Victoria Paulsen spotted a gap in women’s golf fashion, put her savings on the line at 27, and started building a brand from scratch. She talks about what the market was getting wrong, what it takes to launch, and what she’s learnt along the way.

There is a frustration that runs through women’s golf fashion, and it is not especially subtle once you have noticed it: the clothing often looks as though it was designed by someone who has never had to wear it. Victoria Paulsen noticed it too — and carrying on, she decided to do something about it.

Seeing the Gap

Victoria had been working in fashion buying for five or six years when the idea took shape. She had product development experience, knew how to source fabric and negotiate with suppliers — the technical foundations of a brand were already there. What she did not have was a clear problem to solve. The answer arrived on a golf course.

“I thought: is there still this issue with women’s golf clothing, or did someone fix it?” She called her sister — who works with the PGA — and picked her brain. The gap was still there.

Her diagnosis covers several things at once: fit designed for the wrong body, fabric that prioritised technical credentials over comfort, prints that were either aggressively loud or aggressively bland, and skort lengths that sent most women straight to the activewear aisle. “A lot of it comes down to fit,” she says. “It’s men designing for a woman’s body when they don’t know what women actually want. Women want quality fabric, pockets, shorts that don’t ride up, and pieces you can wear off the course without looking like you just came off the course.”

The timing mattered too. This was the tail end of Covid, when athleisure had taken hold and women were already wearing ALO and Lululemon on the course — not because those brands made golf clothing, but because the golf clothing that existed was worse. The space she was aiming for sat between the two: performance-aware, fashion-credible, priced accessibly, and genuinely versatile.

Starting From Scratch

Victoria had moved from New Jersey to London in late 2020, using the Brexit settlement scheme as a Swedish-American dual citizen. By the summer of 2022, idea in hand, she started turning it into a brand.

She did the research — Pinterest, trend analysis — but she also had a direct line to serious industry knowledge. Her sister, a significant buyer at a top country club in New Jersey, sat with her for three hours: what was missing at trade shows, what fabrications women wanted, which price points worked, which silhouettes sold. Then Victoria looked at her savings — around $50,000, accumulated from years of working — and made the decision. “I didn’t want investors. I didn’t want to ask my dad for money. I just took the risk.” She was 27.

Finding the right manufacturer took time and wrong turns. She went through six suppliers in total before finding the one she now works with and visited in person in China earlier this year. One practical lesson she passes on freely: minimum order quantities are more negotiable than they appear. If a supplier quotes 300 units per style, you can often split that across colourways — 150 in each — which gives you range without the overcommitment.

The Brand

The Victoria Paulsen label launched in 2022. The range covers cardigans, knitwear, tops, skorts, shorts, dresses and accessories. From early on, Victoria learned to keep the collection tight — an autumn/winter line she originally designed at six pieces was cut to two during her China visit when the costings came back. “If I’d done everything I originally wanted, it would have been $60,000. I just didn’t have that.” The two pieces she kept: a wool-cashmere blend crew neck in four colours, and a new run of the Sophie Cardigan, including the green that customers had been asking for.

That cardigan is the brand’s standout piece and its best seller — reordered five times, with a recent run of 200 units close to selling out. It is a mid-layer knitwear piece, understated and versatile, and it is the kind of thing her London customers tell her they wore to the office the day before the course. Subtle tonal branding, no logos thrown across the chest. “You can wear it to work” is not a tagline — it is the point.

The brand is not yet Victoria’s full-time job; she works as a global sample manager at another fashion brand. She is candid about what that means. “I’m always comparing my brand to others, and I can’t, because they don’t have a full-time job. It’ll take double the time.”

Who It Is For

Victoria started out targeting younger golfers and fairly quickly revised that view. The revision came from her mother, now 67, who wanted to buy the range and pointed out that her friends did too. “I didn’t think about my mum. I thought the older generation liked what was already out there.” She has since positioned Victoria Paulsen as an ageless brand. Her boyfriend suggested she use an older model alongside a younger one in her next campaign. She thought it was a good idea.

In the UK, the brand is stocked wholesale through Trendy Golf in Manchester and London. UK orders now ship from a storage unit in London — recently upgraded from their one-bedroom flat — with flat-rate delivery and no import duties.

What Comes Next

Victoria’s ambitions include Liberty and Selfridges. She watched Malbon’s trajectory up close at a PGA trade show when her brand was six months old and can picture something similar for Victoria Paulsen — while being clear-eyed that Malbon had marketing money and connections she does not. She is building differently, and more slowly, and she is fine with that.

The advice she gives to other women starting out is the kind you only arrive at through experience: go to shows even when you don’t cover the costs, because the connections matter more than the orders. Ask customers what they actually want. Cut your collection when the numbers don’t work. And visit your supplier in person.

“Every time there’s bad feedback,” she says, “it’s me learning how to improve. And that’s what gets me excited.”

Browse the Victoria Paulsen range at victoriapaulsen.com, or find it at selected UK stockists including Trendy Golf. At time of publication The Victoria Paulsen range is Women & Golf’s Featured Brand visit our Fashion Section