What would you do if your sister moved to the other side of the world? Get a really good phone and data plan? Set up a Facebook hashtag for all your photos? Bulk buy plane tickets during the Virgin and BA sales so you could visit as much as possible?
Or would you set up a business together?
This is what Jess and Rebecca Stern decided to do, setting up locker business Mustard earlier this year.
The self-described “North-West London girls” from Barnet were split up seven years ago when Rebecca, 30, moved with her Australian husband and then two-year-old son to Newcastle (the one near Sydney rather than Sunderland). But they had long dreamed of working together.
I interview the sisters separately, due to their different locations (and a timezone I don’t fancy negotiating). It gives me a small insight into what it must be like to be them, trying to run a business and maintain a relationship from opposite sides of the globe. “We write lists of all the things we want to talk about and then we Facetime,” says Jess, 27, who lives in Queens Park , North London.
“About 18 months ago Rebecca had just given birth to her second son Ellis. I’d gone over there and we were walking along the beach talking about what we should do with our lives and also how we could make the dream of starting a business a reality. That’s where the locker conversation started.”
The “locker conversation” soon became Mustard — a designer locker concept that seeks to bring utility chic to your home.
“Becca’s always had a thing for lockers; she’s made me stop outside on the street before and pick up a locker that someone had left outside their house. And they’re beautiful because they’re old and vintage but they’re really impractical,” explains Jess, admitting that it “took me a while to get on board with it, I’m not going to lie”.
But their research showed that there was a gap in the market. “The whole concept of the lockers was more about the colour and giving storage a bit of a fun , exciting reinvention for the home and the work place.”
It’s no surprise that this fashion-y spin on a practical product, usually associated with schools and offices, came from two sisters whose backgrounds combined fashion with business. Jess worked as a fashion buyer for big-name retailers including Arcadia, BHS and Primark — a job she quit a mere three weeks before we spoke, after juggling the early days of Mustard with her day job. Rebecca took charge of the business until it became self-sustaining, which she was used to from her previous role as a jewellery designer for her own brand, House of Bec. Mustard was also launched first in Australia, with the UK launch coming in September.
The sisters say that the real USP of their lockers is the colour palette. “We always knew the brand was going to be about colour,” says Jess. Which leads us to the company’s name. “Mustard is the hot colour of the season, it’s the colour of now, but it’s also a little bit British, which is nice.” The other lockers all complement each other: navy, olive green, blush and slate grey. The sisters agonised over this palette, and flew out to China to choose the factories that would be producing their lockers, checking the procedures from start to finish and building a relationship with the workers.
The research trip was a real family affair. Rebecca flew out with baby Ellis and the sisters’ father joined them in “this little region in China that only makes lockers”. “It was a real adventure,” says Jess. “We all learnt quite a lot”.
Mustard’s target market is what Jess describes as the Insta-mum —someone who “sees something on Instagram, follows it and buys it” — but adds that lockers are practical, adaptable and extremely useful.
“Mustard lockers appeal to an office space, or a five-year-old, because of the colours.”
They come in two sizes: the Shorty (two shelves) and the Skinny (four shelves and a rail). Jess has three Skinny lockers next to each other under an alcove in her bedroom, which function as wardrobes, and she also uses Shorties as storage in her living room. Rebecca has kitted out both her boys’ bedrooms with the lockers, which she describes as “a real ‘pinch me’ moment”. The best-selling locker is currently the blush Shorty.
“We can put them together in under nine minutes,” Jess tells me triumphantly — there are only two screws. Something that should appeal to all those Jewish DIYers out there.
They say their Jewish family had a big part ot play in their flair for business. “It seems the entrepreneurial gene runs right through our family, from our grandparents and parents through to our generation of cousins, we been responsible for a good number of new businesses!” Rebecca tells me.
“The idea of growing a business from scratch is certainly in our blood and was a topic of conversation around the Friday night dinner table growing up. For me now Judaism takes the form of family meals and candles with my two boys and enjoying Chanukah gifts and books sent with love from my dad in England to us in Australia. The sense of grounding and closeness is what joins the dots of my happy childhood memories and I hope to pass that on to my children.
“However daunting it can seem, we have been raised to know we are not alone, to look to our community for support and wisdom.”
So has starting a business together made the distance between England and Australia seem smaller? “In a way, Mustard is really a very elaborate plan to make sure Jess and I get to see each other more often!” jokes Rebecca.
And the fact that they have always been close is an asset when running any business. “Becca is the person I go to for all my advice,” says Jess. “She definitely knows a lot about me and vice versa.
“Being sisters means we can cut right to the point and have a deep level of understanding and trust. Issues are worked out fast, our communication is really open” and although phones have been slammed down at times, generally “it involves a lot of laughing”.
One last question. What’s their favourite locker colour? It’s not mustard! The sisters agree it’s a toss-up between the olive and the blush.
Mustard lockers launch in the UK in September and are available to buy online. The Shorty costs £129, the Skinny £199.
www.mustardmade.com
