. We just took photos on my bed and in my bedroom at first. Luckily we were one of the first companies in the UK to do it, before all the major fast fashion brands. So people were initially willing to pay more for our hand-dyed clothes, and then I think our customer base stuck. I started to use the money that we’ve made from sales and push it back into the company to buy more tracksuit sets, more jumpers and then we started doing cami tops as well. At one point, there was such a high demand for white tracksuit bottoms and we couldn’t find them anywhere, so we had to investigate getting them made abroad. And we found this small supplier in Pakistan who designed and made each piece indiviudally. So I had to learn how to logistically import clothes.

3. But you continued dying the clothes yourself?

Yes, so we were hand dying everything out of the kitchen. It was a mass operation to the point our entire ground floor was taken over by clothes, dye in bags and then pieces drying. The initial wash is really important. So we had to hand wash every single pair, and then dry them so that the die would stick. But luckily it was really profitable. So, although we worked really long hours, it was worth it purely for how much turnover we were generating.

4. What set BILA aside from other tie dye brands?

While fast fashion brands can produce clothes quickly, there’s nothing as efficient as producing them in your own house. Although the process from A to B was long, we could always ship an order the next day. After we got the hang of the dying, washing, drying and folding we could start to really pump out the sets.

5. And how did you keep up with the demand?

So at one point our parents said that they wanted their house back! It was filled with boxes and the whole garden was taken up by washing lines with truckloads of drying. So they said that we needed to either find ourselves an office or a warehouse. And we found these e-commerce warehouses in Acton. We put some of the money we made into renting one for almost five months. Once we had an office we started dying in huge quantities.

6. Did you move on from tie-dye, or is still BILA’s trademark?

Before I went to Durham we created a new collection. It was basically velour matching sets. We did those in four colours and different styles. That block actually did surprisingly well. It’s becoming increasingly popular and the Christmas season and Black Friday really helped sales. It was amazing to see the impact of how much a promotion and discount can make people buy.

7. How has the world of ‘influencers’ and Instagram helped Bila?

Instagram was our main marketing platform. I think we currently have 27.2k followers. The majority of those followers were from the initial lockdown, they grew exponentially during that period. People were spending so much time on their phones and online shopping, but it was the influencers that really helped the brand to grow. Instead of paying influencers we would just send them items and they would post wearing it and tag us; that would get us a ridiculous number of followers. We particulalry targeted Love Islanders and YouTubers, they would send our followers skyrocketing.

8. How have you balanced BILA with being a first year student at Durham?

So now everything is automated. As a sale comes in, it goes directly to a fulfillment centre in Bristol which has all of our stock. So now I only deal with the customer service side of things, and my sister does the majority of the social media. Essentially, the process is much less hands on now.

9. So what’s the next step?

Well, we’re going to try to get all of our clothing produced in the UK. Both for logistical reasons and because it’s much more sustainable. It would reduce our carbon footprint massively and we think that’s very important. Making the production of the clothing more sustainable would mean that the customer would have to take on some of the cost increase though. So we might need to do some market research.