My time at KK Bespoke Schoolwear – one year on

In partnership with the Society of Dyers and Colourists (SDC), KK Bespoke Schoolwear – which designs high-spec school uniforms manufactured in-house in Magherafelt, Northern Ireland –launched a competition open to design students and recent graduates in Ireland.

The brief: to create a collection for the bespoke schoolwear market. The aim: to help highlight the lack of young blood entering the profession and, in particular, the discrepancy between university courses and the skill set that the industry requires. The competition’s winner was Toni Doherty, a fashion and textile design graduate from the University of Ulster, who has since been working for KK Bespoke Schoolwear. A year on after winning the competition, Doherty reviews what she’s learnt. 

 

Toni Doherty

 

Overall, I would say the journey in the past 12 months has been an exciting one. I have gained so much insight and experience of the schoolwear industry and how it works, and I have learnt so many things, but if I were to name a few, it would be creativity.

 

Within schoolwear, there are a lot of parameters that govern what the end product can be, but this is where I learnt to improve my creativity and be smart with it. Giving a school an identity and portraying the image it strives for. There have also been so many different briefs, all requiring different fabrics and styles, and each school have their different needs, and taking their concept of fabric and design right through to the end product taught me a lot about the process as a whole, and I have a better understanding of the requirements of each garments that we produce.

 

Another key thing I learnt was to work to strict deadlines and time restraints. At KK Bespoke Schoolwear, we feel that it is important to support the retailer. We will always help them present new product ideas and provide them with inspirational design boards and samples when necessary. As a result, my skills of working to time limits for these things have been sharpened.

 

Although working to deadlines can be quite exciting, there are times when I would prefer to have more time to work on a design. I like to give a lot of consideration to the product’s end use and to think about the needs of the school, and so it can be quite frustrating sometimes when there isn’t enough time to carry out that thought process.

 

I also have a much better appreciation of the work that goes on behind the scenes, from the preparation that goes into getting a sample ready, to preparing an order to go into production. There are so many things to consider, and I appreciate how important it is for all of the different teams with the company to work together.

 

The thing I enjoy the most would be when we first get a design brief. I find that working out the needs of the school, getting a feel for what the desired outcome is, what the school or the retailer hopes to achieve through changing a design or introducing a new product, while still keeping the identity of the school in mind all to be so exciting. After this, a design board is put together with all the criteria and information that is needed, from which I then draw my inspiration.

 

One of the major projects for us this year was the redesign of the school uniform for a very prestigious school, Millfield. One of the products they were looking to introduce was a pair of culottes for the junior girls; the brief was to produce a pairs of shorts that gave the illusion of a skirt. We worked on so many prototypes and I still wasn’t happy with any of them. One morning, however, I had a“eureka” moment. It is projects like this that I enjoy the most, I find it so rewarding to take my sketches, turn them into 3D prototypes, and then see the whole order packed and ready to go out to the customer.

 

There have been many challenges along the way; the obvious would be designing new and exciting schoolwear products. Apart from this, I face new challenges every day because of the nature of my role. I work closely with all departments in the business –the role I play is the main link between sales and production and this requires solving issues and meeting the demands that require the two areas to be able to work together. When I started, I found it a challenge to understand the needs of both departments, but I have a lot more experience now, and can keep the two working in harmony.

 

Over the next 12 months, I am hoping to gain more experience in CAD, which will support both the design and production aspects of the company. The training will be part of KK Bespoke Schoolwear’s three-year strategy, and I feel it will be a huge benefit and will increase my skills further.

 

I am also hoping to work closely with the universities as we launch yet another exciting design competition. The brief will focus on printed fabrics, and I am hoping to get some of the best entries printed onto cloth that could be used in one of our designs. When I was studying, I found that the live projects were the most exciting way to learn, and I hope that this project will be able to encourage students to take their careers further within the textile industry, too.

Boys vs girls - Let the battle commence...

It’s a well-known fact that girls have more variety and colour to choose from when it comes to their clothing.

 

 

As a mother of a very energetic little boy, I have always found it difficult to find bright, colourful clothing for my son. I feel that boys clothing is overlooked, and I know I am not the only one who feels this way.

It's the same in every store I visit. The boys’ section is smaller than the girls’, and doesn’t have much variety, whereas the girls’ section has ample clothing to choose from with an abundance of colour.

According to the Keynote Childrenswear 2011 report, “the boys range still remains more ‘basic’ compared to girls’ clothing” and “this gives parents a limited number of options when shopping for their sons.” It is the main reason I created Mini Men UK. I wanted a collection that focused on bright colours and variety as well as getting away from the uniform design of skull and bones, being a rebel or a naughty monster!

Boys’ clothing has such negative connotations from a very young age and it seems to be a recurring theme, whereas girls’ clothing encourages girls to be little princesses and to be beautiful. Girls have a vast variety of clothing to choose from, and it is no wonder that designers have used great colours and fabrics to express positive artwork on girls’ clothing. What I have never understood is, why is it not the same for boys’ clothing? Boys should also be encouraged to be little princes and to be playful or happy! There should be plenty of variety for boys with colours and different types of clothing.

It’s time to break the mould and go against the grain of negative, dull clothing for boys, and inject some colour and positivity into their clothing. After all, children need to be nurtured from a young age and, as parents know, they are like sponges when they are small. They copy everything they see. So why not show them something colourful, playful and positive?

Team up a bright green T-shirt with bright red trousers and a darker green cardigan or try a yellow long-sleeve top with a great pair of dark blue jeans! There are so many ways to inject colour into your little man’s wardrobe and, just because it is winter, does not mean he has to wear dark and gloomy clothing!

I think colourful clothing that is positive and encourages boys to be confident is the new trend. Teach your children to think BIG!

Kelechi Ijomanta, CEO & Founder, Mini Men UK Ltd, T: 07951476019, E: kmantas@hotmail.co.uk

www.twitter.com/minimenukltd

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www.boystrends.blogspot.com

Pitti in Pictures

Visual delights from CWB’s trip to the a/w 13 edition of children’s fashion fair Pitti Bimbo in Florence.

Angel's Face

 

Be Funky

 

IlGufo

 

John Galliano Kids

 

La Bottega di Giorgia by Giorgia Totaro won the third edition of Who is on next? Bimbo at Pitti Immagine Bimbo, a competition dedicated to discovering new talents in children’s fashion sponsored and organized by Pitti Immagine in cooperation with Vogue Bambini and Altaroma.

 

Macarons

 

Mimisol

 

Mimisol

 

Missoni

 

Moschino

 

Paul Frank

 

Paul Frank

 

Pitti Bimbo

 

Quis Quis Catwalk

 

Smiley World

 

Tiphaine Verdier Mangan

 

Photographs: Sharon Le Goff – sharon@ras-publishing.com

Perfecting the art of online

PLAYING IT SAFE ONLINE - The growth of internet shopping, particularly in the run-up to Christmas, is not a new phenomenon, but evidence is growing that more and more consumers are researching websites before they go out to shop.

Such trends affect all in the childrenswear industry. Retailers need to ensure their websites will attract customers to their stores (as well as to buy online), manufacturers/suppliers must persuade customers to look for their brands and stockists, and agents should be helping both their principals and their customers by directing consumers to the brands they carry.

I have written before in CWB magazine about checking that your website is “legal, decent, honest and truthful”, as websites come under the responsibility of the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA).

The Office for Fair Trading (OFT) also has a role and recently it warned that some large retailers (not specifically of childrenswear) that their websites were not sufficiently transparent, particularly when it came to postage and packing or charges for using credit cards, which only “popped up” at the end of a transaction.

Do not forget, too, that the people most likely to be checking your website for errors are your competitors. The ASA (and OFT) may not have the resources to check, but it will look into complaints received, including sales offers that are no longer current.

THE IMPORTANCE OF SEO - For smaller companies, setting up a website may seem the obvious answer to flagging sales, but how do you ensure your website is not on the 200th page of Google?

Larger companies may pay to move their website to the top of the page (you can tell by the shading), but what is the alternative?

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) – getting your website to the top of the page – is an area that NCWA has recently been investigating.

Plans are underway for a seminar for members in the New Year and the chance of a discount on the services of a company to push your website up the pages.

This may be “regionally”, to encourage people to visit your shop, or “nationally”, to drive people to your website.

So, how about a New Year resolution to review your website and look at what SEO can offer you as an NCWA member?

Incidentally, if you search for NCWA, it appears at the top of the page, so do not forget to update your free page on the NCWA website.

 

If you are not a member and you would like to join, take a look at www.ncwa.co.uk, e-mail enquiries@ncwa.co.uk or call 020 7843 9488. You can also visit us on our stand at Bubble London, taking place on January 27-28, 2012, at the Business Design Centre, Islington.

Diary of a new childrenswear retailer…five months and counting

Looking back on the launch of IndiaCoco only five months ago, it’s hard to imagine how we got everything done.  There’s so much about launching a new brand that no-one tells you – the days you’ll spend worrying about the details of packaging, photography, design, social media and PR, and that’s not even touching on the technical elements around back end systems, reporting, business plans and legal stuff.   

And that’s just the details – the big decisions need to be made much earlier on. Our brand began with a list of all the things we wanted IndiaCoco to be. Some of them were nice-to-haves (many of which we did anyway), whilst others were the pillars of the business – the values we live and breathe every day.  Our vision for IndiaCoco was to offer parents a world of original, high quality and great value children's clothes from the very best British brands, underpinned by exceptional and uncompromising customer service.

But of course it’s easy to put the words on the page – delivering our values every day is the hard bit. It requires us to be bold and purposeful; to ask ourselves all the time how we can do things better, and being open to change.  It also means taking on every challenge with passion, energy and fun, and getting as close as we can to our customers – social media has been a huge part of our communications strategy from day one, and it’s a great way not only to speak to our customers, but also to listen and learn.

So what have we learned over the past five months?  Lots!  Here’s a few of the biggest lessons.

From little acorns…when we launched the website we expected to be flooded with orders – how naïve! Of course friends and family placed orders, but we quickly realised that a huge PR and marketing job lay ahead of us.

Love your suppliers…We really value how we work with our suppliers - they all took a risk on us when we approached them in January 2012.  This is not just our story – it’s the story of the belief and commitment of every one of our ten talented and inspiring product brands too.

Be driven…For us every order is a new success, and we’ve now dispatched goods to the US, Europe and Australia. It’s all about working hard, then working harder – you need to commit to long hours, late nights and a strong work ethic.

Know your customer...we spent a lot of time working out who the IndiaCoco customer was, and what they really wanted. It’s a process that never stops - customer feedback is a gift and we use it every day to really try and do things better.

Stay focused…it’s easier said than done - in the first few months you can easily be drawn in a million different directions! New ideas are all well and good, but you need to spend some time securing the foundations.  Fresh innovations and new technology are all ahead of us, but we want to get our first few seasons under our belt first!

Don’t forget to breathe…running and growing a business is now an exciting part of our lives, but we always try to remember that the inspiration behind our brand is our daughters, Coco (4) and India (15 months). Working for ourselves means we can plan our hours around the school run and never miss a school event; sometimes it means our work day ends at midnight, but it’s always worth it!   

So – five months in, and our adventure is only just beginning.  We appreciate the support of all our customers and suppliers, and looking forward to sharing the next chapter with you…

By Claire Harper founder of new childrenswear retail brand IndiaCoco

Building a brand in tough times

Launching our childrenswear brand, Lilly + Sid in February 2009 might not have seemed great timing to most. Headlines reported of ‘Bankrupt Britain’ , cotton and energy prices were soaring and the exchange rate was moving rapidly.

Fast forward 3 years and our brand is the best selling UK babywear brand to UK independents * with a fast growing list of off-shore stockists. It hasn’t been easy , but it has been an incredible journey which we feel we are only just beginning. As we continue to build our brand in the tough economic climate, we continue to live by our team principles.

 1)      Save where you can, spend where you can’t

There is an endless stream of avenues within which to spend your capital and you don’t need to go down all of them at once

2)      Dare to be different

Customers need an enhanced ‘reason to buy’ when times are tight.  To us, there is no such thing as a’ best seller repeat’. We encourage our team to ask the ‘why not’ rather than the ‘why”- ‘why would a baby boy wear knitted leggings?’ – “why not?”! Dont copy, invent!

 3)  Stick with what you know

As parents of 3, we knew there was opportunity for a brand ‘to bridge the gap between traditional and contemporary’ so we started the business with the help of factories and friends we have worked with in the industry over the past 15 years. As our babies have grown, we found wanting for a trend led range of everyday wear at good price points . Not an extension of our baby range, we knew our own children wanted their own look and so L+S Brother and Sister was born!

4) Listen

There is a wealth of knowledge out there which we build upon each day. From our stockists customers and sales agents giving us feedback, ideas and suggestions from the front line to successful entrepreneurs who have become our mentors. Feedback is free and also the most vital aid in building our brand.

5) Love it

Ok, not all day everyday, but most of the time most days. If we don’t love a product, process or price then we change it – FAST. As a start-up business we knew our key strength over the established competition was our ability to make change happen. As our business grows and becomes a little less small, we try and remain as fast paced and excited as we were on day 1, February 2009.

Here’s to the next 3 years!

Imran Hassan, co-founder of Lilly + Sid

 *as reported in CWB magazine industry measure 2012.

When is a sale not a sale?

As a retail brand, great value for money is always a priority, and that includes thinking about how we manage promotions and sales.  When I started out in retail, sales happened two or three times a year – a summer sale in July/August, a winter sale immediately after Christmas, and maybe a short spring sale over Easter to make room for all the lovely summer stock coming in.  They were genuine events, to be anticipated by both retailers and customers alike.

Now, of course, things have changed – the retail landscape is more competitive, particularly in fashion and clothing, which means everyone is trying to out-bargain everyone else.  For the customer, it can seem like some brands are almost permanently on sale, which begs the question of whether you’re really getting a bargain or whether this is all just clever and manipulative marketing.  And of course there’s always the possibility that the beautiful dress you want will be cheaper next week – guaranteed to make your teeth grind! 

For the retailer, appearing to be permanently on sale does nothing to support your brand, other than make you appear (at best) disorganised or (at worst) desperate.

We’ve only been trading for a couple of months, and we’ve just launched our first summer sale.  Like us it’s only small, but whilst we’ve been planning it we thought we’d share our dos and don’ts of having a sale.

DOS AND DON’TS

1.      DO make sure you have a clear plan that allows you to run a worthwhile (and       genuine) summer and winter sale for a limited window only

2.      DO be consistent with your messaging and make sure your headlines and imagery support your brand values – sale messages can often feel cheap and disruptive, but it doesn’t have to be that way

3.      DO offer customers good value seasonal offers but always provide excellent customer service all year round

4.      DO offer targeted sales - the weather is often to blame for excess stock and for many retailers this wet summer will have been a disaster!  By offering great bargains on summer shorts and swimwear, for example, our customers can take advantage of some great last minute holiday offers (or keep their fingers cross for a scorching July/August)

5.      DO hold your nerve and think about your sale event carefully, plan and execute well – panic promotions are often the first step to compromising your brand

6.      DO think about running different types of sale events to stand out from the crowd – secret VIP sales, competitions, 3 for 2, free P&P offers for example. Think differently and be creative - don't just follow the pack.  Be a leader and stand out!

7.      DO come out of sale at the time you planned, and make sure you have plenty of new and exciting new ranges to talk about

8.      DON’T always have items on sale – it may be tough out there, but your brand will quickly look distressed and it could also look like your brand is in trouble

9.      DON’T get sucked into a sale culture – it’s like a drug for many retailers and you have to know when to start and when to stop!

10.  DON’T forget your headlines – so many brands let themselves down with brash, shouty headlines – e.g. 50% off with another 15% off on top!

11.  DON’T just think short term and be reactive - think about your long term strategy, and building relationships with your customers

12.  DON’T drag your sale out longer than planned, it will not only lose momentum, but you also risk alienating customers by not being honest about when it’s due to finish.  A final week should be a final week!

By Claire Harper founder of new childrenswear retail brand IndiaCoco

ABOUT INDIACOCO

IndiaCoco is an exciting new children’s wear retailer selling the best in original, high-quality and great-value children’s clothes. Hand-picking the very best of British brands IndiaCoco aims to make the shopping experience truly inspiring with uncompromising ‘back to basics’ customer service.

IndiaCoco is the brainchild of seasoned Marketing Director, Claire Harper and Finance Director, Lee Williams. Claire has worked with leading UK retailers such as Sainsbury’s and Ocado and  her latest role, at award winning nursery and fashion retailer Mamas & Papas.

Targeting parents looking to discover innovative brands in one destination shop, IndiaCoco’s retail concept has already secured partnerships with some of Britain’s finest and most sought after independent brands.  These include ‘Brit Cool’ style ‘No Added Sugar’, celebrity favourite ‘Ilovegorgeous’, luxury hand-crafted, fairly traded children’s fashion brand Aravore, traditional and quirky British newcomer Marmalade & Mash and Frugi, which has one of the largest collections of organic children’s clothing in the UK.

With ambitious plans for growth, IndiaCoco will have a web and offline presence, offering consumers a multi channel experience.  Initially launching online, the first IndiaCoco store will open during 2013 and roll out across the UK in community based locations.

IndiaCoco will stock everyday to occasion wear for babies, boys and girls from zero to eight.

Find IndiaCoco at www.indiacoco.com .