Action Stations

This week concludes my first real week as a bona-fide fashion designer (seeing as I don’t have another job now and all). This week was incredibly busy, and as I outlined at the end of last week it’s just going to be crazy from now until about November.

So what went down in Bento Town?

This week:

• Met with both my manufacturers to discuss sampling timelines and see how they’re progressing. Everyone seems to be on time, so that’s good.
• Discovered that one of my fabrics (the one for the dress) won’t be finished for another 6 days or so. This means that I’ll only be able to photograph it in black and not the navy or grey. Not ideal, but I don’t think it’s too big a problem. I should still be able to have those two colours ready for Fashion Exposed.
• Found out that one of my patternmakers hadn’t really been all that clear about all the ‘bits and pieces’ required to put together samples, so I was unprepared for delivering the right things to one of my manufacturers. Again, more of a pain in the butt than a big problem, but it probably didn’t help my relationship with that manufacturer. Also, I was jetlagged out of my brain and could have done without the stress and the running around!
• Completed sourcing all the accessories for the photoshoot (happening in just over two weeks), with the exception of the shoes.
• Picked up the buttons that have been custom-dyed to go with all my blouse colours. They looked so lovely!
• Got the fit-out stuff for my suite at Fashion Exposed. Almost all done on that front, too. Still need some wheels (will explain that in another post). Hopefully they’ll come in before the show.
• Finalised the models and hair/makeup for the shoot, as you will have already seen – very excited about this one!
• Started the styling for the accessories for the shoot. Pretty happy with how these are coming along. If you didn’t catch the pictures during the week, you should join me on Twitter! (www.twitter.com/fashionrecruit).

Next week:

• Finalising the shoes for the shoot (don’t worry, you’ll get all the details when they’re sorted).
• Starting the PR legwork – preparing lists and doing drafts of media releases. Unfortunately, I don’t really have the budget to hire a PR person/agency so I’m going to have to be doing this myself. I’m a big believer in knowing your limitations and focusing on what you do best. I don’t consider myself to be a PR whiz so I’d really have liked to hire someone for this, but tough times call for tough measures, so I’m going to be relying on my friends that work in the industry and doing everything I can on my own. Not ideal, really but yeah. If any talented PR folks read this and want to do some contra work or something, I won’t mind you getting in touch
• Maybe, hopefully I’ll get to see my finished samples in the other colours. This will mean I can finish styling each of the looks, photograph them and send them to the photographer, modelling agency and hair/makeup artist.
• Finalise new business card designs and get them printed. I’m really excited about these, what I’ve seen so far looks just amazing!
• Preparing a contact list for dream stockists. I’m expecting I won’t catch many (any?) of them at Fashion Exposed, so I need to know who I’m going to target. This sounds quick, but I know from experience it’s a really time-consuming job.
• Probably a whole heap more stuff I haven’t got my head around yet… one of the items on my to-do list for Monday is to update the project plan

Early to bed tonight, methinks! Right after tapas, a glass of red and exposure to the open fire at our local…