Scamp & Dude: The real life story behind the ‘superpowered’ fashion brand

A life-changing experience inspired Jo Tutchener-Sharp to launch Scamp & Dude, a ‘superpowered’ fashion brand which spreads joy with its bright prints, confidence with its clever cuts and love with its buy-one-gift-one schemes. As the brand arrives in Cambridge’s Grand Arcade, Jo tells Velvet’s Alice Ryan the story

“The story really begins in 2015. I’d sold the shares in my PR company. It was incredibly stressful and I ended up having a spasm in my face. I went to the doctor and he said ‘Whatever’s going on in your life, you need to stop it - you’re going to make yourself ill’. I wrote to everyone involved and said ‘I’ve got to stop this. . . I feel like my head’s going to explode’.

“I started focusing on what I was going to do next - the plan was a skincare brand because my background was in beauty - and I was really excited. Then suddenly one day I had this terrible headache; like someone was stabbing me in the back of my eye. The doctor sent me straight to the hospital.

“To cut a long story short: they woke me up at one in the morning, put me in a room on my own, and said ‘You’ve had a brain haemorrhage and we’ve found a lump’. I was then left on my own for the rest of the night with this news. . . My kids were only 1 and 3 at the time and all I could think of was ‘I cannot leave my children without a mum’.

“They didn’t know if it was cancerous or a cavernoma - a cluster of abnormal blood vessels - but because it had bled, the likelihood was it would bleed again and next time it might be fatal. So they decided it had to be removed.

“I asked if I could have the surgery in the January so, if it was going to be my last Christmas, I could have that time with my kids, my husband, my parents. It was a very emotional Christmas; a very emotional New Year’s Eve. Then I went in on January 4 and had the surgery.

“So many things went through my mind. The biggest fear, obviously, was leaving my kids. But the other big thing was ‘If my life ends here, am I happy with what I’ve done?’... I’d never thought about that before; I was only 39, I thought I had loads of time ahead of me. I had this sinking feeling in my tummy: ‘What’s my legacy? I haven’t helped anybody; I haven’t done anything really good.’ I made a pact with myself: that if I made it through the surgery, I would do something that made a difference.

“I will never forget waking up in intensive care and realising I was alive. I was so giddy - in part because of the morphine, but also because I felt I’d been given a second chance. The nurses gave me a cup of tea, which I kept vomiting back up, but I was still saying ‘This is the nicest cup of tea I’ve ever had!’ It was the absolute joy of ‘Oh my God, I’m still here’.

“It turned out to be a cavernoma. I had 10 days in hospital to recover. One side of my head was shaved and I had 20 staples, so I couldn’t see my children - they were still so little, I didn’t want them to see me looking like that. I wished I could have given them a snuggly superhero to comfort them while we were apart; if I could have put a pocket on the back, I could have put my photo in it and told them ‘Look: Mummy’s still with you’.

“Then I thought: ‘Well, why don’t I make them? And donate one for every one sold to a child who’s separated from a parent, or ill themselves.’ So that was my get-well goal. Then, as I was designing the sleep buddies I decided I wanted to do a clothing line to go with it, so came up with the idea of our superpower button - the little lighting bolt you press to get your superpowers.

“When we launched it was a kids’ brand, with just three women’s sweatshirts - they were added because, as I was designing, I kept thinking ‘I’d like one of those’. We launched into Liberty in the November of the same year - 2016. I had this massive fire in my belly; nothing was going to stop me.

“Neither our site nor Liberty could keep the women’s sweatshirts in stock, so I started designing more women’s loungewear. Then we were getting nominated for awards and I was having to go along in other people’s dresses; I couldn’t very well wear a tracksuit. So I thought we should be doing dresses. . . I didn’t have the expertise, so that’s when I took on my first employee.

“The dresses went bonkers. Then lockdown happened and the loungewear just flew. Coming out of lockdown, I had loungewear fatigue and was pretty sure everyone else did too. So as well as more and more dresses, we did denim, blouses, knitwear.

“I was building relationships with so many women who’d read about me and my story and messaged me saying ‘I’m going through something similar’. I was sending them sweatshirts, so they could press the superpower button to help them keep going… And then my accountant said ‘You’ve given away 350 sweatshirts; you can’t keep doing this’.

“I needed something - like with the sleep buddies, of which we’ve donated more than 8,000 so far - where we could donate one for every one bought. When I was in hospital, I had a big scarf from home which I used to wrap right around me; it was like a comfort blanket. So that’s when I launched the super scarf mission. We’ve now donated more than 45,000 scarves to women undergoing chemotherapy. We’ve got relationships with over 250 hospitals; we’re trying to reach every single one. That’s one of my proudest achievements.

“We’ve done some great celebrity collaborations: Mama’s Still Got It, Ellie Simmonds and Sara Davies have all worked with us on a super scarf and the latest is a collab with Giovanna Fletcher.

“We are very authentic. A lot of brands can be completely faceless and you’re just sold to, whereas with our brand you become part of our community and of the good that we’re doing. We call our more hardcore customers Duders. Our Scamp & Duders Facebook group is the most gorgeous place. It’s filled with kindness: people go in there having a confidence crisis and the community gathers builds them up.

“If people see each other wearing Scamp & Dude out, they speak to each other or, if they’re feeling a bit shy, just shout ‘Duder’! I think it’s because they know that, if someone’s wearing Scamp & Dude, they know they’re going to be a nice person. It’s a bit of a badge of honour, the superpower button; it’s almost like saying ‘I care, so I wear Scamp & Dude’.

“I did a terrifying panel for Facebook once, at Soho Farmhouse, filled with CEOs of big brands. One of them put up a hand and said ‘But I don’t understand how you’re making any money if you keep giving things away?’ With the scarves and the sleep buddies, no I don’t make any money out of them; the profit covers the one being donated. But I don’t care, because the clothes make the profit, which allows me to build a team and grow the business.

“Our turnover last year was £15 million; that’s pretty good for a business that’s only eight years old, but it’s still relatively small. So think what bigger brands could do, with the billions they turn over? It’s not all about money. As long as you’re covering yourself, there’s more to life.

“We’re known for our joyful prints. I’ve always loved animal print, especially leopard, and just wanted to switch it up a bit and infuse it with superpowers - which is why all our prints have the little lightning bolts running through them. We do have plain and denim pieces too, still with the superpower button on them; the collection is basically what I want to wear, and some days I want to wear a black dress. It depends on your mood, doesn’t it?

“Our latest collaboration is with Air & Grace, the brilliant footwear brand. Designing with them was literally like being a kid in a candy story: the dream! I love their Aurora gladiator sandals - I have the black pair and wear them loads - so we decided to two Scamp & Dude versions, in a tan and neon and a pewter and neon, plus a Cleo velcro sandal and a Roxy trainer. All have got superpower buttons, of course!

“We’ve got customer hotspots around the country and we’ve been using that to plot where we want to go. My husband is a director in the business now and he’s in charge of the retail expansion. So far we’ve got [stores in] Battersea Power Station, Edinburgh, Marlow, Manchester and now Cambridge - it’s in the Grand Arcade, near Oliver Bonas, and we can’t wait to welcome you all. . .

“The business is named after my kids, now 12 and 9: Sonny is Scamp and Jude is Dude, which they are very proud to tell people. Both of them help design: Sonny came up with the graffiti collection we’ve just done.

“The super scarf side of things is probably the biggest for me, because it’s reached so many people, which is just hugely fulfilling. I get really excited every time we reach a new milestone - I want to get to 63,000 per year, which I know sounds mad, but that’s how many women in this country start chemotherapy annually and I want every woman to get one.

“It’s the same with the sleep buddies, when we hear from children who’ve lost a parent and they’ve slept for the first time, or they’re in hospital and they’ve smiled for the first time in a week. . . All these stories are the real reward.”

Scamp & Dude has just opened in Cambridge’s Grand Arcade. Find the store on the ground floor and see scampanddude.com for more

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