A young mum runs her own fashion brand with 11,000 Instagram followers from her bedroom.
Emily Southern stays up until 4am some nights working on her designs and then gets up early to do the school run.
She orders garments from a wholesaler and prints her own designs after “sitting up for nights on end, watching YouTube videos”, to learn how to do it.
Emily quit her paramedic course to set up the ultra-cool kids and parents’ clothing brand, Cub Life.
The brand – originally run from her kitchen but now moved to a bedroom – has been featured in Tatler magazine, Teesside Live reports.
The 25-year-old, from Billingham, County Durham, realised she didn’t want dress her little boy Joey, now nearly five, in the stereotypical ‘blues, greens and dinosaurs’.
That was one year ago, now she’s sold thousands of products in her own, mainly monochrome, designs and is planning to expand into wholesale supply and take on staff.
She said: “It’s all pinks and blues for kids on the high street, I didn’t realise how common it is; many parents want to dress their children in unisex.
“Everyone takes a different line on it now.”
But it was only once she started selling personalised designs that things started to take off.
“Once I got the idea out there, it took a couple of weeks for people to start looking at it,” Emily added.
“I introduced personalised stuff – and as soon as I brought that out people just jumped on it.
“I was working from my kitchen, but I’ve moved into a bedroom now.”
Her latest design – tops sporting the logo Future Changer – is another take on personalisation.
“People have the option to add whatever they want, so my son’s says ‘Future Paleontologist’ because that’s all he ever talks about.
“I thought ‘why not have what children aspire to be when they’re older? I’m donating 10% of the sales to World Vision UK, a charity that helps children create their own futures.
“And I wanted something you couldn’t get on the high street.
“I never expected this, my friends say ‘we just can’t believe how it’s taken off’ – but when I’m sat crying on my office floor because I’m so tired, I don’t really think about it.
“Some nights I don’t get to bed till 4am, then I get up for the school run, but it just works.
“And my partner, Joey’s dad, helps me a lot with day-to-day stuff like school drop-offs and bed times.”
Emily started a paramedic’s course at university but “knew the first day” after dropping Joey at nursery that it wasn’t for her.
She persevered three more months, then decided to take the plunge.
“It could have flopped, it was worrying," she said.
“But Joey was the maker of my brand. If it wasn’t for him I wouldn’t be doing it because I wouldn’t have any sort of passion towards it.
“He tells people ‘my mam makes my clothes’ and I’m thinking ‘I hope they understand’ – but it does mean I save a fortune in clothes for him.”
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