Posts Tagged ‘business’
- In: Entrepreneur | fashion
- 3 Comments
Hello beautiful people!
It’s been a little while but I’m back!
So much has happened since my last post; finally got sample 1 of my collection completed! Huge Yeah!!!
It’s a dress – that’s all I’m saying at the moment :). I love it and I’ve had really good feedback from those who’ve seen it – so encouraging. Now we need to complete the collection and start some serious marketing and hopefully sales.
So you know this blog is about my journey from the idea to your wardrobe right? I’ll let you in on a couple of my learnings in the recent weeks.
- Reality over dreams
Creating the sample creation can be quite a tedious process and that’s just sourcing the fabric and trimmings. I learnt the hard way with sample 1, found a fabric I loved for the design but then realised there wasnt enough of it for the sample; a blessing in disguise as the fabric couldn’t be sourced quickly enough for spontaneous orders. So whilst I’d oomed and arrhed at this particular fabric, there was no point going ahead with it knowing “Department Store S” on Bond street could require 100 pieces with a 6 week turn round and half of that time spent would be just waiting for fabric to arrive; that was a no-no! So it was off to source a similar fabric, asked for 300 mtrs within a week – if the fabric store is confident enough to get you that quantity, then you’re on the right path to finding a fabric you can be confident to use. And that my dear friends is what I did to find the fabric that made the cut for our sample 1. It is possible that I probably would have known this as part of a 3 year fashion design course but as we’re learning on the go, I take this as part of my lot :). Lesson learnt, so we move on!
- Keep your Business Plan dynamic
In all my learnings whether in Marketing or as part of my degree, one thing I always heard was that the business plan is a moving document. I had not realised how true that statement was; I can definitely attest to it now.
I have a friend who’s launching her own business also and we serve as accountability partners to each other – the business we’re running now have developed compared to the ideas we started with. With more research comes more understanding of the product and the environment our businesses will operate in and it therefore makes absolute sense to be fluid enough to ensure that the business plan adjusts accordingly otherwise, our projects might never see the light of day or even last no longer than a season – no one wants that.
So any fashion entrepreneurs out there with similar experiences to mine or something I havent even mentioned that we could benefit from? Please share.
I’m off now and will come back before the end of the week with some fashion related (as opposed to business focused) post.
Be good and have a fruitful week ahead!
Much love
T
Setbacks and set forwards
Posted on: October 18, 2010
- In: Designer | Entrepreneur
- 4 Comments
Hello lovely people!
I hope you had a lovely weekend and now enjoying the week?
I sincerely apologise I wasnt able to update the blog end of last week as I previously said – things turned a little mad last week; totally unexpected!
Disappointments
I had hoped to have a couple of samples ready by last Friday but all of that went into thin air last Monday when it appeared I couldn’t work with one of my contractors any longer. It threw my plans into disarray and for a couple of days, stressed me out a lot.
[picapp align=”none” wrap=”false” link=”term=dissapointment&iid=3919434″ src=”http://view4.picapp.com/pictures.photo/image/3919434/tennis-2009-fed-cup-france/tennis-2009-fed-cup-france.jpg?size=500&imageId=3919434″ width=”380″ height=”252″ /]
I work with timelines and I do not like it when those timelines change for ‘unforeseen’ reasons! I guess I’ve always been in ‘controlled environments’ where I was pretty much aware of most of the issues that could arise and therefore mentally prepared for them. Last week, I wasnt prepared for what happened, nonetheless I have learnt from it including the following:
- When one door closes, remember another will always open
- Everything happens for a reason, even the so called dissapointments. Just dont lose focus on your goal, you’ll look back and be thankful for most setbacks
- In life, do good and you will attract goodness even if it doesn’t always seem like it – Good will always win
- One person with a belief is equal to force of ninety-nine who have only interests (thanks to @Zedeye’s dad)
- In my humble opinion, when God has blessed you with a gift and an idea and you put in the work, He’ll open doors to gold paved roads for you
- If you havent tried something, dont close your mind to it and finally for today
- Always have options B, C , D (unless in marriage of course!)
Fingers Crossed
So it’s a new week, I’m back to my old very happy self and guess what I have a new team in place and keeping everything crossed with a lot of prayers that all goes well this week.
[picapp align=”none” wrap=”false” link=”term=fingers+crossed&iid=1852201″ src=”http://view1.picapp.com/pictures.photo/image/1852201/show-the-mtv-australia/show-the-mtv-australia.jpg?size=500&imageId=1852201″ width=”380″ height=”251″ /]
Gotta get me some lunch now so I’ll catch you later!
Please leave a comment as I enjoy reading from you.
Mucha love
T
The Slow days…
Posted on: October 12, 2010
- In: Designer | Entrepreneur | fashion | womens wear
- 1 Comment
Hello!
I trust you’re having a lovely week so far? My Monday was rather slow. You know those days you have to wait on people to get back to you before you move on to the next stage? Yes? Well one of those.
We are now very close to creating initial samples by my preferred manufacturer! Yeah!
They also have very good links with other suppliers e.g. Pattern Cutter, grader etc who are as professional yet competitively priced too. I’m a very happy girl today.
Before I get cracking with developing samples, one key thing I’ve had to pull together is a ‘confidential agreement’ which I know can make working relationships go from relaxed to very formal. They (my suppliers) probably have to get their legal team to check it too before signing it. I’ll be surprised if that’s not something they have to do regularly though-it just makes absolute business sense! My sketches are my intellectual property at the end of the day, so I must protect them.
So there we go, so close yet a little too far until we can clear the legal stages. Until then, I have to wait (impatiently if I may add) for my samples to be made!
[picapp align=”none” wrap=”false” link=”term=waiting&iid=9943473″ src=”http://view4.picapp.com/pictures.photo/image/9943473/passenger-waits-for-train/passenger-waits-for-train.jpg?size=500&imageId=9943473″ width=”380″ height=”573″ /]
I’ll be here again in the next couple of days/end of the week with a progress update on the samples. Keeping everything crossed till then.
Have a beautiful day ahead!
T
Tonibonoj - from my mind to the Catwalk 
