100 fashion wardrobes

100 Fashion Wardrobes: The Founders

Claire Henderson

You may know her as the co-founder of Oh Polly and Bo and Tee; an array of beautiful, satin, figure-hugging party dresses, two-pieces and trendy activewear, however Claire Henderson is the compassionate leader behind both brands, reforming the nation of Cambodia, Asia.

On her first visit to Cambodia, in 2008, she discovered that the country was deeply impoverished, with the majority of its 15.5 million population having poor health and limited access to education and opportunities. Claire, who was just a university student at the time, was called to action after witnessing and learning about the various lifestyles and heart-breaking stories from the residents.

Claire knew that she could not continue life as she had been. “I just knew that I had to do something more, and I had to help in some way – even if it was in a small way.” On arrival back to the UK, she set up a charity and gathered her old items – any she could find from university books, to clothing and began selling them on eBay to raise money. In the end, Claire had raised $30,000 which was enough money to set up a small classroom in the village, where she also employed a local teacher to teach the students English.

From here, the foundation of Oh Polly was established and as sales increased, Claire was eventually able to build an entire school, which provided children with an education; all who came from underprivileged backgrounds. She also began helping families within the village, granting them access to food and necessities every month. Many of the young children in Siem Reap are orphans, mostly living with their grandparents, who aren’t able to provide the support they need.

Claire has since become a mother to five Cambodian children of her own of whom she adopted; two of which Bo and Tee (Oh Polly’s sister brand) is named after. Oh Polly is also named after one of the young girls that Claire first supported in Cambodia. Every month, a percentage of the profits made from Oh Polly is given to Claire’s foundation, The Brannerson Foundation.

By Claire Henderson

As Told To Phadria Prendergast

On deciding to start Oh Polly: ​​

I enjoyed business and I think I always had the entrepreneurial spirit, especially when I was young, but I never would have imagined that [this] would have been the path I would have taken. It was only when I graduated that I had to make decisions like "what were my next steps?" I was in the RAF reserves at university, so I had to ask myself whether I was going to go to flying school. It was three years extra of studying and a big financial commitment. My mum would have had to remortgage her house to help pay for me to go there, but at that point, eBay was really taking off. I was involved in the charity side [of Oh Polly] and that really had my heart. I was just so passionate about that, so it wasn't an option for me to go to flying school in the end. I just knew at that point that this is what I want to focus on.

On adopting her five children:

Myself and my partner Michael, we were in Cambodia probably six months of the year at the time, working on charity projects. Over a period of time when I was living in Cambodia, I ended up looking after two little girls because they didn't have anywhere to stay. My long term plan at the time was to find somewhere for them to stay but Cambodia is really notorious for bad orphanages and I just got so attached. They started calling me Mom and I was like, 'oh my God, I can't believe that.' It wasn’t something I planned. I didn’t set out to like, “I'm going to adopt these children,” but I would never go back and change that decision. It’s the best thing I've ever done. I was very young at the time and when you're young, you don’t really think about the consequences of your decisions, whereas once you're a lot older, you tend to make decisions a lot slower and more carefully, so I’m not saying I wouldn’t make that decision now or that I have any regrets. I’d say it worked out well. (Laughs) So there’s two sibling groups — two of them are sisters and the other 3, two boys and a girl, they’re siblings too. They've grown up together at such a young age together that they don’t see a difference, they just see each other as family.

On her own relationship with her parents:

I had a really, really good relationship with my mom and from a young age, she's always taught me what hard work is. She had three children. She worked full time. She went back to school to study accountancy, and I always saw that growing up. The message my mom always gave me was if you want something, you have to go work for it.

Oh the values she’s passing onto her children:

I'm really strict with my children in that, if they really want something, they have to show me that they're going to work for it or they're going to do chores around the house or, I'll set them a target at school and say, “you need to reach this target.” I want them to learn that anything you want in life, you have to work hard at it, it's not just given to you. You see that a lot with people whose parents have given them everything for. They have nothing to aim for, they have no care, there’s no motivation. They're giving everything they want. So, I’m really strict with that in regards to my children.

On what keeps her going:

I'm really passionate about what I do. I live and breathe it. It's not a 9 to 5 to me. It's whatever time I wake up to whatever time I go to bed. Whenever anybody comes to me and they ask for advice, I always say that you have to go into something that you're completely passionate and obsessed about. If you want to be great at something, you have to be obsessed about it because you can't compete with other people who are, if you’re not. Following something because you think “there's a lot of money in this” or “this is a really hot industry to work in right now,” or you see other people do it and you see the success that they're having, and you think, “I want to do that too,” just for those reasons, not because that industry is of interest to you, then you will never be at the top because you're competing against people who, for them, it’s their passion. You really have to stop and think “what is it that I'm super passionate about?” Because again, if you're not passionate, you can't work 100 hour weeks because you’ll go crazy. For me, it doesn't feel like work, and I feel like that's why I can put the hours in. Sometimes I'm tired, don't get me wrong. Sometimes there are some parts of my job that I enjoy and others I just have to do, but overall, it doesn't feel like work to me. What motivates me is I just love it. I'm so passionate about it.

On whether she thinks her passion contributed to Oh Polly’s success:

Yeah, for sure, but also, it's not just a solo act. I have a really great team around me and great people. I think you can never go about something like this alone. My business partner, I have known him since university, we know each other's strengths and weaknesses, and it works really well for us. He's very good on the business side and on the creative side. The team members that I have at Oh Polly are just so talented and so hardworking. I wouldn’t want to take any credit just for myself. It really is a team effort.

On how she delegates:

I'm still learning. It's still hard sometimes to delegate tasks that I've been doing for a very long time, since the beginning. As a business owner a lot of the time you like to think that you can do things best but you have to delegate. You only get so many hours in a day and it’s not for you to do everything. If you want a successful business and you want to scale a business, you just need the right amount of people around you. I’m also aware that every day, you only get so much mental energy so if you're making many decisions early on in the day, you're exhausted later on in the day, and it takes a lot. It's quite draining. So I have a lot of good people around me and I have a lot of people who I can trust to make those decisions for me. I still get involved. I still like to be involved, but I’m definitely not the smartest in the room. I have a lot of people around me who I would say are a lot smarter than I am, which I’d say is a good problem to have. (Laughs) I like to be heavily involved still but I’m learning to take a step back, but Oh Polly is like my baby too. I’ve nurtured it. I've seen it grow from the very beginning, so it's hard sometimes to take a step back.

On how she unwinds:

I work crazy hours, I'm not going to lie. I'm not going to say I get a lot of time to myself. I don’t but going back to what I said before, I just love what I do. If my partner’s put a movie on, and it's like, “oh, let's watch a movie,” within 20 minutes, I've got my phone out and I'm checking Oh Polly TikTok and I just can't help it because I just love what I do. I'm obsessed with it and it’s on my mind constantly. But if I'm not working, I like to read, I like to work out, and spend time with my kids. It's just a balance. There's not enough time to do everything in a day, but I find that if you manage your time carefully, there is enough time to do the most important things. I try to balance: sometimes I'm good at it, sometimes I'm not. But, you know, I try my best.

On how she manages her time:

I have a routine and I try to be as consistent as possible. I usually write a checklist of the most important things I have to do and I write a checklist of everything I need to get done. I like to start with a task that I really don't want to do, so I like to get that off my list fast and I feel like it just takes a huge weight off your shoulders. You get your list and there's one task on there that you just don’t want to do, like a phone call you have to make. I try to get that out of the way so that I can enjoy the rest of the day and then in the evening time, I like to read. I work out at night and usually call my kids because of the time difference. So I keep my morning and my night routine quite consistent.

On what she would say to a new female founder:

The biggest mistake that I see new businesses fall into is that they go straight into influencer marketing and paid ads. I feel like really there's so much you can do without paying and you need to master that first. It’s interesting for us, for example, is that during COVID, it was a successful period for Oh Polly but nobody knew what was going to happen, so as a result, we were cautious and we cut back on our influencer budgeting and it was actually our most successful time on social media for marketing because we were forced to think outside the box. We didn't have influencers to pay to do these posts for us, so it was really down to the team to come up with our own ideas. So we would do product shots of products lying on the floor or hanging on a rail or a rack. We did more videos and fun things behind the scenes, things that don't cost money. It's just your time, your creativity and they did way better than any of the paid things that we were working on. So I always tell people to use their creative mind. Think of what you can do that doesn't cost money because at the beginning of a business, you don't have that money. Ironically enough, I think that if you are creative and you're smart, I feel like you can still beat the people that have a high budget. So I wouldn't even be thinking about paid ads or paid influences, I would think, “OK, what can I do if I only have a limited budget or no budget? How can I use my resources, which is my creativity and my ideas.” A lot of brands out there that are very small, they’re doing really well and they just use a friend to model or they're taking some pictures in their bedrooms. They do really well. Their engagement is sky high. So I would say don't overthink it and honestly come back to the foundations, come back to your creativity and sit down with a piece of paper and a pen and think, “OK, what, what can I do? How can I do this and do something different?”