18-Year-Old Uses £400 During COVID to Launch £1M Business: We're 'Gen-Z's Favourite Jewellery Brand'

Without a degree in business, Amelia Hitchcock-Merritt built jewellery brand Bijoux De Mimi from her bedroom during the COVID-19 lockdown in the UK.

At just 18 years old, after being inspired by a trip to Paris in 2020, Hitchcock-Merritt told Hello!: "I launched Bijoux when I was 18, with £400 of my own savings from clearing out & selling my wardrobe mid-covid."

"I literally started selling jewellery from my bedroom, initially by getting all my friends' little sisters to follow Bijoux De Mimi on Instagram."

Since launching the jewellery brand, which boasts earrings, bangles, chains, charms, necklaces, ear cuffs, and hearing aid jewellery, Hitchcock-Merritt has turned Bijoux De Mimi into a seven-figure company.

Stocked in global stores, such as Urban Outfitters and Wolf and Badger USA, and considering the young founder favoured TikTok as a marketing platform, Bijoux De Mimi has been dubbed "Gen Z's favourite jewellery brand."

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In recent years, due to the number of users mounting during the COVID-19 lockdown, TikTok has become a favoured marketing-style platform for entrepreneurs.

Since the pandemic in 2020, research shows that between 2020 and 2024, TikTok has seen a 93.4 per cent increase in its global user base – up by a staggering 435 million.

Other statistics also expose a staggering 1157.76 per cent increase in TikTok's global user base in the two years between January 2018 and July 2020 – the middle of the first lockdown in the UK.

After showing off her brand on her TikTok page, which currently boasts more than 70,000 followers, Hitchcock-Merritt said: "Within a year of launching, I had a 1,118 per cent growth rate."

"Social media is everything for Bijoux. I love that because we have such a cult following of girls who are obsessed with our brand - and it's so empowering. I think all our followers feel so connected to Bijoux, to me and the story. I think that's why it's done so well."

Using her own social media platforms to promote her brand and relying on gifting free jewellery to TikTok influencers, Hitchcock-Merritt explained that she has "never paid an influencer", allowing her brand's growth to be "organic."

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"I only started doing paid advertisements in January. I'd never paid for ads before that."

Despite the lack of influential bookings, Bijoux De Mimi's huggie hoops and necklaces have been spotted on reality TV stars, including Made in Chelsea's Mia Regan, Journalist Amelia Dimoldenberg and Love Island's Tasha Amber Ghouri.

In 2022, in collaboration with European jewellery brand Deaf Metal and Living with Hearing Loss, the non-profit organisation that advocates and raises awareness of the hearing loss community, Bijoux De Mimi launched hearing aid earrings.

The jewellery line, Pink Noise, has since been named one of the UK's first hearing aid-friendly jewellery lines and donates 20 per cent of each sale to Living with Hearing Loss.

Inspired by other female entrepreneurs, Hitchcock-Merritt named Tala Founder Grace Beverly as "a major influence" on her role as CEO.

"To be honest, I'm really driven by any successful woman," the Bijoux De Mimi founder added.