The time has finally come! Our new collection will be ready to show you on our spanking new website. Come and see it on Monday and let me know what you think. I can’t wait to finally show you what I’ve been working so hard on these past few months.
Like my tiny little sneak peek? It’s from my favorite photo shoot of the season.
It has been very quiet on the blog front, with nary a Fashion Show Any Day to be seen anywhere. I have been busy getting the new Spring/Summer catalog ready as well as my new website (which, yes, I have been talking about for months) and the blog has just fallen by the wayside. Also, lately, I’ve been finding that I like the interaction that takes place on Facebook — y’all are so much livelier there! So I think I will need to give some long, hard thoughts about this blog when I have more time. This blog started out as a way to keep in touch with my family, then became a way to record my artwork, and now needs to become more related to my business. I’d love to hear any thoughts you may have on what you’d like to see here, or if you even think I should just move it on over to FB and Twitter, though I’d probably have some difficulty giving up this space after all this time.
The kids have really been great sports about taking lots and lots of pictures with me. I love this photo above because it’s purely an accident but shows what’s happening behind the scenes here, with the entire family involved in the process. What would I do without a family so willing to humor me? One of the things that my husband remembers most clearly about the night that we met is that I spent a lot of time laughing at my own jokes. He thought it was charming at the time, but look where it’s landed the poor guy, since I’m still doing the same thing, but now involving our children.
Hopefully soon, you’ll get to see everything I’ve been working on…
I think a lot about my customers and how I interact with them. I mean, there are very few opportunities for me to make an impression, right? So I try my best to make the most of my opportunities, including writing personal emails when I receive orders and wrapping orders like presents. I love having this chance to build my relationships with customers, and it’s fun sending little presents to people all over the world. Recently, I’ve seen some similar business practices from others, and it’s really reinforced how important these practices are for me.
After I ordered something from Of A Kind, I received an email that sounded really personal and stressed how they appreciated my support. It felt like it was written by a real person, and it made me feel connected with their business. Their business really encourages you to form a connection with the designers they work with, and they’ve done a good job on both. I’ve already started to adopt some of the language that they use.
Yesterday, I received a box from Totokaelo, and it was so a lovely experience. Here’s what you see when you open the box:
What a sight! Beautiful thick wrapping paper, lovely sticker.
Wait, you’re not done. Inside, there’s another layer!
Even their boxes have their beautiful illustrations on it.
It made ordering something from them such an experience, and I’m really looking forward to ordering something from them again. And it’s making me think about more ways to make ordering from me the same kind of fun experience. Have any of you had any other great, personal experiences with retailers? I’d love to hear!
In this past weekend’s Style section of the NY Times, Bill Cunningham did a story on Rei Kawakubo, of Comme Des Garcons. I really admire her clothing as works of art, and I loved seeing all his pictures of these women wearing her clothing. Oh what I wouldn’t give to be so fashionably daring.
When I was designing my Fall collection and thinking about colors and color-blocking, I kept returning to her collection of beautiful coats. Wearable or not, I really loved the bold, graphic designs and amazing color combinations. I wasn’t entirely sure if the combination would work for children’s accessories, but I paid homage with a royal blue and pink combination on one of my color-block poms that I love. For me, it was just the right way to tone down the sweetness of that shade of cotton candy pink.
Here’s more of Bill Cunningham on Ms. Kawakubo, where he compares her work to that of Picasso and Matisse. See the complete 2012 Fall Comme Des Garcons line here.
Wow, this weekend was crazy. And fun too. But really crazy. I love Renegade Craft Fair. There are so many great vendors, and there’s a good variety of stuff and I always wish I had a lot of time to just shop. Tons of people come, and people are really in a shopping mood. But at times, I would look up and there would be a sea of people, moving en mass, and it sometimes felt like people were swept right past my booth, unable to stop. It’s fun to do this once a year, but I can’t imagine flying around the country to do multiple shows, as some people I met do. It was fun to do this with friends and I got to see so many other friends too. (see me up there with Maria and Patty? They’re the cutest, right? And there’s a pic of me with Jimin on FB)
I always like to say that I have to fight my true nature at these sorts of events and actually be friendly, which people take to be a joke, but really, it’s only half a joke. I really do love being alone in my studio, having my quiet time and working. I do really go a little nuts if I don’t have a certain amount of quiet time to myself each day. At Renegade, I found myself worrying: Should I say hi now or wait? Do I try to look busy but available? Should I just keep sitting this with this ridiculous yet hopefully friendly smile on my face? Should I take it personally if people pretend I’m not even there? I would occasionally ask my friend/booth partner Jimin these kinds of questions, and her response would basically be Life Is Too Short. Don’t I know it! It’s too bad I’m wasting so much of my short little life consumed by these questions.
Now Renegade is over, and the last of my holiday orders are trickling out, and I just need to buy all my holiday presents, get a tree and decorate it in the next few days. Last-minute holiday shopping is not fun, friends. We all have that same intense look in our eyes. Any day now, I think I’ll finally start feeling relaxed. Oh, and if anyone has any inspired ideas for a husband who can’t even think of what he wants for himself, I’d appreciate a tip. Or really, I’d love to hear what you’re getting for your partners!
