Imagine

Natalie Massenet (Founder and Chairman of luxury etail site Net-A-Porter, recently sold at a total valuation of £350million to Swiss luxury group Richemont) says this book helped her come up with and realise her dreams. Certainly can't hurt... http://tinyurl.com/32qxhvr

More than words

Daniella "Issa" Helayel and Liberty Ross in Baby Issa S/S11 and Issa Resort 2011 respectively

Yesterday's launch party at Liberty Ross' house was a real success. There were several moments when I looked around and felt everything just click into place. The kids had so much fun trying on the clothes, jumping into the pool in printed Baby Issa bikinis & swimming trunks, parents looked pleased and at ease, the music was great, cupcakes were delicious.

The tell-tale sign was that people came... and stayed.

Nobody popped in and out, everyone really relaxed, lay on the grass, watched their kids jumping, singing, dancing, swimming...

Mothers and daughters got non-toxic manicures, daddies and kids got matching temptu's (yeah I got one, too...), kids rode the glitter-hoofed pony into the sunset - everyone let their hair down.

All in all, we are very pleased with the result. After all, Baby Issa is all about kids having fun!

To see photos, just click on any of the following links:

Patrick McMullen http://www.patrickmcmullen.com/site/event_detail.aspx?eid=33705&home=1&page=1&pgSize=16&sortdir=DESC

Getty Images (search for "Baby Issa launch") http://www.gettyimages.com

Wireimage http://www.wireimage.com/ItemListings.aspx?igi=443408&nbc1=1

And of course, I will be posting all the pictures of glorious mayhem I took on my phone as well... Am taking the day off to rest and relax after some seriously hectic weeks, before my appointments with LA showrooms tomorrow and Friday to find a suitable one to represent our collection at the LA Kidsmarket tradeshow.


Winnie is Pooped xx




(copyright all pictures Pia Stanchina)

Welcome to the Chateau!

Yesss! I'm in LA, CA, USofA.
This is where I'm staying:

It would be an understatement to say I'm excited.
Daniella has started referring to me exclusively as "the Puppy".

Today afternoon is our launch party - Liberty and her daughter are coming back from their family holiday in Malibu just to host it and the "attending" list is made up of beautiful, intelligent and lovely mummies, daughters and sons (Minnie Driver and her son are confirmed :) as well as high-calibre stylists and national, international and online press. I think it's gonna rock!

I will blog all about our event here, but I really want to post some updates on what I have been doing, since it has been eye-opening and stress-relieving to me and I think to anyone thinking of starting their own business, esp in fashion and esp anyone without a business degree, it would be very helpful as a guideline.

However, I have several things I promised in previous posts and more things now, so maybe we could have a vote? (AKA give your preference in the comments section below...)

Would you prefer to read about

A. Accounts of a strategy meeting
B. How buyers buy and how to confirm an order
C. A fill-in-the-dots outline for a business plan
D. A list of steps in the process of producing your own collection from idea to shipping
E. How to know when what needs to be done in the production process aka The Critical Path (an excel file that allows you to just change the delivery date and automatically updates all other dates)

Okay, hope to hear some feedback, so we can build consensus and achieve our targets.

Mama McKinsey



- Yes, I have been brainwashed into business school lingo... Currently reading "What they teach you at Harvard Business School" (HBS for insiders) by the former Head of The Telegraph's Paris Bureau, Philip Delves Broughton. As such, it is wittily written, from a non-business perspective. Refreshing and insightful, recommended reading for anyone who went to a business school that wasn't HBS and important for anyone thinking about Business School http://tinyurl.com/3afb9fj

STD... of another kind.

♥ A very welcome kind! Finalised Save The Date card for LA ♥

♥ Preparations for goodie-bags,
printed table-cloths and dress-up tents in full swing... ♥

Easy like Sunday morning..

...or Careful, man. There's a beverage here!

My first free weekend since I started work on Baby Issa!
I have to admit, I was thoroughly exhausted - to the extent that even sweet little M took initiative: feeding me constantly and giving me lots of hugs and cuddles!!


My brother is visiting and has been such a star.


Amongst his many kind and touching gestures was getting me a chilled coffee on Friday afternoon and manually putting my feet up on M's little chairs.


It was a perfect weekend...

On Saturday, we met up with some of my best friends and just laid back in the beautiful Kensington Palace Gardens and enjoyed the sun...

Sunday was "family day", first my brother, M and I had breakfast together
(I even squeezed in some beauty-time)

and then we BBQ'ed at one of my mother's oldest friends' houses. It was bizarre remembering my father pushing us three around their garden in wheelbarrow while lying in the grass with my own daughter - who later insisted on pushing me in the hammock!!

I know this was a lazy, time-wasting slacker entry.
I'll be back with another to-do-list, accounts of strategy meetings, how to confirm an order, an outline for a business plan and more soon.

The Dude(tte)

All photos by Alice Farquhar, Bernhard Stanchina and me.

Death of a Sales(wo)man

Summer in Paris - in a word: Magical.

Sunny, blue skies. Beautiful old buildings. Pretty girls with shiny hair in flat leather sandals. Androgynous boys with chiseled faces and turned up trousers on bicycles. Chic couples with breathtaking multicultural children.. it's enough to make you want to move here.

For pleasure. Entirely for pleasure. Definitely not for business.

Paris is not a city that "never sleeps".

In terms of getting stuff done, Paris is a narcoleptic.

As my wonderful friend Kinga (we went to St Martins together) was telling me yesterday over dinner: even large corporations give 9 - 5 workers a standard 2 hour lunch break. Yep, you read that correctly.

First of all, on Sunday everything is closed. I am not exaggerating: restaurants appear to be open, but when you sit down, they warn you that there will be a wait, as the chef is currently "away". Hmmm..

It doesn't stop there, though: today (Monday) I attempted to visit some baby boutiques and introduce them to our collection.. I write attempted because more than half were closed. First I thought that the recession has really hit France very hard. Then I realised this might mean I they open on Sunday instead (hard to believe) or whether a three day weekend is standard here.

One shop that does open on Mondays is Merci - the brainchild of Marie-France and Bernard Cohen (founders of Bonpoint), the concept store is filled with everything that makes a bon vivant's heart jump (flowers, fashion, furniture, stationary) and donates all its profits to a co-op for young women in Madagascar. At the moment, Merci has a "linstallation" (sic): a linen and hemp theme runs through the displays, including the Merci mascot:

Merci 111 Boulevard Beaumarchais in the 11th arrondissement, very close to the Marais. Métro: Saint-Sebastian Froissart, Line 8. (+33) 01 42 77 78 92.

I love the generosity of space of the displays, the muted, natural colour palette, the tactility of furniture and clothes, the general easy glamour of it all - which is why I was there in the first place: I think Baby Issa would complement the childrens clothes and general aesthetic of Merci perfectly and vice versa. I have sent their buyer and email as well as dropped off a lookbook for her, keep your fingers crossed that we hear from her...

Back to Paris, the narcolepsy patient. Taxis are a chapter unto themselves, as anyone who has ever visited knows.

Technically, there are bays where they are meant to be waiting, and if they aren't, there is a little call station to alert them that someone is waiting.

In practise, this usually means empty taxi cars, drivers that look at you blankly or drive off when they hear where you want to go, or even better, tell you "it's around the corner. walk" when you're carrying two suitcases, a laptop, a handbag and a hat box.

"Wave one off the street" you say? Good luck with that, buddy!

Should you be lucky enough to get one to stop, it is not uncommon for them to listen to your request and wordlessly drive off again (without you) or, which happened to me today, to welcome you inside, then tell you they have no idea where your destination address is.
Do they have a navigation system?
A map perhaps?
- This type of question is answered with a haughty death stare perfected by the average Parisian and reserved for tourists. Esp ones with no / little french.

One totally amazing feature (for a working girl) of Paris is The Metro (subway/ tube). It is extremely efficient, cool and has mobile signal underground.

Not only that, but it stops on bridges with amazing views here, too



Metro stubs - I have taken it nuff times in the past two days. - Yes, also because I can't get a taxi for love or money around here..

What I'm saying is: I have been walking a lot. In my super short womens-size model of the Baby Issa "Ella" dress and my wedge espadrilles, I have had one too many "Marilyn moments" here in Paris. I've genuinely flashed the whole city and my feet are killing me.

In what has become my "sales uniform"
- excuse the amateur posing, was trying to get my whole body in the frame...

On the upside, I have seen parts and streets of Paris that have given me an understanding of this city and its inhabitants that is totally new to me.

All of the above has really driven home to me the importance of understanding the culture of the foreign country you're doing business in (yes, i know there's some wordplay going on there).

Imran Amed's Business of Fashion blog (a daily must-read for anyone interested in the industry) published a fantastic article on it recently http://tinyurl.com/yhbtane.

Must put my aching feet up now.

Just one last image of an enterprise that I hope to welcome to LDN soon:

Velib aka rent-a-bike-wherever-whenever-and-return-whenever-wherever. Total awesomeness. Am considering membership for my remaining two days. My feet would thank me. As would a lot of bored van drivers...

The Girl xx

Power in Numbers / Quality Control

So today and yesterday I have spent a lot of time acting like an accountant.


First, I added up all our orders (some shops haven't given us quantities yet, so I left those out. Some pieces don't have confirmed prices yet, so I left those out, too).

Then I figured out how far away we are from our target of how much sales revenue we need to break even.

- We set the target on my first day of work by adding up all our expected expenses (by this I mean ALL: every piece of fabric, every printer cartridge, every taxi, courier etc. Be as specific as you can when you make your budget. It might be uncomfortable then, but imagine how uncomfortable it will be when you run out of money half way and have to apply for (yet another) loan?! So I strongly suggest a "contingency" amount as well for unexpected expenses, surprises etc)

Then I calculated our average price per piece and figured our how many more pieces we needed to sell to reach our target.

- This helps to decide how many more trade fairs to go on, how many more shops to approach with our collection. It might also mean that you realise your price needs to be higher, or perhaps you realise you had a lot of interest, but nobody was willing to pay the price. In which case you might decide to lower your price. Either way, this helps you map your progress and keeps you on your toes and working towards your goal.

Then I added up how many styles of each dress we had sold to figure out which ones were our bestsellers. I also figured out how many of each style we had sold in which colour/print, to give me an even clearer idea of what was popular and what wasn't.

- This helps, because it will inform our next round of designing (making it less of a guessing game and more directed towards our customers taste). This might also cut back on production costs, as hopefully, a higher percentage of our stock will sell. And also, because we want to know which styles to push at our next sales appointments and which dresses to send to agents as samples for them to show their clients...

Then I got our cost prices (fabric + production) and calculated our wholesale and retail prices.

- You and your partners have to decide what the margin is that you want to make i.e. how much you want to charge on top of the cost of designing, making (and perhaps shipping) your product. That gives you your wholesale price.

From wholesale, you get to retail prices.
In fashion, the average retail mark-up is 2.5 - 3. So you multiply the wholesale price at which you sell your product to the shop and then that gives you the recommended retail price - which I am sure you have seen on stickers: RRP. If not, look out for it next time you shop.

Please excuse me if you knew all of this already and you feel patronized.
Though I passively knew this, calculating it all has been incredibly helpful in really understanding how it works... I even played around a little with our own margins, adding / subtracting decimal points from the multiplier and seeing what the difference is on the retail price and trying to figure out when it got too high - when the psychological threshold is reached...

I also went through the budget for our LA launch party for the 15th time, trying to cut costs left, right and centre. Our PR mavens in New York and LA have done a fabulous job already and of course, we want our launch to be as fun and memorable as possible, so I am trying to be judicious and frugal in my decisions... We are calling in lots of favours, collaborating with sponsors etc.

Luckily, we have already secured the most amazing location: expat Brit and Issa fan Liberty Ross has kindly agreed to host our afternoon mummy and baby tea!

She, her children and their house are so beautiful and charming that it's bound to be a success already!! :)


Gold digger xx




PS: Have just finished reading the highly entertaining and very well researched "The Jimmy Choo Story", which mixes fashion, glamour and business better than any book I have ever read (and I've read a few on the subject). I can not sum it up better than the Observer "a book with a split identity - half fashion magazine, half business manual" - it's no coincidence it was written by a fashion journalist and a luxury goods equity researcher. Lauren Goldstein Crowe and Sagra Maceira de Rosen did a fabulous job at seamlessly interlacing these two usually disparate worlds and I highly recommend it! http://tinyurl.com/382va8e