I started £250m side hustle aged 17 with borrowed cash – I sell a dress every 30 seconds & even Beyoncé wears my frocks
ARMED with her book bag and a love for clothes, five-year-old Conna Walker didn’t mind helping out on her parents’ secondhand market stalls in East London after long days at school.
She might’ve been young, but she was learning how to negotiate, as well as the fundamentals of running a business. This experience is what helped her become the owner of a £250 million fashion label.
The 32-year-old is the founder and CEO of world-renowned fashion brand, House of CB (short for House of Celeb Boutique).
The label which initially started as Conna selling clothes on eBay, turned over £250 million last year and has a celeb-worthy five million Instagram followers.
Aged 17, Conna borrowed £3,000 from her parents in 2010 and began selling readymade clothes purchased from clothing markets in China.
She travelled there with her parents who were buying furniture for their business, and brought back a suitcase of garments for her to flog on eBay.
She continued doing this for a year or so, before deciding to start designing her own dresses (which were also manufactured in China) and set up her own website.
The entrepreneur, from Chigwell, Essex, taught herself basic coding to be able to log pictures on her website.
“I just learnt from trial and error,” she revealed on Exhibit A, a podcast hosted by Abbey Clancy.
“I didn’t try to get really big straight away.
“I decided that I didn’t want to go to university and wanted to carry on with House of CB.”
She was packing orders in her parents’ home and posting them herself at the local post office.
After two years, the business had scaled to land a distribution warehouse.
This meant Conna was able to only sell clothes designed in-house, rather than wholesale bought from China.
And since all of the designs became original, it’s likely your favourite celebrity has worn House of CB.
Among its A-List clients are the Kardashian sisters, J-Lo, Beyoncé and Gigi Hadid.
DID HOUSE OF CB SUE OH POLLY?
House of CB is no stranger to a lawsuit. In fact, Conna Walker and her team took on fast fashion giant Oh Polly in 2021...
House of CB was awarded £450,000 damages after a judge ruled in its favour on a design rights row centred on two of its dresses.
It took legal action against Oh Polly for selling bodycon and bandage styles that were ‘fragrant’ rip-offs of House of CB.
David Stone, sitting as Deputy High Court Judge, compared 20 House of CB designs against 20 Oh Polly designs.
He ultimately concluded that seven of the Oh Polly pieces infringed the unregistered design rights of House of CB, stating that some of the designs were essentially copied outright.
ACROSS THE POND
Conna managed to build up her celeb clientele by essentially following them around Los Angeles, US.
She would fly across the pond with a suitcase full of House of CB clothes and DM stars on Instagram to offer them a free outfit.
Failing that, she’d turn up at exclusive hotels in the City of Angels to catch celebrities in the foyer and hand them the clothes directly.
“It all happened in a bit of a flurry,” she recalled of 2015.
I paid the security to send some dresses up to them – and they took them and wore them
Conna Walker
“I was living in the W Hotel at the time and there were some [famous] women living there, or visiting there, or whatever.
“I paid the security to send some dresses up to them – and they took them and wore them.”
There was a week around this time that Beyoncé wore House of CB dresses for a week straight, which Conna didn’t know until she’d seen the pictures online.
“We’ve had Rihanna before, and then we also had Taylor S wift wear some stuff this year as well,” the founder added.
QUALITY IS EVERYTHING
Quality is everything to House of CB. Conna’s products are globally renowned for fitting like a glove and creating flawless hourglass figures without any tailoring.
This drove revenue of £200 million last year, which the founder says works out at a dress being sold every 30 seconds.
“We’ve always made products that you can’t find in other places,” Conna added.
In the early 2010s, the brand’s signature bandage dresses and skirts were on most young womens’ Christmas lists. That material is still a staple in its products today.
A mini bandage dress from the fashion house will set you back £169, while the new season tulle midi dresses are priced at £239.
In 2017, Conna moved into producing dresses that had corsets as the sculptor, which is another motif that has stayed strong until today.
“For women, having well-fitting tailored clothes that give you a waist cinch wasn’t very common,” she explained.
“Celebrity stylists were telling us that they really enjoyed just putting a dress on and they’re good, it doesn’t need to be tailored. That’s the feedback we had.”
‘I’M CONSTANTLY GOING AT IT’
House of CB has now been in operation for nearly 15 years.
Conna has opened a number of stores across the world, including on London’s Oxford Street, in Westfield Stratford City and even on the iconic Melrose Ave in West Hollywood, US.
The fashion house owns its own factory, which is fully pink and is the size of three football pitches.
Conna attributes her success in scaling House of CB to “constantly going at it”.
“It’s always been my number one focus,” she said. “I’m always working on it.
“I’m lucky that now I have the freedom to do whatever I want, but the business still requires me to be present all the time.
“I still struggle with delegating, I’m still very much involved.”
Conna oversees everything – from concepts, to product design to marketing strategy.