How the pandemic made Hey Reflect’o shine even brighter

Sustainability-conscious designer Lisa Penney, who turns plastic bottles and dead tissue into Hey Reflecto’s high-visibility face masks and cycling vests, experienced a major pandemic last year, generating half a million dollars of sales.

For a long time, fashion designer Lisa Penney didn’t see her business as completely ethical. This despite its choice to use disused recycled materials for its reflective bag covers and cycling vests and to spend the extra money to ensure ethical work abroad.

“The only one for whom the company was unethical was me,” says Lisa, who founded Hey Reflect’o seven years ago. “Because I was the one doing 16-hour days, paid two dollars an hour because I’m literally trying to make it work. It’s hard.”

While chatting with the designer in her studio at The Mill, we notice that her hands are covered in ink – an indicator of a hard day’s work. She tells us that her most recent outbound shipment of products generated sales of $ 8,000. “I’m a bit of a survivor,” she said, “and I make it work.”

Lately Lisa has been working up to 15 hours a day to meet demand. Her story of working small businesses is juxtaposed with the chic and correct ensemble she donned for us today: a ruffled beige cotton sweater paired with light pink linen pants.

Like any good businessman, Lisa is a walking advertisement for her own products. His outfit is punctuated by a hi-vis burnt orange Hey Reflect’o reflective cycling vest and face shield.

Lisa’s unwavering love for her brand is what keeps her coming back to the studio. “I am obsessed with my products; I think it’s a good idea, ”she said. “And now it works.”

Before COVID-19, Lisa didn’t work those manic hours. She would have been fortunate enough to receive 10 orders per mailing, rather than her last 60. Her brand confidence also supported her during these quieter times.

Thursday, December 10, 2020, things changed for Lisa and Hey Relect’o.

“There was a day when face masks came into effect,” she says. “I sold them myself, then I immediately had to pay a team to help me. “

When South Australia was plunged into an instant lockdown in November last year, the government announced that face masks were mandatory when leaving home for an essential service or essential item. It was South Australia’s Mad Mask Scramble.

For a laugh, Lisa says she produced a simple fabric face mask, sewn from scraps from her waistcoat line, and advertised it online. The gag paid off.

“I posted myself in one of them saying ‘We make face masks’ and everyone told me about it,” she says. “I’m like, ‘Okay, I have to upload them.’ The demand was there, I just had to follow it.

Face mask fever has finally subsided, and they are now “just another product. [else]Lisa says. But last year, its hi-vis cycling vests were also selling on the shelves, following the adoption of bicycles. This, too, she attributes to the pandemic.

“That’s why all the bicycle companies worked well – because people got around by bicycle rather than public transport,” she says.

“But then I had to choose one or the other, and face masks are a lot easier to make than vests. I couldn’t do both – especially with the high demand for face masks. Otherwise, I had two businesses during the pandemic.

During the month of November, Lisa stopped making her multi-colored vests and made masks her main focus. She has recently returned to vests, which is close to her heart, and now employs two part-time seamstresses locally to manage demand.

Hey Reflect’o generated $ 500,000 in sales last year, but most of that money went to pay staff and taxes, Lisa says. After paying these bills, the contractor says she won $ 80,000 “for the biggest chore” she had to endure.

In the Hey Reflect’o studio, we are surrounded by dozens of fluorescent clothes, and we wonder, no offense to the flourishing business, where they will all find a home.

This isn’t the first time Lisa has heard this question, and it’s the night light that motivates her to push her business to greater heights.

“Before the pandemic, I heard a guy comment outside my workspace that I was never going to sell all of my vests. They flew off the shelves, ”she said with a smirk.