Behind The Brand: VEGAN Happy
"Meat is murder." "Dairy is scary." "My body is not a graveyard."
No, we're not planning an activism-themed Halloween party (although wouldn't that be awesome), we're perusing vegan slogan tops and t-shirts. And what we find is often a little, well, graphic. Could vegan messaging not be a bit more...happy?
That's where Lorri Delahunty and her brand VEGAN Happy come in. The cruelty-free entrepreneur started her brand to start conversations about animal rights, but in a more subtle way.
By Sascha Camilli: writer, speaker, activist, and vegan fashion expert.
"My background is in marketing, in the trade and mobile phone sectors –
I had no retail experience whatsoever," reveals Delahunty. "I just realised that when I went vegan that the sort of clothing that I could find, mainly large graphic tees, wasn’t the sort of clothing I wanted to wear." So like many other entrepreneurs, Delahunty went about creating the clothing she'd actually reach for herself. "I felt so happy to become vegan, I wanted to shout about it, but I still wanted to look stylish and I still had meetings to go to, so what could I wear? I had a chance thought at a kitchen table one night over six years ago – and by the morning the limited company was set up and I was planning my first stock intake."
VEGAN Happy's journey was a shared one. "My husband designed our monochrome logo. But we didn’t have any retail experience so there is so much still to learn, but we are loving the journey!"
The journey does come with some hurdles. "When I first started, I did a focus group with some friends who were vegan and we came up with a small capsule line to start off with, so I bought the stock! And nearly all that stock was still with me years later as it just didn’t shift." But like any good entrepreneur, Delahunty adapted. "We reinvented how we worked. We do stock a lot of items but we also
create a lot of bespoke designs, which allows us to have such a wide product
range of items, sizes, and colours. Even if it’s bespoke, we can still turn it
around within seven days."
Delahunty passionately believes that VEGAN Happy is one of a kind. "I don’t think there are any other brands like ours that offer the range that we do. There are a lot of vegan t-shirt brands as well as labels that focus on one product line such as bags or shoes, but we offer a wide range, in fact almost 400 products, all with our subtle stylish logo." And it's all about the message for Delahunty – and the way it's delivered.
"For us, the most important thing is for our wearers to plant vegan thought seeds wherever they go, and out subtle logo does just that. We do have some graphics within our range but none are slamming meat-eaters or people that haven’t seen the light yet, and probably our proudest achievement is that we know a lot of non-vegans wear our clothing as they love it so much. How cool?"
When it comes to her ideal customer, Delahunty actually knows them by first and last name – because she set out to find them. "They say you need to develop your brand personas to really focus on what you are delivering to whom, so we ran an amazing competition to ‘Find The Face of VEGAN Happy’. We had six winners across three categories in the ages 18-30 31-50, and 51+, who all had such an inner light inside them. Our winners are all diverse – one is the soprano soloist with the English National Symphony Orchestra, another is a fierce activist and hunt saboteur, another is an actress that features in Viva! TV ad campaigns, another is passionate about sound culture and a director of The Notting Hill Carnival, and another is traveling the world currently, and another has a building company and is also a model. This diversity is a great reflection of our customers."
Heart-warming stories like these are what keeps Delahunty going, along with her passion for reaching consumers and helping animals. And her customers stand firmly behind her. "It makes me proud that after six years we have a 100% 5* rating on Google. If something does go wrong, as it sometimes does – it’s impossible to avoid hiccups occasionally – we do put it spectacularly right."
By Sascha Camilli
About Sascha
Sascha Camilli is a vegan fashion writer, speaker and activist. Her book Vegan Style is out now on Murdoch Books. For more about Sascha, you can read our interview with her or read her newsletter Kind of Wild. You can also follow her on Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn.
All images courtesy of VEGAN Happy
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