A 27-year-old started a side hustle with a $100 sewing machine and now earns six figures annually.

Before her side hustle's launch party, Olivia Cleary calculated that she needed to sew 20 polyester scarves at a rate of five minutes per inch of fabric, but she was running out of time.

She worked on her scarves from 7 p.m. to midnight and 5 a.m. to 8 a.m., but had to leave for her architectural design job. She finished the edges of her "crappy little scarves" on a $100 sewing machine that sat atop a folding TV table in her New York apartment shared with two roommates.

In October 2023, The Clearly Collective, a business founded in June 2022, hit six figures in annual revenue for the first time. Since then, its sales have remained relatively steady, according to CNBC Make It. The business sells silk scarves featuring iconic architectural landmarks.

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She recently completed a startup incubator program at the University of Virginia, where she left her full-time job in April to focus more on running her business.

The Clearly Collective has designed scarves for corporate events hosted by St. Regis Hotels, McLaren Automotive, and Bacardi, and will soon include an NFL team in their list, according to Cleary. Their scarves were included in donor gift bags put together by the U.S. Olympic Committee for the Paris 2024 Olympic Games.

Cleary describes her style as a blend of architecture, design, and marketing. She believes that her designs are a reflection of how people perceive their communities.

Cleary managed to establish her business while still holding down a full-time job, thanks in part to her TikTok popularity.

From outdoor tables to architecture-inspired scarves

Cleary, who studied architecture at the University of Virginia and graduated in 2020, built two five-foot-long tables out of wooden pallets from a nearby garden store in Boston to host friends outside during the Covid-19 pandemic.

She turned her mom's friends' request to rent tables into a side hustle, expanding her company's rental options to include placemats and glassware. She named her business Backyard Banquet and brought it with her when she landed an architecture job in New York that fall.

Running a backyard banquet was challenging and unprofitable, she admits. She had to transport the tables up to her sixth-floor apartment, and lacked the time and resources to hire assistance. However, the experience of managing a business boosted her confidence that she could eventually monetize her artistic endeavors.

In 2021, Cleary shut down Backyard Banquet and started a new side hustle to supplement her $45,000-a-year job. She attempted to paint custom designs onto white jeans and sold them to her friends for a profit of about $20 per pair. However, the project proved too time-consuming.

She opted for printing her designs on polyester scarves as a chic, unique, and cost-effective alternative. She sewed the edges to add a little polish, she says.

The Clearly Collective was launched by Cleary in June 2022 and gained traction after she posted an orange scarf featuring UVA's rotunda on TikTok, she says.

Over the month, her TikTok audience grew, with another video surpassing 200,000 views after the post went viral with at least 40,000 views.

Scarves featuring architecture from colleges like Georgetown University, Duke University and The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill were requested by strangers from all over the U.S., according to Cleary.

Building a side hustle into a luxury fashion business

She tested five new manufacturers before settling on one that offered silk fabric with professionally hand-rolled edges, which she used to upgrade the quality of her scarves with pre-orders.

Scarves on her company's website now start at $135, up from an initial price of $45, as Cleary raised her prices to reflect the luxurious new material and made her company profitable in late 2022.

In February 2023, a McLaren dealership in San Francisco contacted Cleary via email, expressing interest in her services for creating scarves to be included in guest gift bags at a car show. Although this wasn't her first corporate partnership, Cleary felt that it represented a significant turning point for her business.

Cleary estimates that brand deals account for approximately 65% of her company's revenue. She did not disclose specific revenue figures for her company.

The Clearly Collective's staff consists of a contractor and an intern, with Cleary expressing a desire to hire part-time help, specifically for designing, in order to expand the business as her full-time job.

""I had no idea that I, a random girl from Boston with no ties to fashion or luxury, could suddenly establish myself as a luxury brand designer," Cleary says."

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