Hello, my name is Pia and I'm calling from Baby Issa...

I don't know how many times I have said that sentence this week and even less of a clue what it meant to most people who heard it, since Baby Issa is only a couple of weeks old... though, as I was to find out this week - she is very advanced for a girl her age!!

When Daniella Issa Helayel first approached me about developing Baby Issa earlier this year, I thought it was an amazing fit.

Daniella and I have known each other since 2005 when I did my first ever fashion internship at her budding womenswear line Issa London. At the time it was based in her mews house in Paddington - there were three employees in total, a bunch of interns running errands and friends and socialites who loved Daniella's charisma, charm and dresses were helping out any which way they could. It was an amazing time and none of us will ever forget the unique energy surrounding it all.

Since then Issa London has become an established brand sold in some 80+ shops around the world and Kate Middleton is rumoured to be getting married in Issa...

In the meantime I have assisted Daniella numerous times over the years from selling her collection at a trade fair in Paris to helping at her New York fashion Week debut when I was living over there in 2007.
Since then, I have completed my BA in Fashion Design with Marketing from Central St Martins, had a baby and am currently completing my MA in International Business Management. - As I said, a perfect fit with Baby Issa.

But as usual in life, everything is more complicated, challenging and rewarding than originally expected...

Daniella asked me for a proposal for how I would go about building the Baby Issa brand and so I prepared one. It was my first "pitch" and I consulted a handful of people who I thought could help. My expectations were surpassed to such a degree by my friends, family and one stranger that had been roped in by my tutour that I went to bed feeling like the luckiest girl in the world the night I sent it off.

The pitch was amazing and I still think that's how I would have gone about starting up a company - if it hadn't already been started!

Which is what I realised when I started working at Baby Issa last week: I am not starting up anything; I am entering a project that has already commenced, that incredibly talented and hard-working people have already poured hours of effort and thought into, that several mainline Issa employees have given time to and that Daniella herself is totally obsessed with... see below.

So instead of being my own boss heading up a start-up without a budget, as I had originally expected, I am now the main assistant to Daniella and only official employee of Baby Issa, which gives me more and less responsibility at the same time.

Now that I have set the scene, I will start blogging about what I am doing, continuing, scrapping and starting... tbc tomorrow.

Momma loves you.

PS: still figuring out this html business so please forgive any "construction" faults or lay-out deficiencies..