by When I visit Lucy Macnamara, the founder of Aspiga, at the headquarters of her fashion label in Battersea, I find the wrong room. Her team workspace is fine, but her office is down the hall. I notice how relaxed the atmosphere is in the former, its staff quietly tapping away on their laptops.
Lucy’s office is a little different: it’s not her who greets me but a Jack Russell puppy trying to escape the room. Inside, her other dog Toula and the second puppy look like they’re going to make a break for it too. “I recently moved back to London from the countryside and planned it well, so that she would have time to nest before the birth, but the puppies arrived two days after the move. What chaos!’ she says, laughing.
By her own admission, Macnamara talks “a hundred miles an hour”, but she says she experiences chaos in her private life, along with a streak of depression linked to her attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). “Everyone keeps telling me I can’t have three dogs. I almost want to prove them wrong and keep them all. I like to break the rules.”
Macnamara, 56, was diagnosed with ADHD three years ago. She claims her diagnosis opened her eyes to her strengths and weaknesses as an entrepreneur, giving her much-needed focus and clarity about what she calls her “superpower” and how to steer her independent sustainable fashion label into new interests.
She founded Aspiga in 2006 and has steadily built her business from the ground up to become an award-winning certified B-Corp brand with an annual turnover of £10 million and 13 stores in the UK, as well as one over in Barbados. the five-star Sandpiper Hotel. This brick and mortar presence is matched by a successful e-commerce platform and fashion catalog operation. It has achieved this multi-channel presence independently without any external financial backing, making Aspiga a rare entity in our increasingly global and risk-adverse retail landscape.
Macnamara still has big plans for her business, including expansion into the States and the Middle East, and to support more charities to add to Aspiga’s already long list of projects, including initiatives with the Charlie Waller Trust, a mental health charity, and WaterHarvest. , a non-profit that works to secure rainwater for remote communities in India and Africa. Aspiga also organizes monthly beach cleans on the banks of the Thames. It is clear that she is not one to cross the stream where it is most prominent: Macnamara thrives on a challenge and now employs 50 staff.
‘I thought I was crazy Lucy Mac’
ADHD is a complex condition that affects people in different ways, but the core symptoms include restlessness, impulsivity and hyperactivity. On the flip side, in business, this can mean you’re a bigger risk taker, faster and more laser-focused on a specific goal that can give you instant gratification in the form of a hit of dopamine, the nerve -transmitter. linked to feelings of reward found to be low in people with ADHD.
“What I hate the most is intolerance and impatience. Fortunately, I don’t have an addictive personality, but I do have a thousand hobbies – tennis, horse riding, cycling, golf, you name it,” Macnamara tells me. “What I often don’t have is the power, so I can’t, for example, eat one chocolate bar, I’ll have the whole pack. Likewise, I want to do things urgently, which is why I think I have a successful business. At work, I never forget a thing, and outside the office it’s a different matter, I always lose my keys, I get parking tickets, I’ve left the bath running a million times. It’s very frustrating but the superpowers are there.”
According to Professor James Brown, co-founder of the charity ADHD Adult UK (@adhdadultuk) and co-host of the podcast @theadhdadults, who also supports people with the condition, the myth about ADHD is that everyone has the ability to rise very much. in business.
“What often bothers the web or social media is that people with ADHD are more enterprising, like a catch-all statement, but that the strengths of ADHD are not distributed among those who are different at all than those who are not neurodiverse. Everyone is different,” he explains. “However, people with ADHD are more likely to start a business on their own. The main reasons for success are usually impartiality and starting a business later in life. If you find something worthwhile, you will fully engage with it.”
In fact, Macnamara says Aspiga has achieved B Corp certification – a special designation that requires rigorous assessment of a company’s commitment to high standards of social and environmental performance – faster than ever thanks to its goal-oriented instincts.
“My team said we should look at doing it in two or three years. I said, ‘no’, we’re doing this now’,” she remembers. “We’ve built sustainability into our DNA from day one. So why wait? When something is important to me, I can hyperfocus on it, which makes it happen.”
Macnamara has worked in the charity sector for 15 years, so I wonder if she could apply her skills to any start-up? “I would be great as a city trader,” she says with a laugh. “I was drawn to fashion because I always knew when something looked right. I’m not a fashionista, I love what I love to look nice, so if collections don’t suit me, the designs don’t make the cut.”
In fact, Aspiga is known for its transitional wear dresses, pretty blouses and chic color block sweaters made from sustainable fabrics, with embroidered pieces and colorful accessories made by artisans in Kenya and India. “Most of our clothes are kind of ‘ADHD friendly’,” she says. “For example, small buttons stick easily into elastic loops. I don’t like restrictive things, so collars don’t fit and I don’t like tight waists either. When it comes to fabric, it’s all about touch and feel.” This explains the popularity of her feminine and tactile corduroy dresses with soft hourglass shapes and delicate cuffs.
This year, Aspiga was shortlisted for the sustainability prize at the Drapers Independents Awards, a testament to the company’s eco-conscious production process. In fact, 82 percent of its collections are made from certified sustainable fabrics, and 94 percent of its cotton is organic or responsibly sourced. The company aims to raise this last figure to 100 percent by 2026, and you can bet Lucy won’t be happy until she hits that last percentage point.
If Macnamara has one regret in her personal life, it’s that she wishes she had married and had children but her “similar feet” got in the way. She says the same inflexibility worked well for her in Aspiga: “It’s funny because I’m a very talkative person outside the office but at work, I just want to do the job. I have to go back to emails to say ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ because for me … well, it’s not that I don’t care, it’s just that it doesn’t seem relevant.”
The entrepreneur’s ADHD diagnosis came relatively late in life, as it has for many since awareness of the condition has improved in recent years. “People have said, ‘Why do you need a label at 56?’ but it’s not about that. My diagnosis made me more understanding of all neurodiversities. It has made me more tolerant and open minded. The important thing to remember is that you are not just ‘catching’ ADHD. Certain symptoms such as forgetfulness can overlap with menopausal symptoms, but the diagnosis is long and goes back to childhood,” she explains.
“For a long time, I thought I was crazy ‘Lucy Mac’ and I hated myself. When I got the diagnosis, I was sad at first because people with ADHD are more likely to stay single or divorced. Of course, there are other factors involved, but I was always worried about being bored. Now, I know I’m not alone and he knows I can educate myself and help me.”
Does she now recognize some of her weak points as a leader? “It was a great relief to say it to the team. ADHD doesn’t release my patience sometimes, and I’m too direct to talk, but at least the staff know and understand that part of me. What I hate are SKUs [used to track stock inventory] and legal contracts. I’ve signed things I probably shouldn’t have in the past, hastily, so now I have a better procedure in place.”
Stephanie Camilleri, a London-based ADHD coach and founder of ADHD Advocate, says the name of the condition itself is problematic. “The words ‘attention deficit’ are misleading because we have attention in spades, that’s the problem – we have too much going on. The word ‘disorder’ is controversial because ADHD is situationally variable, so if you’re in a position where you can’t use your strengths, that feels very limiting. On the other hand, if we can design our lives and environments around our ADHD strengths, we can be successful. We’re basically full of genuine interest.”
Macnamara’s response to this is to find a lot of diversity within her role, as confirmed by her colorful Instagram feed which shows her in India and Kenya meeting Aspiga artisan producers.
I want to know if she will ever sit back and praise herself for achieving what she has so far. “No, because I think we still have a long way to go, and until I have achieved my ultimate goal, I cannot rest.” Perhaps, I suggest, that ultimate goal should be to be able to celebrate Aspiga as a success story that goes beyond fashion, raising awareness of neurodiversity. Unusually, she pauses for a second, looks me straight in the eye and says matter-of-factly: “You know what, I’d really love that.”
