As Kerry Clayton, 35, from Rochester, lay in a hospital bed bored, in pain, and on strong medication, she passed the time with drawing. She began designing t-shirts and posted pictures of them to Instagram. 

Quickly, her followers wanted to know where they could buy one, and so she started using print on demand services in 2019 – and that is how her jewellery and clothing business Trend Tonic began.

Kerry was born with Ehlers Danlos Syndrome, a condition that means her joints can dislocate at any time. Last month she spent nine days in hospital after damaging her back while reaching for an item in her home. It can strike at any time, and it’s always made work difficult.

‘When I was employed, I had a lot of pressure to keep pushing through the pain and burnout. Then I would become even more ill and need long periods of sick leave,’ Kerry tells Metro.

‘When you’re employed by other people in a traditional work environment and you have an invisible illness, there’s a lot of misunderstanding from colleagues who see it as you’re having lots of time off.’

She was stuck in a cycle of starting a job, eventually quitting to focus on her health and recovery, then starting a new job, and repeating the process. Kerry was worried she looked unreliable to employers, but couldn’t see another way forward.

After some time away from work to be a full-time mum, she had an realisation: she could leave traditonal employment behind if she started to take her own creativity more seriously. She had the epiphany after she posted an image of earrings she’d made on Instagram and again had comments from people wanting to buy a pair.

She wanted to design jewellery that was fun but not heavy or irritating on her skin, as she has often found costume jewellery on the market to do. Through word of mouth, her business started to snowball. In the meantime, she taught herself how to code to build a website.

Within a year, she hit her target of making £500 a month.

‘I started buying £1 small samples of cork fabric, making earrings out of that, selling them, then reinvesting the money back into the business,’ she says.

‘Now we buy metres of fabric because I know we’ll go through it.’ Six years into the business, Kerry now has a team of five to support her. Scaling up felt natural and happened through social media connections. People that were customers became her team mates, and it all started when she hired a woman to be her PA after they got chatting on DMs via the brand.

‘It’s difficult to trust people to work on something I’ve worked so hard for,’ Kerry says, which is why she’s loved finding her team this way. 

Recently, her earrings appeared at London Fashion Week at the Unhidden show, which is an adaptable clothing brand for people with disabilities. But, her health almost got in the way of such a big win.

‘I was sat in a hospital bed, my phone running out of battery, trying to organise everything,’ she says, as her condition caused a major injury one day before, leading to an extended hospital stay. Her earrings hadn’t arrived in time for the show, and at the midnight hour her mum drove a new set direct to the catwalk organisers.

‘My biggest frustration is I can’t plan, and so I’ll have things planned in advance that I’m excited for – I was meant to be at London Fashion Week, and I’ve never been so excited, but to end up snapping my neck the day before… if you focus on those situations it just really gets you down,’ she says.

‘Day to day, because I work for myself, it enables me to step back if I’m having a flare up. I allow the same to everyone that works with me. We’re flexible because we know the work will get done.’

She was in hospital on one of her team member’s start dates, and had to video call them to go through the onboarding process – just a few hours after having emergency surgery. 

Flare ups happen to Kerry roughly twice a month, meaning work cannot be done. She also has regular hospital appointments. Extended hospital stays are much rarer and usually happen once every couple of years, but staying positive is important to Kerry and it reflects in her products which are colourful and joyful. She’s a big believer in dressing in colour to lift your mood.

‘If you feel nicer in yourself, everything doesn’t feel quite as bad,’ she says. ‘I don’t look back enough because I’m always pushing for the next goal, but then I do stop sometimes and think wow, within six years I’ve smashed my goals, and I do it all within school hours flexibly around my disabilities and family. I’m proud of myself and my ability to keep pushing.’

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