HOUSE PROUD
Vivid colours and social media verve see Gravesend’s House Of Neon turn side hustle into thriving business
Just like a magpie catching a glimpse of something shiny, the House of Neon Instagram page grabbed our attention from the get-go.
First spotting its attention-grabbing luminous word and phrase prints back in 2019, it was a fairly safe bet that it was going to be popular.
Today, two years on, more than 60k followers and a strong theme have seen its founder Maria Clay leave her job as a handbag designer for high-street retailers to head up her team of Neon Ninjas (mainly made up of family members) and bring the UK’s love of neon back to the fore.
Created in August 2017, House of Neon has grown exponentially to be stocked in six independent stores and ship its clothing, accessories and prints all over the world.
Right now is a perfect storm for House of Neon: the fashion cycle moving back to the rave culture of the early Nineties; the lockdown’s effect on pushing online sales; and even the Tokyo Olympics with neon tube lights and artwork at every turn.
But to even arrive at this moment, years of work have had to come first. Maria started at London College of Fashion, where she learned her skills to start a career as a handbag designer for a number of suppliers, culminating at high-street retailer Debenhams. However, the excitement of stints working with suppliers from China to New York and climbing the management ladder eventually wears off and, as always, the creative urges return.
“When I got to that level, it wasn’t for me,” explains Maria. “There was less creativity and more meetings and HR! It wasn’t what I wanted to do.
“I knew I wanted to do something else. But it was never planned for House of Neon to become what it has. It was going to be a side hustle, but it’s grown and grown. With lockdown, things have really rocketed.”
Starting out with cushions featuring pop-culture phrases and customisable neon light prints designed to eliminate the expense of a neon lamp…
“I was looking for a neon light for our kitchen and thought they were so expensive,” says Maria. “So I did this YouTube tutorial of how to create a neon effect on Photoshop and got a few printed and it kind of went from there.
“From there we made all our products customisable because we make it all in-house. We try to push that a lot, so people know that anything they order from us can be customised to them.”
Moving into clothing, House of Neon’s growth has accelerated, starting with sweatshirts (now using 80% OCS-certified organic cotton/20% recycled polyester) and extending now into T-shirts, hoodies, vests and kids’ clothing.
The range of designs available is ever-evolving due to the very customisable nature of the business.
“There are things that people request and, if it’s a good idea, we might add it to our website,” says Maria. “But the majority of things we sell we have created in-house, though we do get inspiration from people’s custom requests.”
While current fashions have seen a resurgence for neon, Maria doesn’t believe that it necessarily has an impact on the business.
“It doesn’t subscribe to fashion trends as such – it’s its own sort of thing,” she explains. “I’ve always loved neon and always been attracted to neon bags or trainers. I would always wear a lot of black and then accessorise with neon.
“There are a lot of people on Instagram that print sweatshirts, but I think we have done well because we have stuck to a theme. We don’t really follow a trend or anything, we’ve just stuck to neon.”
Moving from her front room to a premises in Gravesend, the business has flourished and there is even talk of a retail store in the future but, for now, the main route to market is through Instagram. A fact Maria isn’t overly comfortable with.
“It bugs me,” she says. “I’ve known small businesses that built up to 20k-30k followers and then all of a sudden they’ve been hacked and it has just disappeared. Instagram is a phenomenal platform for any small business and 10 years ago I wouldn’t have been able to set House of Neon up the way I have, through social media.
“But it does worry me that it could go kaput overnight. I do have a lot of loyal returning customers, which is good, but the majority of the customers are through social media, so I have a bittersweet relationship with it.”
INSTA: @h_o_u_s_e__o_f__n_e_o_n_
