The Fashion Brand Clinic Podcast

They chased one brand for eighteen months. It's now their bestseller. Here's what finally made it say yes — and what makes a buyer quietly drop you.
 
Alyssa Iaquinto and Lily Quenneville barely knew each other when they decided to open a shop together. Three years on, ROVE London sits at 333 Portobello Road, stocking Dôen, Simkhai, Posse, St. Agni, Tressé and a rotating cast of brands you genuinely cannot buy anywhere else in the UK.
 
But this isn't really an episode about opening a shop.
 
Alyssa and Lily are buyers. They are the person on the other end of the wholesale email you've been sending. And in this conversation they say out loud the things brands almost never get to hear: why they say yes, why they say no, what makes them drop a brand, and exactly what a late delivery does to a boutique's margin.
 
What we get into:
 
• The chicken-and-egg problem of stocking a brand-new boutique — and the one brand that said yes first and unlocked all the others • Why Dôen took eighteen months of follow-ups, and why that's actually a compliment • The real reason brands said no: no trading history, no website, not a single social post • The thing they'd genuinely go back and change, which is the same regret I hear from founders constantly • What actually happens on a buying trip — the 6am Eurostar, three days of back-to-back appointments, and why two buyers in the same showroom walk out with completely different edits • How the data/intuition split shifted from 100/0 to 50/50, and why their numbers never tell the whole story • What to do when you get a buy badly wrong and nobody wants the thing you bought fifteen of • The screenshot bit: what makes a brand a joy to work with, and what makes one a nightmare. Spoiler — it isn't the design or the price • A dress due in January that landed in July, and what that does to a selling window • Why they turned down a street full of big names to sit among independents and vintage shops instead
 
Alyssa and Lily are also both inside Magnetic, so I get to watch them do this properly week to week.
 
The bit I keep coming back to: they answer customer WhatsApps at midnight. One of them took a customer's call on the Tube. You can never get that on Amazon — so do what Amazon can't.
 
FIND ROVE LONDON Shop: 333 Portobello Road, London W10 5SA Online: https://rove-london.com Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/rove_london/ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@rove_london
 
BRANDS MENTIONED Dôen · Simkhai · Tressé · Posse · St. Agni · Staud · Faithfull the Brand · Agolde · Soft Goat · Le Scarf. Also name-checked as customer requests: SIR. and DISSH.
 
WORK WITH ELIZABETH Magnetic — my six-month marketing accelerator for fashion businesses. We build an organic marketing strategy from scratch and then put it into action together. A small handful of spaces left for September 2026 — email hi@elizabethstiles.co.uk and we'll have a chat. https://www.elizabethstiles.co.uk/magnetic-open
 
The Scaling Project — six months of 1:1 mentoring for established, VAT-registered brands https://www.elizabethstiles.co.uk/level-up
 
Free resources: https://www.elizabethstiles.co.uk/freebies
 
The Fashion Feed — my free weekly newsletter and Facebook group
 
Fashion Marketing Live 2027 — Monday 15 March 2027. The first one sold out in 24 hours, so get on the waitlist via the menu at https://www.elizabethstiles.co.uk
 
The Shopping Forecast — my other podcast, with Catherine Erdly:
https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-shopping-forecast/id6787894258

Your personality is the one thing no competitor can copy. So why is everyone still copying each other?
 
Sophie Milham grew Odd Muse from 90K to 500K on TikTok and from just under 100K to 900K on Instagram — in two and a half years, straight out of a fashion styling degree, having never studied marketing in her life. She then became the very first hire at electrolyte brand SULT, who launched into Boots with a waitlist built before the product even existed.
 
So when Sophie says stop chasing the algorithm, it's worth putting your phone down and listening.
 
This one comes straight from the stage at Fashion Marketing Live, Elizabeth's sold-out event for fashion brand founders, and it is a proper masterclass in the thing most brands are still getting backwards: personality beats polish, every single time.
 
What Sophie covers:
 
The three places your brand's personality actually lives — founder-led content, employee-generated content (EGC), and personal branding — and how to pick the one that suits you

Why LinkedIn is the most untapped platform in fashion right now, and what to post on it that isn't boring

Storytelling over aesthetic: why the perfectly curated grid has had its day, and the 80/20 split Sophie uses instead

How SULT built a waitlist of buyers before there was a website, a product, or a single sample

The £100 giveaway stunt that put half a million people onto SULT before Sophie's first day

Why the month the Boots launch went wrong got the best engagement of the year

Your social media is your CV — and the pitch deck Sophie replaced with a list of Reels links

The "what's in, what's out" rundown you'll want to screenshot

Plus a genuinely brilliant Q&A on luxury pricing, messy content, and whether to keep your personal and brand accounts separate

 
If you have ever spent your 9-to-5 scrolling for research and your 5-to-9 doom scrolling for "inspiration", this episode is your permission slip to stop.
 
"People buy from people. They don't just buy a product."
 
 
 
Find Sophie
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/sophie-milham-1636221b9

Instagram: @sophiemilhamx

TikTok: @sophiemilhamx

Mentioned in this episode
SULT — drinksult.com · founders Milly Goldsmith & Henry Porpora · in Boots

Odd Muse London — oddmuse.co.uk · founder Aimee Smale · @oddmuselondon

Capala Swim — capalaswim.com · @capalaswim

PerfectTed and Surreal — brands she says are doing employee LinkedIn content properly!

Work with Elizabeth
Magnetic — the six-month marketing accelerator for fashion brands. 25 places per round, weekly coaching, full training hub, monthly planning and the templates. → elizabethstiles.co.uk/magnetic-five

The Scaling Project — six months of 1:1 mentoring for established, VAT-registered brands → elizabethstiles.co.uk/level-up

Free resources → elizabethstiles.co.uk/freebies

The Fashion Feed — the free weekly newsletter and Facebook group

Fashion Marketing Live 2027 — Monday 15 March 2027. The first one sold out in 24 hours, so get on the waitlist via the menu at elizabethstiles.co.uk

Hosting my own live event was hands-down the most terrifying thing I've ever done in business. Six months before Fashion Marketing Live — the UK's first fashion marketing conference — I was kicking and screaming about the whole idea. Then it sold out in 24 hours. This episode is that talk, recorded live in the room.
If your marketing feels like shouting into an empty room, this one's for you. I break down the formula I believe builds a fashion brand people are genuinely obsessed with: Leadership + Message + Community. No fluff — just the three things I will not shut up about, and why they matter more in 2026 than ever.
In this episode:
Why the word "leader" makes you squirm — and why a following is impossible without stepping into it

The reason only 12% of women build a six-figure business, and how we start shifting that

What Debenhams and Topshop teach us about losing a community (and how to avoid it)

Why Nike arguably has more believers than a political party — and what that means for you

Getting your message clear enough that other people sell you through word of mouth

Meet "Brenda": the inner-critic voice talking you out of being bold

Why trust beats perfection every time — the Victoria Beckham lesson

I'm also joined by one of my absolute icons — reality-TV star, real-life superyacht captain and author of Be the Calm or Be the Storm, Captain Sandy Yawn — who recorded a message on leadership that genuinely made me well up.
Also mentioned: Gemma Collins, Andrew & Pete, Daniel Priestley's Oversubscribed, Patagonia, Lucy & Yak, Gymshark, HunsNet, and the Business of Fashion's "companies are the new communities."
Links & next steps:
Join The Fashion Feed — free weekly newsletter & community: https://www.elizabethstiles.co.uk

Fashion Marketing Live 2027 is on 15 March 2027 (last one sold out in a day) — join the waitlist: [INSERT FML 2027 WAITLIST LINK]

Work with Elizabeth (Starter Course · Magnetic · The Scaling Project): https://www.elizabethstiles.co.uk/services

Captain Sandy Yawn: https://www.captainsandyyawn.com · Book: Be the Calm or Be the Storm

I have been trying to get Grace Beverley on this podcast for eight years. Eight!
Grace, if you didn't already know, is the founder of TALA, and in this conversation she is more honest than most founders in her position tend to be about how it actually happened.
The decisions, the mistakes, the things that nearly went wrong.
I learned things in this episode that I genuinely wasn't expecting, and I've been in this industry for over two decades.
We talk hero SKUs, the newness trap, what burnout actually looked like for her, a coat launch that made a million pounds in a single day, and why she was so deliberate from the very beginning about building a brand that didn't revolve around her.
If you own a fashion brand at any stage, this one's worth your full attention.
What we cover: 00:00 — Why Grace is my most-requested guest (and why it took eight years to make it happen)
04:04 — How TALA has evolved — and what "activewear" actually means for them now
09:36 — Why Grace calls newness a drug, and how chasing it nearly derailed the business
13:51 — What I'd tell a bedroom brand owner who's getting inconsistent sales
17:23 — The hero SKU argument: one product, 50% of your revenue — and why even a multi-billion pound brand still works this way
20:42 — Why Grace made sure TALA was never built to depend on her
26:22 — When stepping back helps, and when it makes things worse
29:36 — Burnout: what it looked like, and the advice she ignored for too long
32:21 — What it's really like to build in public as a female founder
35:56 — The full story of the million-pound Storm Puffer launch
43:10 — Opening physical stores at Carnaby and Westfield and why every location had to stack up commercially
47:20 — Why the most useful mentor isn't who you think
Please visit my website to get more information: https://www.elizabethstiles.co.uk/
🔔𝐃𝐨𝐧'𝐭 𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐠𝐞𝐭 𝐭𝐨 𝐬𝐮𝐛𝐬𝐜𝐫𝐢𝐛𝐞 𝐭𝐨 𝐦𝐲 YouTube 𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐧𝐞𝐥 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐦𝐨𝐫𝐞 video versions. https://www.youtube.com/@elizabethstiles1630/?sub_confirmation=1 🔗
Stay Connected With Me.
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/elizabethstilesuk/
Website: https://www.elizabethstiles.co.uk/

Most brand newsletters are either boring or non-existent. They show up only when there's a product to sell, or they read like a flyer that landed in your inbox by accident.
But a good newsletter? It feels like a mini magazine. Something people actually look forward to opening.
In this episode, I'm giving you a simple, step-by-step structure to write the perfect newsletter. No blank-page panic, no overthinking. Just a clear rhythm you can use every time you hit send.
In This Episode:
✨ The golden rule of picking one purpose per newsletter
✨ How to write subject lines that get opened (and why emojis help)
✨ The "value before you sell" rule that keeps people reading
✨ Why editorial extras like playlists or moodboards make you stand out
✨ A simple template you can follow to write your next send
👉 Listen now: The Fashion Brand Clinic, Episode 14
This podcast is sponsored by Tide Banking
Offer: Get £50 cashback when you open a business account with Tide and spend £100 on your new card. T&C's apply.
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Promo Code: FASHION