Words and Photography by Nadine Wilmanns

Olga Freely

In conversation with Olga Freely, founder of WOW Custom Sportswear

The Caffè Concerto near Covent Garden in London sparkles with its distinct lanterns and lights. That’s where I meet Olga Freely. Olga is a businesswoman in London and the founder of WOW Custom Sportswear.

Originally a bookkeeper, she had run a school uniform shop for about ten years, she tells me, when the school on whose premises her shop was based informed her that she would need to relocate to the high street. “It was just after Covid – that wouldn’t have been a good idea,” she says. She then found herself wondering: What could I do next?

She decided to go into custom sportswear. She explains: “I love sports – I play tennis and table tennis – and I had good connections with the manufacturers I used for my school uniform business.” Her niche was found. Olga now creates bespoke sportswear for teams and takes orders of 25 items or more. “Many people confuse my business with logo printing, but in fact we design the garment and do all-over printing with a technique called sublimation before the garment is even sewn together. Our garments are made to order.”

I ask Olga how she found security in her decision to start this business from scratch.

“I didn’t want to have regrets looking back when I’m old,” she explains. “I have a lot of curiosity and drive, I mean, I’m still in the early stages. Something has shifted just recently: I know that I can do it, whereas last year, I was riddled with doubt. Weekly networking has helped me, because you have to stand up and deliver your pitch. It makes you work harder. When people ask you questions you have to explain clearly what you do. My business seems straightforward to me, but in fact it is quite complex and not so easy to get the pitch right.”

“How did you overcome those doubts?” I ask.

“Accept failure,” Olga says. “I had closed the school uniform shop and thought I might just keep selling the shoes online – I was complacent with my current customers at the time, but I didn’t know anything about marketing back then and soon found out: out of sight, out of mind. The online shoe shop didn’t work out, and I lost a lot of money. But it’s OK to fail. I thought it might work out but it didn’t, so I needed to move on and find something else that I could make work – and learn from the experience. You need to leave your comfort zone, and that means failing at times.”

Such great advice, I find, and not so easy to put into practice Because failing feels uncomfortable, especially if you’re not a good friend to yourself and put yourself down after a mistake instead of praising yourself for being courageous enough to try.

We head into the sunny day. Next time, we plan to meet on the tennis court – that’s my place to overcome fear of failure, and it’s also a good place to practise.

You can find more about WOW Custom Sportswear here: www.wowcustom-sportswear.co.uk/