Snowflakes from our 2011 Winter Collection & Autumn Bouquet from our 2011 Autumn Collection
As I sit here wishing you all a very happy new year and hoping that you all had a fantastic Christmas, I also find myself thinking "Where did 2010 go?" and then thinking "What exactly did we achieve in 2010?" and then I find I have more material than is seemly for a single post!
So here in brief installments (I fear they won't be!) is a run down of our year in words and pictures.
January 2010
I remember sitting down in January with my brand new diary and my business plan for 2010 and writing in a list of important dates and tasks and thinking "oh dear lord what have I let myself in for?" You see all the imminent tasks seemed to relate to our exhibiting at the National Wedding Show at Olympia in February and we had furniture to assemble and paint, I had props to buy, fabric to source, artwork to finalise and sign off, printing to arrive, design ideas to prepare for the catwalk, materials to order and last but not least I had to make up a shed load of designs to actually exhibit! And of course as well as dealing with the usual start of year rush, we also had the excitement (and sisterly worries) of the imminent arrival of my sister's 2nd baby.
Most days seemed to be split into stand planning, making up pieces, getting annoyed with people and finding myself slipping from my relatively laid back self into my previous life as the phrase "I don't care how you do it, how late you have to work, I want it tomorrow" started being used more and more (there were even times I was shouting it at myself....in my head of course!). My appointment room became the stand, we were tripping up over boxes of printing, stock, completed pieces, props, tins of paint, I was outside spray painting at -2 degrees and my friend came round to make the flowers for the stand decoration. Then of course Tiararama Towers turned into full Auntie mode on January 29th as my gorgeous niece Sophie had been born the day before and there was much present buying to be done!
January was a month of long hours, constant planning and creativity. It was hard work but great fun (yes I am lucky to love my job enough to get a kick out of working hard!)
Alice - one of the designs we took to the National Wedding Show
February 2010
The show was the biggest exhibition we had ever done and it was incredibly hard work but we got so many new clients and met so many brides who were marrying later in 2011/2012 as well as industry contacts that it can only be described as a success for us. And to cap it all we had the pleasure of seeing some of our work on the catwalk supporting the whole Sottero Midgeley scene - I can't begin to tell you how emotional it is (no matter how many times your work is used on catwalks/on the television) when you see your work displayed in such a way. It is such a fab feeling and it was such an honour. Here are some images for your delectation and delight.
Two versions of First Shoots from our 2011 Spring Collection and Hydrangeas from our 2011 Summer Collection
Two versions of Autumn from our 2011 Autumn Collection and Snow Storm from our 2011 Winter Collection
Following our success at the National Wedding Show we had alot of enquiries and alot of those turned into fabulous clients. We were designing, preparing mood boards for appointments and we also began our usual busy creating period which runs from March to August each year (although autumn and winter weddings are becoming more popular, summer weddings are still way ahead of them!). This was so much busier due to the extra work from the National Wedding Show but we began to work on some incredible designs.
When you design exclusively for your clients the kind of styles you end up designing is eclectic to say the least. But 2010 seemed more varied than usual. We were designing everything from large encrusted crowns, beautiful pearl headbands and wonderfully light wire work tiaras and comb.
2010 was also the year of asymmetry - from asymmetric tiaras to combs and large statement hairpins. In particular floral designs were incredibly popular this year and we created pieces in silk fabrics, hand beaded fabrics (which we hand beaded ourselves) and beaded/encrusted pieces.
So here in brief installments (I fear they won't be!) is a run down of our year in words and pictures.
January 2010
I remember sitting down in January with my brand new diary and my business plan for 2010 and writing in a list of important dates and tasks and thinking "oh dear lord what have I let myself in for?" You see all the imminent tasks seemed to relate to our exhibiting at the National Wedding Show at Olympia in February and we had furniture to assemble and paint, I had props to buy, fabric to source, artwork to finalise and sign off, printing to arrive, design ideas to prepare for the catwalk, materials to order and last but not least I had to make up a shed load of designs to actually exhibit! And of course as well as dealing with the usual start of year rush, we also had the excitement (and sisterly worries) of the imminent arrival of my sister's 2nd baby.
Most days seemed to be split into stand planning, making up pieces, getting annoyed with people and finding myself slipping from my relatively laid back self into my previous life as the phrase "I don't care how you do it, how late you have to work, I want it tomorrow" started being used more and more (there were even times I was shouting it at myself....in my head of course!). My appointment room became the stand, we were tripping up over boxes of printing, stock, completed pieces, props, tins of paint, I was outside spray painting at -2 degrees and my friend came round to make the flowers for the stand decoration. Then of course Tiararama Towers turned into full Auntie mode on January 29th as my gorgeous niece Sophie had been born the day before and there was much present buying to be done!
January was a month of long hours, constant planning and creativity. It was hard work but great fun (yes I am lucky to love my job enough to get a kick out of working hard!)
Alice - one of the designs we took to the National Wedding Show
February 2010
If January was busy, February was hectic! There were alot of people who seemed determined to throw spanners into the smooth running wheels of our exhibition preparation but as quickly as they were being thrown, I was sorting the issues out (mainly by shouting and threatening to speak to managers!). We were busy making up pieces to exhibit and as we had not heard by the week before the show started that any of our pieces were needed for the catwalk we made one very big assumption - an understandable assumption of course and that was that none of our pieces were needed and a sense of calm order fell upon Tiararama Towers. All was going swimmingly and we were to have finished our preparation with plenty of time to spare. There weren't going to be any all night creating sessions, there wasn't going to be any running around like headless chickens and we were quite pleased with ourselves.
Of course how stupid were we to make that assumption? Yes it was the week before the exhibition but that doesn't mean that we weren't going to get an email late on a Monday evening to say "We would like 8 of your designs to be with us next Tuesday". 8 designs meant one thing and one thing only - alot of work! Most of my pieces take days to make so 8 in 8 days was a big call but we weren't going to let that put us off. So whilst we were acting like a swan - graceful on top and paddling manically underneath - we said there would be no problem to get those pieces to them. And of course it wasn't just these 8 pieces we needed to finish! It was all the other pieces that would have been completed in plenty of time for the exhibition as well. In fact we had 14 pieces to finish in 8 days. We didn't sleep much, Kevin had to take over alot of the stand tasks I had planned to do and between us when February 19th arrived, we had a fully laden stand erected at Olympia with 8 pieces on the catwalk.
Two versions of First Shoots from our 2011 Spring Collection and Hydrangeas from our 2011 Summer Collection
Two versions of Autumn from our 2011 Autumn Collection and Snow Storm from our 2011 Winter Collection
March 2011
If February was hectic, March was manic!
Following our success at the National Wedding Show we had alot of enquiries and alot of those turned into fabulous clients. We were designing, preparing mood boards for appointments and we also began our usual busy creating period which runs from March to August each year (although autumn and winter weddings are becoming more popular, summer weddings are still way ahead of them!). This was so much busier due to the extra work from the National Wedding Show but we began to work on some incredible designs.
When you design exclusively for your clients the kind of styles you end up designing is eclectic to say the least. But 2010 seemed more varied than usual. We were designing everything from large encrusted crowns, beautiful pearl headbands and wonderfully light wire work tiaras and comb.
2010 was also the year of asymmetry - from asymmetric tiaras to combs and large statement hairpins. In particular floral designs were incredibly popular this year and we created pieces in silk fabrics, hand beaded fabrics (which we hand beaded ourselves) and beaded/encrusted pieces.
Just some of the pieces we created for our clients
April 2010
April was again busy with designing and creating but it was in this month that a few business truths began to rear their ugly head and thankfully a solution miraculously appeared!
In order to run a successful business you can't just rely on having a great product. There is so much that goes on behind the scenes and when you run your own business you often have to become a jack of all trades and very much a master of none. I know I am a qualified accountant and I know I used to work in finance and I know I studied marketing and I know I used to advise small businesses but honestly when you have to apply it to your own business you find yourself becoming really frustrated because you know there aren't enough hours in the day to do everything properly. It is so hard to keep juggling everything but it is a piece of cake compared to a control freak like me admitting that you need help. And I will never admit that but I'm not daft and when you receive a very unexpected email offering help, occasionally you stop and read it.
And this was the case when I received an email from a PR company who rather than giving you all the usual bland (and frankly boring) sales pitch actually sold themselves to me. You see this company wasn't just approaching me because they were targeting anonymous businesses, they contacted me because unbeknownst to me, they actually knew something about me. How could this be? Well remember what I did in February? Whilst at the show my new PR representative had gained first hand experience of us as her sister had visited our stand and was so impressed with us and our products, she decided to see if she could represent us. And after alot of consideration we decided that we should at least have a chat! Even this was a big step for me and thankfully now we have someone else involved in the hard work of getting the good news from Tiararama Towers known in the world!
And it was also at this time that I finalised the key pieces for our 2011 Summer Collection and here are a few images for you.
Hydrangea, Hortensia, Hortense and Hydrangeas from our 2011 Summer Collection
If you are still reading this, may I offer you my congratulations! And I hope that you will be back to read part deux and 3 which will be posted over the next few days.
So until next time.....
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