For 69% of women in their twenties, trying to make new friends is not a slay. Introducing Rachel Moore and Mia Gnomes, the founders of Girlies Guide, a thriving monthly events business whose aim is to chip away at that number one bottomless brunch at a time.
After graduating from university and starting their ‘adult life’ in South London, all two best friends Rachel Moore and Mia Gnomes wanted to do was branch out and meet new people. So, as anyone else would in a similar situation, they decided to join a hip-hop dance class. I mean, duh?
Before Mia could even start discussing what happened, Rachel had to issue a very serious disclaimer: “I’m blaming it on the fact I didn’t have my glasses on me, okay?” she says.
“I was a competitive dancer for 15 years so I was talking myself up at the start so we stood right at the front, we thought we had it in the bag,” Mia says looking over to Rachel. “As the class went on, we had to slowly move to the back of the class”.
As the girls stumbled over each dance step and each other, even the dance teacher seemed less than impressed.
“The worst part was when the teacher filmed the dance for her social media she kept panning away from us and when we watched the video later on we were completely edited out of the video,” says Rachel still shocked by the injustice. “It was a humbling experience.”
With memories of their hip-hop embarrassment still living rent free in their brains and the whole making friends in a big city game becoming a struggle, they decided to try a different way of making new friends on their own terms, minus the popping and locking.
In 2021 Rachel and Mia set up The Girlies Guide, a business which holds monthly events where young women, like them who want to make new friends, can meet up and socialise with like-minded girls during bottomless brunches, sit down dinners and games nights.
Nearly three years later the girls, now both 25, are at the helm of over 50,000 loyal social media followers, but the girls aren’t surprised with the Guide’s popularity.
“We were in lots of girly Facebook groups and we could see 20-30 girls like us posting trying to make new friends and asking if anyone wanted to go for drinks or do this or do that,” says Mia. “But because there was no structure to the plans or no regulator they never ended up happening.”
“I think that’s when we thought we could step in because we’ve been to so many events like brunches and nights out we thought we could do this too” says Rachel. “We just saw a real need for people to rebuild their community, especially post-covid”.
“Also I think as an adult it’s so difficult to make new friends because when you go to school you see these people every day, you go to university and see those people and then lots of people move away for work and there’s not that structure to see new people regularly” Mia adds.
As the world was breaking free from the well-loathed COVID restrictions, the pair held their first event in September of 2021. The timing was perfect.
“It was at Lost Society in Putney, it’s like a small brunchy vibe and 15 girls came for bottomless brunch,” says Rachel as Mia nods along. “It was just lovely to see all these women, young women just talking and connecting with each other even though we were all strangers to each other.”
Cut to today and tickets for Girlies Guide next event have just gone on sale. The girls hope the event sells out, just like all their other events have since their first and expect around 200-300 girls to show.
Mia crosses her fingers.
“Touch wood”, says Rachel swiftly reaching forward to touch the wooden coffee table in front of her. “I’m not even sure if that’s real wood.”
“When it sells out it is honestly the most incredible feeling,” says Mia. “Especially when Rachel and I have no experience with events or socials, we are just two girls from London who wanted to make a difference.”
Once you order a ticket, you’re automatically added to a group chat of around 20 people who will attend the Girlies Guide event, allowing you time to introduce yourself weeks before the event even starts. The girls introduced the group chats to make walking into a room of over 200 people less daunting, ‘taking away that ‘awkward meeting new people feeling’.
“The main thing for me and Mia is always seeing this network of people we have created,” Rachel said. “Sometimes we look around and we’re just like wow everyone went from not knowing each other to chatting and drinking and mixing together.”
“It works so well because we are our demographic, we are the girlies the guide is for so there is no pressure or anything like that because we know what we want,” says Rachel.
“Yeah, you can make friends for life, you can meet your housemates, you can meet girls who you want to go on holiday with,” says Mia. “But it can also be as simple as, do you know what I got out the house today and I had a really nice afternoon with a nice group of girls.”
Since their start in September 2021 the girls have sold nearly 5,000 tickets, raising around £40,000 which is reinvested into future events.
Alongside managing the Girlies Guide the pair also have to juggle their full-time jobs: Mia works in the hospitality industry and Rachel is a Drama and English teacher. As the business grows to such a scale where the pair have to rent out entire venues, the friends have had to learn to rely on each other.
“I wouldn’t want to do this on my own and, to be honest, I’d be terrible on my own,” says Mia. “We definitely bring our own skill sets to the Girlies Guide.
“Mia is the social media queen, the content creation is her thing and she is a very good problem solver,” adds Rachel.
“And obviously Rachel being a drama teacher she’s so good at getting the girls who are really shy to ease up and get involved more,” says Mia.
With the Girlies Guide gaining new followers every day, Rachel and Mia are always thinking of new ideas. One of which was implemented at the end of last year.
Before moving to their current home in Tooting, the girls experienced how ‘stressful and crazy’ the housing market is when looking for a flatmate especially in a big city like London. Sifting through over 200 applications on sites like Spare room trying to find the perfect housemate for them made the pair think there has to be a better solution.
“So we just thought, why not put all of that pressure out of it, put a bunch of girls in a room together, some who have rooms to fill, some who are looking for a room to fill, some just looking for a buddy up to when they do move to London,” says Rachel. “And then just let them get talking, get mixing and then it’s just a much more relaxed environment.”
“It’s the same kind of concept as the friends’ events, we wanted to go and take those stressful and awkward situations offline in a more personal way,” Rachel adds.
“We didn’t really see anyone doing the same thing to find housemates in person…so we thought why not?” says Mia.
“I think this [the Girlies Guide] is such a great concept you can see this happening anywhere because we need it, it’s such an important thing,” says Rachel. “So, we thought, well, why don’t we just do an event and see how it goes?”
In October 2023, The Girlies Guide bridged out beyond London up north to Manchester where one hundred girls showed up in full force to their first event.
“We get people comment on our videos saying, can you do one in the Netherlands or the US,” says Mia. “Obviously we can’t physically be there as we have full-time jobs but don’t worry, we do have plans to expand across the country.”
“We’ve just had so many DMs from girls saying they’ve gained a whole new circle of friends, or groups who have even gone on holiday to Ibiza,” says Mia. “Do you remember that one girl and what she said to us?”
“Oh my god yeah one girl even said it was the best thing she’s ever done is gone to our events,” Rachel adds. “That really pushes us forward, we just want this network of people to grow.”
