Discover chats to Grace Mcguire a personal trainer and revolutionary leisurewear designer who created 09 Twelve, a size inclusive, genderless brand with wife and co-founder Kelly
Tell us about Latched 09 Twelve?
Kelly and I met four years ago on Tik Tok, she followed me and I followed her back. I had just come out (as gay) at the age of 31. I slid straight into her DMs and the rest is history. We met in the middle of lockdown and at that time I was a personal trainer, so my job massively changed as we were completely shut down, so I started my first clothing brand, which I ceased two years ago. Over the lockdown period we loved coming up with new designs and seeing people feeling good wearing our clothing. Kelly came to me a year ago and suggested we start again and this is where 09 Twelve was born. The numbers in the brand name are personal to us as they represent the date of Kelly’s birthday, the date I proposed and also the day we got married. My wife is an extremely creative person who thrives when she is creating, whereas I am social media and admin focused, so we balance each other out perfectly.
What inspired you to create your own clothing range?
Neither of us like the fit of women’s leisure clothing and we end up having to shop in the mens section. This can arouse judgment from members of staff and other shoppers which made us feel uncomfortable. We wanted to bypass this by creating a genderless brand that is for everyone regardless of sex or size and create a space where everyone feels welcome.
So you are size inclusive?
Our clothing line ranges from Small up to 4XL. We are working with a new printer and now have the potential to go out to a 5XL. We feel it’s so important to be size inclusive, having worked with many different shapes and sizes as a personal trainer I know through working with larger sized clients how much they struggle to get clothing they like in their size. We have created brand uniformity across the whole range, if you’re buying size 10 or size 4XL the designs are exactly the same.
What clothing styles do you sell?
Our main products are T-shirts, hoodies and sweatshirts that normally feature a design or inspirational quote (definitely not live, laugh, love!) We have just started selling tracksuits and tank tops. Something we pride ourselves on is sourcing fabrics and manufacturing in the UK as we want to support the British economy.
Words: Samantha Harman.
