Laura Cuddy launched HERSTORM in September.

Great new way to update your workout wardrobe

LOOK no more. Let Laura Cuddy introduce you to HERSTORM, the new sports and fitness clothing brand designed for women who enjoy to workout and lead an active lifestyle, writes Tom Gillespie.

Founded by Laura, from Knockaphunta, Westport Road, Castlebar, the brand launched at the end of September.

Laura said although it has just been a couple of weeks since the launch, the highest sales are coming from Ireland, which she described as ‘very exciting’.

Laura was raised in Castlebar and moved to Barcelona in Spain almost three years ago after leaving her job working in LinkedIn in Dublin.

She went to school in Castlebar and was heavily involved in tennis growing up, playing for Castlebar, Connaught and on a national level throughout the years.

She said whenever she had any pocket money growing up, which was rare, it was always spent in the sports shops in town buying the latest trainers and sports gear.

With her main background being in business and marketing, with studies done in DCU and NUI Galway, after working both across very large organisations to start-ups that were only in the initial stages, she reached a point that she wanted to take a big step and invest in a dream and a passion of hers - to create a sports clothing brand.

HERSTORM, she said, is an urban-inspired fitness and sports clothing brand made and designed for women.

She admitted: “I not only wanted to make a brand. The mission of HERSTORM is to develop the clothing brand into a type of movement that can empower women to fight for their objectives and rather than admiring others for what they have, or have achieved, look to yourself for inspiration.

With this comes the brand slogan ‘Become your own hero’.

We want to create a community of inspired women who can identify with HERSTORM through what we represent, our values, our vision, our clothing and our content.

Combining urban fitness activewear with a strong brand that women can relate to and be inspired by, HERSTORM was created.”

Laura spent over a year developing relationships with the right partners, providers and people to make HERSTORM a leading fitness and sports brand for women.

She added: “All clothing is designed with meticulous detail, made with premium fabrics and tested thoroughly before being released. HERSTORM clothing is made to survive the storm, workout after workout again.”

She had a clear idea of what she wanted to achieve and from then, she put together a business plan where she was supported by the entrepreneur facility in Barcelona, Activa, similar to Enterprise Ireland.

Laura added: "There is a lot of work that goes into creating a business from zero, but it is all a journey, and if you love what you do, it is all worth it.”

She sourced all suppliers and learnt the ins and outs to designing and fabrics. On creating her designs, she then used her samples in her workouts and tested these meticulously for fit and design.

The launch collections are based on compression clothing fabrics, designed for performance.

They are tight-fitting but hold everything nicely in place for optimum workout performance.

She is now looking to not only sell online via the website, but to build partnerships with stores so that women can also go physically into stores and try on the clothing before purchasing.

She also would like to get involved in fitness events where possible in Ireland over the coming year.

 

 

 

 

Details on HERSTORM can be found on: https://herstorm.com/, https://www.instagram.com/herstorm/ and https://www.facebook.com/herstorm.

* To celebrate the launch of HERSTORM, Laura has shared the discount code ‘CONNAUGHT' that can be used at checkout on the website to get a nice 25% discount off everything.

 

 

 

Do you have a story to tell about your business? If so, Tom Gillespie would be delighted to hear from you. Get in touch at (087) 9680780 or gillespietom49@gmail.com.