Online fashion brand In The Style had become a household brand, soaring to success back in 2021 with a London Stock Exchange float that valued the business at a whopping £105m.
But in 2023, the Manchester-based business sold for £1.2m to Jaswinder Singh’s Baaj Capital to avoid collapsing into administration. A takeover deal by Iconic Labs, which started out as Manchester-based WideCells Group in 2018 before being renamed in 2019, continues and, if completed, would constitute a reverse takeover under the UK Listing Rules.
Thanks to a renewed focus led by Baaj Capital, there have been a number of changes at the top of the brand with Ben Armstrong appointed to take the reins as managing director and founder and CEO Adam Frisby stepping down as CEO in December.
That recently took another turn as Frisby, who founded the brand from his bedroom in 2013, revealed on social media that it was ‘with a heavy heart’ that he will ‘no longer be a part’ of In The Style, yet it wasn’t an ‘easy decision’ to leave the business entirely.
Tasked with guiding the brand ‘towards profitability’, Phoebe Russell is now shaking up the brand’s marketing efforts, bringing a wealth of fashion experience both in-house and agency side after previously working as global social lead at Nasty Gal, global head of brand at THG’s LookFantastic and most recently, brand director at Rise at Seven.
“There are two jobs to be done when a brand goes through what this brand has gone through: it’s to stabilise, which is what Ben Armstrong and the team have so successfully done. Then its growth, and I’ve been brought in for that growth. It’s very positive,” Phoebe Russell, marketing director at In The Style, tells Prolific North.
In the most recent figures available, In The Style’s revenue fell from £57.3m to £45.9m in the 12 months to March 31, 2023. How that growth currently looks, is unclear.
So I headed to In The Style’s HQ, tucked away in an unassuming corner of Manchester’s M60 Office Park, during the summer to find out more about Russell and her marketing mission plus, what the future might hold for the brand prior to Frisby leaving the business.
“I became agoraphobic…”
Amid mannequins and clothing rails inside the brand’s studio, Russell is bubbly and assertive as we chatter away. But she is very candid about her mental health battles – and why she hasn’t always been this confident.
“I was burning the candle at both ends. I’ve known anxiety to be this foe that comes along when you’re too burnout and you spend too many nights trying to network. I wasn’t really prepared for the onslaught of panic attacks I faced,” she reflects.
Giving up the glamour of shooting behind the scenes social content at fashion shows, she first landed a job agency-side at OK COOL when the creative studio had just five staff and was pitching for the likes of SoundCloud and ASOS.
Like any “hungry entrepreneurial girl” she decided to set up her own agency and soon enough signed major brands including the likes of Umbro and was dipping her toe into the world of influencer marketing as the industry boomed.
“Then I had my biggest run in with my mental health,” she explains. “It got to the point where I became agoraphobic for three months. I couldn’t leave the house. I had to shut my business. I couldn’t speak. It was a really, really bad time.”
With hot flushes, sweaty palms and heart palpitations engulfing her as she battled with the thought of leaving the comfort of her home, she felt like she had lost her sense of identity.
“I went from being this very hungry, entrepreneurial-minded girl to having full-on mental breakdowns and moved back in with my mum and dad. No one wants to do that. Moving back from London to the North, in a very small town in Huddersfield, everything felt different.
“Anxiety weirdly still holds a taboo, which is crazy in today’s era where everything is so hyper connected and open.”
Facing her fears with the help of therapists, meditation to ice baths, she forced herself to go in-house for her next career move in an attempt to “confront” her anxiety and tackled the daily train commute face on.
“The week prior, the biggest thing I’d done that week was getting to the end of the road without having a panic attack. I spent every single day meditating to get to my job at Nasty Gal.
“I do think everything happens for a reason. I made some brilliant friends there, including the senior marketing manager at the time, Vicky James, who’s now marketing director of LookFantastic.”
Going from running her own agency across different markets to being head of social for just one brand, although it may have been a massive “setback” for her career, she still sees it as the “best thing” to help her land back on her feet.
And although she may have overcome her battle with agoraphobia, the battle with anxiety has “never stopped”. After seven years, 2024 was the first time she was able to travel abroad.
“If I go to a different city, I still talk myself down and say ‘no you can do this’,” she says. “There are days where I can look fear in the face, there are days where I can’t.
“I’m not ashamed of that person anymore. That was a big turning point. You think you’ve got to be this brave, career hungry, driven person. Yeah, you can be. But you know, what? If you have a day where getting out of bed is the best thing you did that day for you, that’s fine too.”
“Agencies are high pressure… anxiety and burnout become a big byproduct of that”
After a stint working at LookFantastic, her most recent role was as brand director at Rise at Seven where she spent two and a half years working closely with Carrie Rose, the agency’s founder and CEO.
“The biggest thing I’ve found in business, certainly in brands and especially agencies where it’s high pressure, high functioning, revenue driven and performance first, is anxiety and burnout becomes a big, big, byproduct of that.
“Carrie knows I got to a point where I was too tired. Growth of that magnitude is not sustainable.”
Behind the glitz and glamour of those impressive turnover figures, awards, an expanding client base and expansion into new markets, she admits it all “comes with a level of pressure” as she faced burnout.
“I’m the one that worked 11 to 12 hour days. I’m the one that put myself through that because I struggle to balance my life and my work. I feel the most ‘me’ when I work – I don’t know whether that’s my anxiety creeping in and my job is more controllable.”
But now in her new role at In The Style, she’s adamant the team are able to talk openly about their own mental health struggles.
“I have a lot of people in my team that have quite bad anxiety. Bad news happens or they’ve got to do something that’s different. Having a helping hand through it, being able to talk about it and working as a team can help balance it out.
“It doesn’t doesn’t make you any less superhuman if you couldn’t do something that day.”
“It’s all about growth” – Marketing blunders, influencers and the future of In The Style
Now tasked with revamping the brand’s marketing strategy, Russell is taking In the Style back to its roots and reinforcing messaging about the brand’s size differentiation up to a UK size 36, the ‘quality’ of products, affordability and accessibility.
“We’re bringing it back a little bit and asking what does our girl want, like and value? We’ve put all of that core market research in place now, we know who we’re talking to.
“It’s almost step one. This seems ridiculous for most brands, they know the personas but we didn’t even know who our girl was. And that’s who we’re designing for.
“So we’ve taken it a step back. We’re looking at how we shoot photography, our value proposition, loyalty, retention and distribution strategies.”
Following successful partnerships with ASOS and expansion into physical stores with George and F&F partnerships, she says the “future is in a marketplace proposition” as the brand is currently in the midst of creating its own one-stop shop for fashion – and beyond – through an In the Style Marketplace. Although she couldn’t disclose more, she teased what this might mean for In The Style.
“If we sit here in a year’s time, our consumer will be able to feel that difference straightaway between where we’ve come and where we’re going.
“Instead of us being so hyper focused on influencer growth – that is actually shifting in the market. Everyone uses an influencer, eight years ago it was different. What’s that next level of innovation? For me, it’s hyper personalised shopping whether it’s multiple brands in one place or a shopping feed based off of an algorithm in a unique way.
“That’s really why I think I’m here and what I want to explore with the brand. I would love to do a big brand partnership. I think that the influencer partnership of yesterday is the brand partnership of today.”
But as the “inventors” of influencer marketing, more exciting collaborations will continue to be rolled out and In The Style will always remain a ‘social first brand’, as it remains the most important channel as part of the brand’s marketing mix.
“That’s never going to change, let’s never forget that. That is our bread and butter, it is where our girl is, where she spends her time, it’s where ideas are shared and creativity can be tested and boundaries pushed.
“That’s where we need to play, that is our arena.”
Although she doesn’t shy away from taking creative risks, she’s open about one of her biggest marketing blunders whilst working at LookFantastic.
“[At LookFantastic] I thought it would be an incredible idea to ask our followers if the team should have a staggered late start to come in after the Euro 2020 final or a certain amount of likes for the whole day off. I wasn’t expecting 35,000 likes in the first few minutes.”
It might be commonplace for brands now but four years ago, it would have cost the business upwards of £1m to shut its doors for the day due to the numbers of staff. Without sign off, it spiralled as staff went to the papers and the headlines called it a stunt.
“I think people believe that you get to a certain level and you don’t make mistakes – it’s just not the case for me! I was naturally scolded.
“I feel really proud of taking a risk in my career and getting a slap on the wrist a lot of those times but it was worth it. Because for me, the reward was greater than the risk.
“There is no way I would have got sign off for that. Every now and then, you have to weigh up whether it’s better to ask for forgiveness than permission.”
As for the future of In The Style, the next two years are all about growth.
“We’re not just happy with being stabilised and profitable again,” she explains. “This is a brand that got £100m. This is the trajectory we need to go on now.”
“We did it last time, it had its faults. We’ve learnt, it’s a resilient story and there’s a level of us being an underdog because when the news broke about In the Style and its loss the mood was: ‘another one bites the dust.’ No, it doesn’t have to be every brand’s reality. We’re doing pretty well to say that the economy is the way it is, truly.”
But what about beyond the two years?
“Everyone’s got an opinion on where things should go. But it comes down to how we ourselves become a marketplace? What brands do we then buy into and, as we’re part of Baaj, what are they buying that we can then service on our site and how do we become a destination? So right now it’s about growth of brand, then it’s about growth of market.”
“I’m super excited for the journey.”
