A MAN living in South Wales used lockdown to launch his own business.

28-year-old Tom McNulty decided to make the most of furlough by launching his own clothes brand: Arora Clothing.

Mr McNulty said: “I always wanted my own brand, but I was in full time work in an office.

“When I got put on furlough from work it seemed like the right time

“It took a while to find a brand name and set it up – my girlfriend has been amazing and helped me get the equipment.”

The name Arora derives from Mr McNulty’s passion for space and the Northern Lights, which are also known as an aurora. He scrapped the ‘U’ and created the symmetrical palindrome ‘arora’ which he turned into a logo.

The logo is added to products with a heat press, and all items include branded tags and packaging.

The entrepreneur didn’t want to “rush it” and wanted to give customers a chance to get to know the brand, so he started with T-shirts only.

But plans are in place to expand and include hoodies, joggers, accessories and more.

“At the start business was quite slow,” admitted Mr McNulty.

“It was difficult to get people to buy items with my own logo when there’s already so many well-known brands.

“I’d find people with a big following on social media and ask them to promote my clothes and it started to pick up.

“I get a buzz when someone I don’t know buys something.”

Mr McNulty added that he has had people order from South Wales and beyond– including London, Manchester, Liverpool and “quite a few” in Suffolk which he hopes is a result of ‘word of mouth.’

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“Lockdown gave me the time to do this,” said Mr McNulty.

“I know people aren’t necessarily doing financially well because of the pandemic, so maybe if there was no coronavirus I’d sell more stuff.

“But the pandemic gave me loads of time to finally do this.”

“It’s only me running it and at the start I was getting stressed out as I had no idea what I’m doing.

“I watched lots of tutorials and made lots of mistakes, but it’s mad how much I’ve learnt.”

For more information visit www.aroraclothing.com

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