We caught up with ZAAZEE founder Deborah Todd to bring you the latest insight from Manchester’s fastest-growing activewear brand
It’s been a fast-paced start to the New Year for ZAAZEE. Have you been able to draw breath?
Only just! We had an amazing Christmas period, lots of new people coming to the brand with all the different pop-ups and promising sales figures for the elegant new winter hoodies.
The Tri Show London was an incredible event. It’s gruelling doing a full weekend so far from our base, but we met some amazing people. So all the time, effort and planning was well worth it!
We’ve done awesome work with small independent shops too, which was also great. We love this kind of work and would love to expand our network even further!
Amazing – ELLIE sports bra winning Women’s Running ‘Best in Test’ 30/30!
This was a great surprise for us, we’d known the product is amazing since launch. When other people say it’s amazing, love it and want to tell other people about it, it’s fantastic. I couldn’t have dreamed of a more exciting start to the year. Luckily I’ve ordered more ELLIE just before Christmas, so I’m thankful I did that.
The black / white fabric is so versatile, it’s actually a swim fabric, so it works really well for all sports and it’s so comfortable.
When the coverage came out, I was thrilled. I didn’t know we’d have so many hits to the site and new sales, but it’s been super. Well worth working so hard on the products.
And perfect timing, the reverse ELLIE has just gone online, so for those waning more, it’s the perfect chance of ELLIE with three different options.
ZAAZEE has launched a lot of new and exciting products recently, what stands out?
Working with customers all the time I get a chance to know what people want to buy, so I’m always receptive to ideas as well as mine.
I like to create exciting pieces that work with other pieces or ones that create an outfit, I work out all the time and it’s important to have pieces that work together, that wash well, look fresh and timeless and that last.
2018 has a lot of grey, I love grey, so hope that the pieces will be well received. Grey goes with all colours, so I’m excited to see how we can mix collections.
Personally you completed RED January, tell us about that epic journey
I saw RED JANUARY pop up on Facebook in December and thought I should do something like this. So I asked two of my closest friends and they were up for it, I mentioned it to a few other people and they expressed interest too. I didn’t know if everyone was going to do it, but having had a late night on NY Eve my friend Claire and I went out on New Year’s Day, something I’d never have done, but because we weren’t alone it was really easy.
On December 31st, we were to a NY Eve party and the next day we got on our ZAAZEE and went for a run. It started there and somehow I ended up running 85 miles over 31 days to raise money for MIND charity.
I wasn’t going to raise money but because Claire and my other friend did, after a week I decided to. It really helped encourage me.
January was a busy month for me so some days I had pop-ups and then had to run and for the last few days in January I booked a trip to Munich to attend the ISPO.
ISPO is the largest sports fair in the World and I was keen to see what everyone was doing, so whilst there I also had to get my runs in.
I’d recommend everyone try something to push themselves this year, the last 10k I had run was 10 years ago and I’m not a runner but it was such fun. In particular posting the runs to social media and raising money for the charity. In total between the threee of us we raised over £800.00 which I am so proud of, looking back it was a challenge and I’m so pleased. The last run was in Munich after the ISPO and it was really emotional, all the sweat, snow, rain, cold, made it pretty epic.
What’s up next for ZAAZEE?
We’ve got two exciting shows in the pipeline. In April we will have a stand at the OM YOGA show, super exciting as it’s our home town. To help our awareness we’ve got three fantastic ambassadors taking classes and wearing the latest kit, it should be really fun.
In May we are also doing the Rock n’ Roll Liverpool event too, so a first for us, we’ve not really done much there. I can’t wait.
Catch up with you in person soon, Deborah xx
