How Oh Polly evolved from a single eBay store to the UK’s fastest growing fashion brand
Trendy, stylish and affordable, Oh Polly is the UK fashion brand that’s turning heads with every outfit. The business was founded by Claire Henderson and Michael Branney just ten years ago and has since blossomed into one of the UK’s fastest growing fashion brands. From stunning occasionwear to delicate summer dresses, athleisure and swimwear that’s sure to catch a stare, Oh Polly is not just a brand: it’s a personality – one that empowers its customers to feel fashionable, confident and sexy.
With 2025 marking Oh Polly’s ten-year anniversary, the company is now bigger than it’s ever been. Following strategic international expansion with its first ever brick-and-mortar store, the brand is under the spotlight as it continues to grow into a global household name. Retail Merchandiser sits down with Founder and Managing Director, Michael Branney, to learn more about the business and its operations. “Claire, my business partner, and I founded Oh Polly in 2015, but we’d actually been in e-commerce for a little bit longer than that,” Michael begins. “We’d been operating on eBay back in 2012, initially just selling clothing that Claire had worn. She would buy products from various different stores, put together an outfit and sell for a profit; it was just a way to generate some extra money. In 2013, we went travelling to Southeast Asia and did some charity volunteering work, and when we came back, we decided that we wanted to start fundraising and raise money through sales on eBay. We sold various different things, such as wedding favors, hair extensions and shampoo, and the profits would go towards our own registered charity (the Brannerson Foundation) to fund a school for children in Cambodia.
“We were soon making enough money to turn it into a for-profit business, and we launched Oh Polly in 2015. We named the company after Polly, a girl we were sponsoring in Cambodia. In 2018, we decided to rebrand; we revamped our logo and defined who we are as a company. We focused on the personas of the customers we were targeting: the socialites, the hustlers, the go-getters. We professionalized the company, established our tone of voice and brand colors, and we started to attract a lot of attention, with big names like Hailey Bieber and the Kardashians wearing our product.”
Identifiable style
Off the back of its philanthropic roots, Oh Polly rose to fame, engaging with and understanding its audience. By adopting an innovative, yet personable social media approach, fans quickly fell in love with Oh Polly’s distinctive branding, elegant designs and excellent value for money. Instagram, in particular, was a key tool in this strategy, allowing the company to connect with its customers and cultivate a community around the ‘Oh Polly’ name.
“One of the things that differentiated us quite early on in the industry was our social media strategy. From day one, we were active on Instagram, sending products to micro-influencers with around 50,000 to 100,000 thousand followers. They’d send us images of them wearing our clothes and we would repost them on our Instagram and, in some cases, on our website. Using influencer and lifestyle imagery really set us apart from other companies at the time who were still doing a lot of traditional model photography set against white backgrounds,” Michael explains. “We chose an area of fashion that didn’t have a huge amount of competition. We saw a space that Top Shop had vacated with this £40-to-£60 price mark where the items were neither cheap nor fast fashion. Although the model may have followed fast fashion cycles in terms of quick development, the products were not the cheapest possible. We were keen to make a good quality product. We make sure that the products are going to last through the wash so that our customers can get multiple wear out of them. It’s really good value for money and our customers appreciate that; we get that word-of-mouth effect where people will go out of their way to express their love for the brand.
“Our clothes get you noticed; that’s our tagline. If you want to be the center of attention you wear an Oh Polly dress. Our style is very identifiable, and I think that shines through.” Oh Polly’s journey, however, hasn’t been without its challenges. In the early days, the business suffered a major setback that nearly threw the whole operation into turmoil.
“We ran into a problem with one of our manufacturers in Bangladesh. They stole around £30,000 from us, which was pretty much all the money we had at that
point,” Michael reveals. “We managed to claw back around £10,000 of it, which was enough for us to start again. Over the course of three years, I flew back and forth to Bangladesh every two weeks to set up and grow the factory. It’s now got around 800 full-time staff members and is managed and operated, under our control, by a local partner.”
Thoughtful strategy
Powered by passion and perseverance, the brand was able to overcome obstacles, from the Covid pandemic to wider economic challenges. Fast forward to the present, and Oh Polly has a following of over eight million across its brands, with offices in Glasgow, Liverpool, Los Angeles, Guangzhou, and Dhaka. From its inception, Michael and Claire have been committed to growing Oh Polly in a sustainable and ethical manner, implementing a number of welfare standards when establishing the first factory in Bangladesh.
“One of the things that was really important to us when setting up the factory was good working conditions. The factory is located near to the Rana Plaza which experienced a devastating disaster the year before we opened, so it was at the forefront of our decision that if we were going to set up there, it had to done properly, with thorough checks of the building,” Michael affirms. “When we hired people, they all had to be over 18. We made sure that everybody was getting at least a minimum wage or, where possible, a living wage, and it’s really important to us that we share two percent of all Polly Group profits with our Bangladeshi workers every year.”
Equipped with a robust business model and thoughtful brand strategy, Oh Polly has continued to grow and flourish. In June 2025, the company launched one of its most exciting ventures yet: its first flagship store in Los Angeles.
“We’ve had an office in LA now for around seven years. We initially opened there because of the sunny weather, mansions and villas that provide a great backdrop for lifestyle photography. It’s very easy for us to get models out there and shoot on location,” Michael says. “Our flagship store is on Melrose Avenue as it’s famous for fashion, and there aren’t a huge number of dresswear brands in LA. The first store is a ‘test’; if it performs as we expect it to, then there are certainly other locations that we would consider next. Dubai, Miami, New York, and London are our top runners for new locations.”
With the doors opened on its flagship store and its online sales booming, Oh Polly is a true success story. Looking to the future, the brand is focused on its international expansion, growing its presence in the United States and the Middle East, particularly in Dubai and Saudi Arabia, with lots more opportunities on the horizon. Whatever the next chapter holds, however, customers can be sure that Oh Polly will remain trend-driven – not just in terms of style and uniqueness, but also in its unwavering commitment to quality.