Joanna Dai regularly put in 12-hour days working on the trading floor in credit syndication at JP Morgan and travelled around Europe on full-on trips every other week.
But it was one particularly gruelling same-day journey to Stockholm and back that made up mind to her quit banking.
“I got dressed at 4:30am and was on the last return flight home, 16 hours later after a long day of meetings,” she remembers. It wasn’t a comfortable journey: “The waistband of my trousers was digging in, I couldn’t move my arms in a suit, and I wished I was in my yoga leggings. I thought to myself, ‘Could workwear feel like yogawear and still look like a power suit?’”
That was 2016 — the year “athleisure” escaped its former ghetto in the gym and went mainstream. So mainstream, in fact, that it entered the Merriam-Webster dictionary for the first time.
“All these technical athleisure fabrics were now readily available,” Dai explains, “and I saw an opportunity to innovate and revolutionise workwear with fabrics that were four-way stretch, breathable, wrinkle-resistant and machine-washable.”
The California-born entrepreneur, who is 37 and lives in Stoke Newington, had grown used to dull workwear. “My very first suits for my first banking internship were from Brooks Brothers — so boxy and unflattering, I lost my individuality and confidence.”
So in 2016 Dai quit JP Morgan — “I’d done eight years and needed a change” — and enrolled on design and pattern-making courses at London College of Fashion, alongside a three-month unpaid internship with designer Emilia Wickstead.
“I was the oldest intern on the team, but seeing how a fashion brand runs from the inside was invaluable.” She travelled to Paris textile trade show Premiere Vision, and returned with swatches of 60 sportswear fabrics to test if they could be tailored, eventually choosing an Italian, eco-friendly knit for her first collection.
Dai started to build her eponymous brand: “The word ‘Dai’ in Chinese means to wear, plus it was short and memorable”, and plunged £30,000 of her savings to bootstrap it. “It was enough to pull together everything on a shoestring budget — branding, graphics, website, photoshoot, product development, a small production run and packaging, but there was nothing left for marketing.”
The entrepreneur launched an eight-piece collection of five dresses, and blazer, shirt and trousers, in July 2017. “I did a trunk show in New York and London for women I knew in finance, which led to enough pre-orders to press ahead with production.”
Dai then made a list of influential journalists and fashion insiders. “I cold-called or emailed them with our first lookbook inviting them to put our collection to the test.” A big article in a broadsheet headlined “I’ve found the perfect trousers” about the brand’s £220 Power Move trousers (which are still its bestseller) crashed the firm’s website and the collection, which is manufactured in Portugal, sold out.
Celebrity power helped too — later fashion star Trinny Woodall wore the Dai midnight powersuit on Instagram and on TV with Holly Willoughby, again leading to the pieces selling out.
More investment was required: “We were constantly sold out without capital to buy proper inventory, and my time was sunk in customer service and production versus the next strategic pieces,” Dai admits. She has since raised a seven-figure sum via three rounds, with backers including VC Redrice Ventures and New Look founder Tom Singh’s family office.
Covid was tough to navigate: “No one needed suits. But we launched a collection with yoga waistbands and a smart leg, and a denim range that’s made in England — the pandemic allowed us to really expand the range.”
By 2021, business was strong enough for Dai to open her first store, in Covent Garden, after successful pop-ups in King’s Road, Marylebone High Street and New York’s SoHo. She is eyeing up US expansion within the next five years. Dai is proud of her business receiving BCorp accreditation for its sustainability: “I knew that starting a brand inevitably has an impact on the planet, so I wanted to create a responsible business from the very start.”
Now the business sells £2 million of clothes a year, but Dai is eyeing more. “I’d love to see this on a global scale — helping to put an end to disposable wardrobes. I really feel fulfilled by empowering women, and finding technological innovations that are better for our planet.”
Dai
Founded: 2017
Staff: 12
Turnover: £2m
Headquarters: Shoreditch
