The Break-Up Diet - She Had ZERO SALES For 6 Months… Now Girls Wear Her Brand Worldwide. ft Georgia Crossley

Episode Date: June 3, 2026

This week I’m joined by Georgia Crossley, founder of GeeGee Collection, and honestly… this episode is SO inspiring for any girl who’s ever dreamed about building something of her own 😭We talk about how Georgia started her luxury fashion brand during COVID with just £7,000 in savings, no outside investment, and literally only four jackets — and turned it into a globally recognised brand worn by girls all over the world.We get into the REALITY of building a brand from scratch, staying consistent when nobody is buying, social media pressure, taking risks on yourself, adapting when things don’t sell, and how GeeGee Collection grew completely organically through consistency, creativity, and backing herself.We also talk about fast fashion, craftsmanship, creating timeless pieces, content creation, marketing, female entrepreneurship, and why staying authentic to your vision matters so much when building something long term.Honestly this episode feels like such a motivating reminder that everyone starts somewhere 😭If you’ve been waiting for a sign to start your business, this is it ✨ Every entrepreneur starts with an idea and the courage to take the first step. I hope this episode inspires more women to back themselves, take the risk, and build something they’re proud of. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hi everyone. Before we get into this episode, could you please subscribe, follow the breakup diet. It really means the world and it means I get to keep making these episodes. So if you could please do that, I would be forever grateful and I hope you enjoy it. Buckle up, bitches. This is going to get bumpy. This is the breakup diet. Welcome back to another episode of the breakup diet. Today I'm joined by a very exciting guest, Georgie, Crosley. So tell me a very very very important. out yourself? Tell me about Gigi collection. I want to hear it all. Yeah, so basically I started my brand during the pandemic with £7,000 in savings. I wasn't working anymore because before that

I used to work in China with COVID and everything, everything sort of got shut down. So I came back to London and during COVID I started my brand. But it's something I've been kind of playing with for maybe like one or two years earlier and just like I'd had the idea for a while and I made a few samples but that was when I really had the time to focus on it and push it were you in fashion before that yeah I was I so I studied at university like textiles designs like fabrication and things for fashion and then after that I went to work at Alexander McQueen in London Jenny Packham which is another British designer and um like ball dresses right like yeah yeah she does they do a lot for like Kate Middleton and things like that. After that, I started working in the purchasing department

where I purchased fabrics for different brands. So from there, I really felt like I got a good understanding of into the ins and outs of fabrication for clothing and like how things are made. And also, I think the main kind of reason I start on my brand is I felt with fast fashion. Fashion's kind of lost its meaning. You know, it's just what can I buy and wear once and throw away, I wanted to create a brand that was more kind of like an art project where you'd have pieces that are handmade, unique and something that you could wear forever, you know, kind of one of a kind fashion. I think that's come in a lot more because I remember like in 2016, like, in 2016, for example, it was very much so fast fashion. It was like a massive, massive thing. But especially now, maybe this is just me, but I definitely buy things more like not from a trend.

If I like love the piece, I know it's going to last. But I think that's amazing. I feel like that is a massive shift that people have done a lot too. Do you find that or not really? Yeah, I do. I think the sort of younger generation are quite into fast fashion just because maybe they're at university. They don't have the disposable income, you know,

to spend more money on clothes and things. But I do think now with the sort of explosion of social media and stuff, people are looking more at wanting to look unique and different and have like really cool fashion pieces and trends that will get them to go viral, you know, or to get people to kind of look at them a bit more. How did you have this idea? What was there something that like sparked it and what are the main like, is it ethos of Gigi collection?

Yeah. So basically it was when I was working in China for these mass market brands. And I just found there was so much waste. So much everything was so cheap and made so cheaply. And I kind of studying textiles and working. in purchasing of materials, I kind of fell in love with like the original way of how fabrics were made.

You know, like in the, I think it was actually the ancient Egyptians that invented weaving. So they were the first ones that event woven fabric. And then it came to Greece and then it was industrialized in the UK. And then from there,

someone called Joseph Jakard, who's French, he created Jackson's, card fabrics, which is kind of what most fabrics are made today, if they're woven, which is you can kind of make more complex designs, a lot of knitwear is done by that as well. And it really kind of industrialized and revolutionized fashion and clothing. And I kind of wanted to go back to that original artisanship of fabrics and clothing and make pieces that were really kind of in line with that, rather than just buying fabric, you know, from a market that was $2 or something. I wanted to make something that was unique because we actually hand design a lot of our fabrics.

So a lot of the fabrics we use, you won't find them anywhere else with any other brand because the, you know, the whole fabric's been designed as well as the clothing. Most of it is, is it done in London? A lot of it? So we have a studio in East London, which is where I, not during co-wigs, obviously, everything we shut down, but towards the end, I had another guide. I used to work with in fashion. And he was starting his own brand.

And he has a studio in East London. So I kind of joined the studio with him just to make it a bit more going on and stuff. And we started off by making everything there in house. And now as we're starting to grow bigger and stuff, we do do a lot in the UK, but we've started doing some in Poland as well. We have like a lovely female run factory just outside of Warsaw that we use. and they're all really lovely. Yeah, so it's a bit of both at the minute,

but all of our design, sampling, and quite a lot, if we need stuff made quickly, it's done in London. But if we sort of making quite a big production room, we'll do it, and we're starting to do in Poland. Not quite there yet, but some of the stuff is. And you said at the start that you only, when you started it, it was 7,000, was it? Yeah, I had £7,000 in savings, so.

That's quite scary to then, like, you must have put, like, majority of it in, no? Or all of it? Yeah, I put all of it in. So I just made a few samples. And it was scary because it actually took me six months to get a sale in the beginning. And I was thinking, oh my God, you know, did I do the right thing? But I only started with four pieces. So when I started my brand, I only made four coats. Don't a lot of factories get really funny about you have to make like a lot? The UK is fine. They'll do kind of any quantity. And because it was during COVID, I had to do it here anyway. Yeah.

Okay, so you got, you got the sample, not the samples, the actual pieces. Yeah, so I got like 10 of each. And then I just, I actually just, in the beginning, I think I just photographed friends in them because I didn't have a lot of money, you know, just on my phone or on a camera, just out in the street, things like that. And started marketing it on Instagram. It was hard because I kept posting stuff and I would get followers and things. but no sales.

And it was a bit kind of worrying. So I kept on and on and on. And then eventually I got contacted by, there's an independent department store in, it was in London, but they have it as well in L.A., New York, I think maybe Australia, called Wolf and Badger.

And they reached out to me and just said, we love your clothes. Do you want to be on the website? This was during lockdown. And I was like, yeah, okay. And so I put the clothes on there. And I think through that and just me posting continuously, I then got a sale.

And once you've got one, it kind of you get another and another and another. And then after that, because I have money coming in, I started developing new designs, new pieces. And I've actually moved away from what I did in the beginning because in the beginning, I was doing all these lovely like tweed jackets and they were all hand woven. But they didn't sell that well for me. It was only when I started to introduce sort of the lighter fabrics, like the one I'm wearing, the kind of more jackar pieces, that seemed to be what people really like and what the brand became known for. So I've sort of diversed more into this kind of realm of the, you know, the brands gone more into this than the original kind of heavy tweet coats.

And when you say that you were being consistent on like posting and everything like that, does that literally mean like you were doing it every day? Oh yeah, I was posting all the time. And how did you have all the content for that? You were just asking your friends. Yeah, I was asking friends. I was doing it a bit myself, but I'm a bit camera shy, you know, so I hate talking on camera and things like that. I just feel awkward when I'm by myself.

I know, but when you're by yourself in a room, I just, it's not for me, you know, so I would get friends to do it, family, or I'd get, yeah, I'd get pictures of myself in it. And, yeah, it just kind of went from there, but I was consistently posting. I was doing boost posts. things like that to get more engagement and more people to the page.

But I also think because of the time when I started it, which was during COVID, everyone was at home. So maybe people were looking more on social media, you know. When you got contacted by the big department store, like the, was it? Did you have quite a big following already by then or not really? I didn't. I had, well, I converted my Instagram at like my personal page into my brand one. So I had not many followers, but a few.

and then I only had maybe at the time like 2000 or 2000, not many followers. I think that's amazing though that they're contacting like independent small brands like that. So I don't know if they do that anymore because I think now they're quite big and I think they get a lot of brands contacting them. But at the time, yeah, maybe they were looking for brands or something and they came across mine because what I do is kind of unique. You know, it's you won't find the fabrics anywhere else. it's a sustainable brand, which is what they want to support.

So yeah, that was good for me in the beginning because I did get a lot of sales through them, you know, when I first started. Because I think as well when you start a brand or anything, it's hard for people to trust you if you're new. So people, maybe they'll see me on Wolf and Badger and see my website, but they'll order through Wolf and Badger because that's a reputable company that's been around for a while. so they don't come to me direct. So I think like now, obviously time's gone on and I've built up my brand and everything and people will trust, yeah. Yeah, it's a big thing.

Now I'm a bit more like whatever, but I remember when I first started buying stuff even off Instagram, like as in would see the brand on Instagram and then go to their website, you are a bit more hesitant than if I saw it in Harris or Harvey Nichol. You know what I mean? Like I would be quicker to buy it just because... Because that's what I thought in the beginning.

I thought people loved this whole sort of new. brand, new designer, everything. But what I've come to realize over time is people don't like that. They like established brand and an established name. Yeah, that was something I kind of learned early on, not to say that I'm a new brand and brand new, just the open this year. You got picked up by them and then you had your first sale and then it kind of just kept going.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, obviously every week's different and I can't sort of pinpoint why, but, you know, like everything, it's up and down. up and down, up and down. Was there a moment where you wanted to give up when you didn't have that sale or anything? Yeah, there was. I kind of thought, you know, why am I even bothering with this? Because I was putting a lot of effort in, you know, to try and get attention.

But I think also people say such bad, like slag social media off a lot. But actually, I think it's amazing because you can now just have no experience in anything or any kind of industry and you can launch whatever you want. because you've got a platform there for, you know, potential customers. And so for me, without it, you know, I wouldn't have been able to start my brand. I wouldn't have been able to promote it, you know. I think before fashion was very different, where you kind of went through the whole thing where you went to fashion school and then you worked for this designer, that designer,

the next one. And then, you know, if you kind of gotten known, you could go out on your own and start your own brand. But it's not like that anymore. you can, I mean, you don't even need to go to fashion school anymore. You had an idea and it was something cool that people liked. You can just make it, promote it and find your audience. Yeah, literally.

I know. It's so crazy, isn't it? Mine's kind of been a real slow burn. You know, it started slow, I'm organically growing, whereas some people, maybe they take investment from wherever, and they have this huge boom and everyone knows the brand, it's the coolest thing and then it drops off because it's gone, you know, the trends, not that, yeah, the hype's gone.

So I think what I'm trying to do when you look and kind of study all these different brands that that's happened to is just grow organically and just be, stay true to the brand's ethos. Because I think if a lot of times, like if you take investment from, you know, a company or an individual, they want to return on it. So they might say to you, well, this. to, you know, I have make everything, the fabrics are all hand designed. Well, this doesn't make enough money, so you need to do hoodies and caps and T-shirts with the logo on.

And then that gets pushed. And then everyone's exhausted because they don't want to look at another hoodie with your logo on it, you know? Yeah. So I'm trying to keep it like authentic and unique just to keep growing that way. Like as in you love what you've designed somebody else is going to. Yeah, because I kind of like. the fact my collection is like an art project you know it's everything sort of handmade and

hand drawn design that kind of thing and I do want to keep that because I think that's what people like about the brand so you work with designers as well and you kind of like oversee it or how does it work with you yeah so I work a lot with so I outsource a lot so how I'm working is kind of different because we will do sometimes just designs like now we're doing a lot of swimwear because originally the brand would get a lot of sales in winter and then nothing in the summer because no one buys coats in the summer right so i was like okay i need to diversify here so we went into swimwear and again i was like how do i keep this to within the usp of the brand how do i keep it unique every you know there's so many swimwear brands so i went back again i'm working with

this supplier in france where i get hand designed uh swimwear fabrics so it's kind of like I wouldn't say prints, it's like Jackard on swimwear, so you get sort of cool embroideries and things on it. So it just keeps the fabric a bit more unique because there's not that much you can do in swimwear that hasn't already been done, you know? So that, a lot of times we do that with just designing bikinis, swimsuits, whatever, and then fabricating them. But then other times it's like, I kind of know what sells, you know, because I've had the brand for a while. so I'll see a fabric and I'm like especially anything fringy you know with fringing I'll see it and I'll be like okay I know I can make something that we'll sell in that so and a lot of times to not waste money as well I do reuse patterns we already have so I'll just recreate you know the shorts pattern that we already use

in another fabric so that's another way that's good to save money and stuff because I think that's one of the most expensive things with the brand is the development of new pieces. So designing and then creating a pattern from the design and then doing a sample and does that sample work in that fabric? If not, then you've got to go back. And that's the most expensive park. You need to do that in London, really. And it's very expensive. Yeah. Have you ever had it where somebody's been wearing your piece and you've been out and seen it? Yeah, I have actually. But also what I found really cool was, I had a friend of mine who was in Miami and she was like, oh, I just saw a girl and so her house in your bikini.

Oh my gosh. That's so good. That's so good. Yeah. So we briefly mentioned earlier that you didn't get outside investment. How come that was so important? Was it because you wanted the control of not having to make certain things? The thing for me is when you first start any kind of business, if you take outside investment

in the beginning, you're going to have to give so much away. maybe even like 50% or more to get the money because you've not got a track record. How do they know that it's going to work your idea? Whereas if you kind of start a business, it can be any, you know, whatever, and then you get sales or say you're a restaurant and you get the football and the customers, you have something to prove then. So when you go out to look for investment, you're not going to have to give away as much of your company because you're already doing something right.

So it's not that I wouldn't take outside investment. It's just for the, I think, I do think to kind of really grow, you do need to take maybe big investment just to really push like the marketing and things like that. But I would really want to be sort of cautious of who I brought in because I do want to keep my brand with one-of-a-kind fabrics, you know, all handmade, have that. that kind of traditional craftsmanship in the brand,

I wouldn't want someone to push me into doing like t-shirts and huddies, just mass-producing them to get them out or making me mass-produce in China because it's super cheap and just, you know, I think then the brand can get really oversaturated when everyone has it and then it's not as desirable. Then also I'm on my schedule. I don't have to answer to any one or, you know, why have the sales not been as good this week as they were last week,

that kind of thing but it's not that I wouldn't take investment I would but it just have to be on yeah align and beyond like my terms more what's been the biggest learning for you from like starting it to now has there been anything that you wish maybe other people should know if they want to start their own brand or maybe a mistake that you know now that won't happen again I think it's like having flexibility to change so in the beginning like I said I started my brand and I was doing loads of these very heavy tweed coats that were really, I loved them. I thought they were amazing, but they just didn't really sell. So I had to, you know, adapt and move away from it. You know, if that's not what's selling, I need to do something else, which is how I got into the kind of lighter

fabrics and the swimwear. And this does much better for me. So I think if you're flexible and like, if you can adapt to change, then you can move on. I mean, I've made some samples that look, horrendous you know I've had this fabric and I was like oh my god that's beautiful I can't wait to make something in it and I've got the sample back and I've just been like what the hell you know so I think just not you know nothing goes smoothly every time it's like over time obviously you get used to it what's going to work what doesn't but in the beginning it's you just don't know you know how it's going to go yeah it must be quite hard though especially being like whether it's your brand and then you put it out and if it's not selling but you love it must be quite it must be quite hard to be

yeah because you don't know why yeah it's kind of like well why does no one want this I really like it but you know I guess I'm not everyone else so yeah yeah and how important was it on the email so basically you reached out and you in the email you said like work with a lot of females or was it something that just kind of fell into place um so it was something I did consciously it's like I do want to support female businesses so I'm working a lot with you know all the seamstresses are females and to be honest like design wise it's a very mix of like men and women but I do kind of want to champion females in the workforce and kind of give them a way to shine because it is like a very male dominated world still, you know, no matter what we say, it's like even when you look at investment,

the majority of it is going to men. And that's just a fact. So it is nice to kind of be a woman and have a business and inspire other females to start their own business or to, and just to work with other females to give them opportunities. And what has been your proudest moment? My proudest moment is probably when Sarah and Michelle Geller, who's Buffy the Vampire Slayer, award this. kimono on star search Netflix so she's like a judge on that and she wore it for one of the episodes I was like that was pretty cool you know to have someone famous in your designs um or just seeing other people wearing them you know on Instagram when they tag you in the posts and things like that yeah that must be so cool and especially just like seeing that and the repost not the repost

tags yeah yeah and like have no connection to them I think that's amazing you obviously are doing lots right And if you could go back in time, is there anything you would have changed at the start or the way that you did it? Yeah, so much. Well, to be honest, I wish I started it earlier, you know, but I didn't have the idea like years ago. So, but I wouldn't have made all these like heavy tweed coats because some of them, I still have them sat there, like still trying to sell them. and then I have the other stuff I made later on that sold out. And also I think I know a lot more about marketing

and how to get yourself out there, which I didn't know before how to do. When you say that, what do you mean? Just like on social media and what type of post work? People love, you know, a day in the life in the studio. They love this sort of behind the scenes, things of how things are made. Whereas in the beginning, I was just doing photo shoots.

like filming photoshoots because I thought that's what people would want to see but actually they like the sort of in the studio type real content, yeah. So having like different content as well probably like lots of different avenues. Yeah, because I think it's quite different

and people are interested to see how everything's actually made. Because I think like sometimes I get a lot of feedback that my products are expensive but so by being able to show that actually everything is handmade, made, including the fabrics. Like, I have this one, these fringy jackets and shorts and that all hand finish in the studio. So we make them with kind of seamstresses.

And then I just say, don't cut the fringing because it takes forever. Just send it back and we'll finish it in our studio. And then I've done videos of me and other people that I work with just sat there like literally chopping, fringing on coats and shorts. And I think people can then see and be. like, oh, okay, you know, I get it. It takes time to make your pieces to craft them. Yeah, and it's not just, you're not just the founder and like, you don't see it. You know what I mean? You're actually putting the time into then make sure that they're perfect for the customer devise it as well. Yeah.

You know what I mean? It's like the final check. That would definitely, if I saw that as a consumer, I would be like, yeah, I want it. Do you have one piece of advice for somebody starting a brand? I would say just go for it because if you don't, you never know. you know, you might, it's going to be a regret. So I think start it. And if you're not sure, start it as a side hustle whilst you're still in your other job. Amazing. Well, thank you.