Yearly Accounts

Today I finished off my accounts for the year April 2013 – 2014. 

My accounts are really simple as I don’t turn over enough to pay VAT and it’s a simple in and out situation with no capital expenditure or other jobs etc. 

I didn’t actually do too badly. Considering I’m broke and feeling pretty low about selling my work. 

In came just under £25,000

Out went just under £19,000

Leaving me just under £6,000 to live on. 

I look at the in number and think to myself that’s not too bad, if the outgoings were a quarter of what they are then everything would be great. But it’s not because the number I had was under £6,000 for a whole year. When you’ve earned that amount for the past couple of years and before it was a loss then that’s how you get into debt with your business. 

The good thing was that 17,000 of that income was made without brides, so I may be able to survive without doing bespoke. I can then leave that part of the business to ‘my kindof business partner’ who is really great at not loosing money on brides. 

Lesson learnt: I need more margin on the products. And I need to sell a lot more products. And time is money when its not spent being productive. 

 

Etsy – Selling your wares is harder than it used to be.

These ruffle bottom pants are on Etsy. Twenty people a day hand over their cash for these very ruffle bottom pants. Am I missing something here? Twenty people a day wear these and not one wants to wear a cocktail dress? Seriously? Why do I bother trying to make beautiful things?

Once upon a time Etsy was a wonderful online marketplace where designers, makers and curators would sell their beautiful wares. You would fill your shop with your pretty things and click ‘renew’ and kerrching! you had a sale.

For the first time people had access to independent designer makers all over the world and they wanted to buy something unique of great quality.

Occasionally you would stumble upon a sightly bizarre item made by someone on acid or by George Bush. And this would be funny and end up on Regretsy which would make you laugh allbeit with slight nervousness hoping in the back of your head you weren’t a conservative desperately trying to be creative with potatoes.

And then some homemakers came along and they made some stuff for their kids. It was nice, but because their banker husbands were paying for this hobby they thought is was fun to make $10 on their little project that took 10 hours. How sweet.

And then the recession hit and those bankers needed their homemakers to make. Along with everyone else who knew what a pencil was.

And then along came the rest of the world, the factories and the exploiters selling sweatshop goods under the guise of craft. I even found one of my £1500 wedding gowns up for £150 made in China on Etsy. A dress that took me £70 hours to make in £40 a metre silk. I nearly bought one but didn’t have heart to know someone was slaving to make it.

So Etsy blew up into a mega monster where trying to find something by a real designer maker or curator replicated the search for a pearl in the ocean.

Listing my vintage collection on Etsy may not prove so easy as it once was. Not without some additional marketing. Work time.

Lesson To Learn: Competition is good, the best get better and you’ve got to keep up.

And don’t begrudge people wanting to be creative, whoever they may be.

 

Open Studio Day

31st May 2014

Today I invited people to the studio for an open day. 

I planned this about 3 weeks in advance as we didn’t have enough appointments and as my kind-of business partner* was coming over to the studio to see a bride, we thought we’d be open.

I did my usual, I don’t want to make a big deal about it because no one will turn up and it’ll be really sad, try not to think about it mode. 

 

Bare in mind the studio is in the middle of nowhere, eight people came and I sold £420 worth of dresses. I was able to offer discounts as they were loyal customers and I didn’t have to post them to the US and everyone was happy. 

I met a lady who owned a local hairdressers, she wanted to bring her daughter along to see the dresses, who goes to the local school, who is a photographer. The cake lady bought a friend who bought a dress and another friend who is a vintage dealer. All these people bought something or will be useful in the future. Real people, who I am so afraid of gave me money …. and cake. 

The cake-maker bought two delicious cakes in exchange for me altering a dress. My word those cakes made me feel calmer too, everyone focus on the cake, please! 

It was a good day and I only put an ad on facebook, did a little tweeting etc. 

Note about facebook events when you have a page and no private friends to invite. 

For some stupid, idiotic reason facebook won’t let you invite all the people who like your page to the event, so even though I paid for an ad only 3 people said they were coming. Far easier just to do a post and keep posting every two days about your event. Hope they’ll change this

Next Time

1. plan one month in advance

2. invite people from all the local businesses you think will be interested.

Beauty salons, hairdressers, wedding companies, hotels, the local vintage cinema etc.  

The invitation is the ice breaker and go to the business personally to invited them. 

3. Ask those businesses to put a flyer up too inviting more people. 

4. maybe make it a secret event getting people to call or email for directions so you know who’s coming. Or just worry about the car parking situation at the time. 

5. do regular facebook and tweets about it. 

6. email local customers inviting them

7. have a little bar serving cordial and cake

8. invite local press, radio and tv with no obligation to promote it. 

8. have different themed open days a few times a year. Prom, wedding, Christmas. 

 

*A really good friend who I went to Uni with and who helped me out sewing and supporting and now deals with all the brides. She is truly excellent and am amazing seamstress! I always feel like I’m letting her down at the moment. 

Taking Part Time Work to Pay the Bills

 

Cleaning cottages, these are the chives.

Friday 30th May

My parents own holiday cottages instead of having a pension and Fridays is changeover day. My new part time job is cleaning them and this will pay a little towards the rent.
I’m being paid £10 per hour and from my recent research into a part time job this is very good.

I scrub the floors and happily clean away for 6 hours whilst panicking about my business. If I didn’t want to do another job instead of cleaning I imagine life would be bliss. You clean, you go home and you enjoy your life. Simple.

I will never underestimate the value of a cleaner again, the people who do it full time are like gold dust. Polishing taps is a skill, removing dust that keeps coming back is a skill, moving furniture is hard labour and making a king size bed …. wow. That’s the trickiest.

Behind every successful business is a diamond of a cleaner. I hope they get bonuses too.

Lesson learnt today: every job should be valued.

Make money quick, sell everything!

 

Hopefully this lucky 1920s star will give me some luck, or £20!

I’ve collected a lot over the past ten years and it’s sadly now time to let it help my business. I have to ask myself, do I want that original 1920s cocktail bag that I’ll never find another off again or do I want to keep designing?

The answer is keep designing.

The loss is my punishment for not being more sensible and money minded.

The collection was for inspiration and I can still take this from pictures. Time to start photographing and listing. To Etsy they go. Fill the shop!

The Start … or the end of my fledgling business?

 

It’s 10am, I’m surrounded by dresses and I have not a penny in the bank. In fact I have less than a penny, £20,000 less of pennies. Can I survive as an independent designer maker?

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A Little background … I have a degree in Fashion and textile design, being a designer or an artist was all I ever wanted to do since I was ten. I chose the right GCSE’s, the right A-Levels. I went to Uni a year early, I stayed at the same university and studied fashion.

However, I was stubborn. I wanted to do it all my own independent way. This may be an only child complex.

I met an amazing person who is now an amazing husband, my Mum got ill and I didn’t want to move away so I wanted to be an independent designer living in Somerset. The middle of Somerset with 0.5kbps Internet speeds.

I worked in vintage clothing, my speciality for a few years and then when I had enough money I went out alone setting up my business designing bespoke dresses online in 2009, making them and sending them out to customers.
First mistake. Bespoke.

People quickly asked for wedding dresses and I said ‘yes, of course’. I was very easy to flatter. All it took was someone to say they just wanted one of my dresses and I would literally be paying them for that flattery.
Second mistake. Too easily flattered.

Requests came in, I was making wedding dresses for £150. I was scared of asking for too much.
Third Mistake. Letting people take advantage. (yes there are many, many more)

I increased the prices as I gained confidence but still only to £300 a wedding dress, including fittings. And there were many, many fittings and adjustments.
Fourth Mistake. Too many fittings for free. Time is money.

I increased the prices more, designed a great collection and charged what I thought was properly.
But people asked for discounts, fabric costs a lot and £1,500 over 8 months (the average time a bride would like to take for fittings, loosing weight, all the rest) isn’t enough to pay the rent.

Things started to fray badly last year, I was working on brides dresses that I hated. They weren’t my designs but the butchered remains of brides wants.
Fifth Mistake for not just saying no, but would you say no to a bride?

I cried, I wanted to cut my hands, off, hit them with a hammer anything to not have to work on another wedding dress.
I truly thought that if I died at least I wouldn’t have to see another bride. It would be over. 

Instead of slashing my wrists and writing messages to the brides who sucked away every last breath of my creativity, in my blood, I wouldn’t take on any more bespoke orders.

Hurrah, this wasn’t a mistake!

However, when a bride emailed on Christmas day saying she’d like a few adjustments, it got worse.
I said ‘no sorry,  I’m not doing bridal anymore, please take it somewhere else, please!’
She said ‘NO sorry, I need it altered, it’s my wedding dress’. Quite normally.
I said ‘honestly, I’m quite ill I can’t work on it, please take it to another seamstress!’
At this point I had blood, wedding dresses and knives circling my head like a Stephen King film.

So this is where I’m at. I didn’t kill anyone, I don’t see brides anymore*  and have spent the last six months producing some of my best work. But I’m broke.
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This blog, diary, journal whatever you call it is going to document whether I can survive as an independent designer making rather fancy dresses.

The dresses I make are vintage inspired from a fantasy world of film stars, old Hollywood and not being afraid to dress up, stand out and look magnificent.

I have two outlets to sell my goods, Etsy and my own website. I have a website, facebook and social media. I have a studio, camera, sewing machines a lot of fabric, a huge collection of vintage dresses and skills. All for Five years and £20,000

I have two emotionally supportive and loving parents and an amazing husband.

I get a little financial help from my parents as I clean their holiday cottages. Husband and me don’t share money, thankfully.

I claim no benefits and haven’t been on holiday for over two years, anywhere. Poor Me.

I really don’t want to give up just yet and want it to work independently. I have no money for advertising, PR, celebs or any of that stuff. However much they ask.

I can’t pay my rent or bills in dresses.

*the Christmas day bride was turned out to be lovely and became a great inspiration.
It was me who wasn’t cut out for brides, not them, they were truly all lovely and I had not one bridezilla. They all left happy, had wonderful wedding days and as far as I know had not an inkling of the mental torture I went through. I’m now irrationally bride phobic.
I’d need a lot more money to bend over that far again with a smile. Cleaning toilets is more fun, believe me.