UK entrepreneur Laura Ward is the founder of EXEAT, the world’s best-selling luxury British court wear brand for women. Since the brand’s inception in 2021, Laura has revolutionised the global tennis apparel market, leading the way as part of an exciting new breed of ‘post-Brexit’ UK brands with powerful global trading strategies, that fly the flag for Great Britain on the world stage.
Dubbed ‘the fashion editor’s favourite tennis brand’, EXEAT’s distinctive, ‘high-fashion meets centre court’ aesthetic has won a cult international following and benefits from tennis (and sister games padel and pickleball) being the fastest growing sport in the world among women.
In a seminal win for female equality, tennis was the first Olympic sport that women were allowed to compete in at the 1900 Paris Games and, over a century on, EXEAT has captivated the stylish modern-day player globally. Today, the brand is hailed as the UK’s most exported luxury court wear label with 80 per cent of revenues coming from the world’s most lucrative markets.
This unparalleled success hasn’t gone unnoticed. With her string of accolades that include ‘Global Start-Up of The Year’ and ‘Start-Up Entrepreneur of The Year’, the UK government has appointed Laura ‘UK Export Champion’. This esteemed role sees her working with the government to share trade insights with ministers and other British businesses on the secrets to building a successful export brand.
Through her success with EXEAT, Laura offers valuable expertise into markets that have a thirst for brands ‘made in Britain’. This notably includes the USA where EXEAT is the number one luxury UK court wear brand.
Surprisingly, Laura tells us that the key to her success was Covid-19 and Brexit – both potential obstacles that ended up providing a very unique context for success. Laura told LLM: “Covid-19 did periodically shut down our supply chain as all our factories closed which was difficult, however during the various lockdowns tennis was the only group sport in the UK we were permitted to play. This saw people flooding to the court, even if they hadn’t picked up a racquet since childhood, resulting in a whopping 372 per cent uptick in tennis participation according to the LTA.
“To play tennis is to love it and these high figures remain today, resulting in tennis being the fastest growing sport in the world among women which of course has benefitted EXEAT significantly.”
In regards to Brexit, she went on to say: “The UK’s messy divorce from the single market meant that in the immediate aftermath it was too expensive and difficult for us to trade within the EU which should have been our bread and butter. This forced us to look across the Atlantic to America pretty much from launch – the biggest western market in the world for tennis.
“We discovered shipping state-side was a bit cheaper than to Europe (yes, seriously) and also that the US has a nice high threshold of $800 before duty is incurred on imports. Our dresses are £250 so we could essentially trade ‘tax free’ with our e-commerce customers over the pond. As a result, today 80 per cent of our revenues come from export and we are the number one selling luxury British tennis brand in North America. Focusing on the USA turbocharged our revenues in a way that would have taken years had we simply focused on EU. Curious as it sounds, Brexit forced our hand and become our superpower.”
Laura has reimagined premium tennis apparel for the next generation of aspirational female tennis aficionados globally with a brand that celebrates tennis’ rich sartorial heritage, fusing ultra-chic tennis tailoring with pioneering sustainable fabric. A personal passion project, Laura has grown up playing the sport and is a champion of how tennis unites people on the court with EXEAT’s famously flattering silhouettes making women feel beautiful and supported, enabling them to play their best game.
Prior to establishing EXEAT, Laura forged a successful career in advertising, creating legendary and multi award-winning TV and billboard campaigns for brands like Audi, Unilever and British Airways. Always thinking one step ahead, in 2011 Laura became aware of the power of social media and launched one of Europe’s first influencer marketing agencies, TLA. Credited with pioneering the ‘creator economy’, TLA played an integral role in establishing the blueprint for what is now an £800bn industry with clients including Coca-Cola, H&M, L’Oréal and several major European governments.
Laura’s work with TLA saw her move to the fashion capital of the world Paris in 2017, which fittingly became the genesis of EXEAT, when Laura, new to the city and keen to socialise, joined a tennis club.
Laura explained: “There was something about playing tennis in Paris, the most stylish city in the world, facing impossibly chic opponents across the net which made me want to up my style game on the court. So, I went shopping. I was after the crème de la crème of tennis apparel, which I just assumed existed as it does in my other sports like skiing and yoga, but after a day of pounding the pavements of Paris, I came back empty handed as all I had found was rail upon rail of mass-produced, poor quality, unflattering sportswear.
“It blew my mind that the top end of the tennis apparel market didn’t seem to exist. That was my lightbulb to do something about it and create a game-changing premium court wear brand for women like me.”
Upon her return to the UK, Laura began developing the label and building an elite fashion team to execute her vision. Three years in the making, and despite Laura having no previous fashion manufacturing experience, EXEAT launched in 2021 to critical acclaim from the international fashion press; a legacy British court wear brand serving today’s female player with the highest-quality, ultra-flattering, sustainably made tennis apparel.
