Meet Annabel and Lucy Hay – the powerhouse duo behind Clutch, the startup redefining what it means to feel secure, and supported, in your clothes. What’s not to love?
Frustrated with the poor performance of traditional Hollywood tape, Annabel took matters into her own hands. While juggling a demanding full-time job as a Project Manager in Hong Kong, she collaborated with a research chemist at UNSW to create a patented glue that actually sticks – even through sweat, movement, and long wear.
Her breakthrough formulation marked the beginning of Clutch: a sustainable, long-lasting adhesive designed to keep everything from dresses to jewellery to shoe straps in place.
Once the formula was finalised, Annabel turned to her formidable sister Lucy – a seasoned ad agency copywriter – to bring Clutch to life creatively. With Lucy’s strategic vision and storytelling skills, the brand quickly positioned itself as a stylish, solutions-focused disruptor for a global market. Since launching in December 2022, Clutch is now sold in more than 400 Priceline stores, with plans to expand to other major retailers in the future.
Sitting down with High Agency podcast host Natasha Gillezeau (Tash), Founder and CEO, Annabel and Creative Director, Lucy recently opened up about how they turned a personal annoyance into a globally relevant innovation, the lessons learned navigating R&D and manufacturing and what it’s like building a brand with your sibling.
Speaking of those initial stages of the business, Annabel spoke about one of the first challenges she faced – effectively managing her energy as she had a full-time day job alongside developing Clutch.
“It’s kind of like having two boyfriends who don’t know about each other-type vibe,” she said. “Like, balancing the day job and then the side hustle was really confusing. And it’s not like it was just this clear delineation of, like, I have my 9 to 5 and then from 5pm to 9pm I work on Clutch, it just wasn’t like that.”
“It was just this morph of tasks that I just had to do and get done, and it was most productive I’ve ever been in my life,” Annabel added.
Despite there being a lot on her plate, Annabel said she looks back at that period of time with “fondness” because she was “so motivated”. She also values the transferable skills she gained working in a large organisation before going full-time with her own business.
As is the case with practically any business these days, you’re bound to face the good and the bad when it comes to feedback, especially on social media. With Lucy having started her creative career in social media marketing back in the day, the sisters felt well-equipped to deal with the potential criticism.
“My first job was as a community manager for KFC, so I knew what it was like to have audiences mad at you and send you DMS and be weird,” Lucy reflected, “but then really leaning into the positive stuff and really drawing down from your audience”.
“Which was amazing to have, by the way, just like from my side of things, because I’d never experienced that before,” Annabel added.
Lucy framed feedback “as a blessing online”, explaining that “having a community that talks to you is fantastic, no matter whether it’s sort of positive or negative”.
“I mean granted, a lot of negative commentary is quite horrible, but an opportunity to improve the product,” she said. “We’ve changed the way we talk about the product, the way we describe how to use it, the use cases, [and] what we think is a priority to communicate about Clutch entirely through our audience.”
Looking ahead, Annabel’s particularly excited about taking the venture to another level with more financial backing. “We’re doing a seed raise at the moment, based in the US,” she said at the time of the podcast’s recording, hinting that she had envisioned Clutch being on the radar of a particular person for some time, and she was stoked that it’s actually happened.
With the sisters’ determination, passion and willingness to respond to an evolving market, their business Clutch isn’t just about a product — it’s a story of high agency, and female-led ingenuity.
Our High Agency Women series is sponsored by Blackbird.
Top photo – Supplied/Blackbird with additional design by Missing Perspectives