Penguin Power

This week, amongst the shop fitting and the sales, I have mostly been drawing penguins.

Our autumn winter 09 / 10 collection is called "A Day at the Zoo" and we've gone a bit animal crackers. We're planning to create lots of hand printed fabrics this season to make into dresses, skirts, jumpsuits and whatever else takes my fancy. Here's some of my friendly folk.....



















We're a bit late (as usual). The trouble with having a small label and also having a shop is that you can never quite get ahead of yourself. We should really be working on Spring Summer 2010 range but instead we're still designing the autumn winter range that we've got to have in the shop in about ......oooh....3 weeks! - yes i know! eek!

It's a self-perpetuating cycle that is hard to break...we were late with last season so will be late with next. From now to January is the busiest time in retail so I'll be frantic sewing from now till Christmas. We won't get chance to think about Spring Summer till the end of January and the high street stores will bring in summer stock in February (I always think this is ludicrous but that's another rant....)

It's not too bad when we're doing stuff just for our shop but we want to gain more stockists worldwide and without having look books and product lists well in advance it's hard to break the cycle! But that all said we keep pushing forward and working frantically and hopefully it will all come together.

Even though its manically busy, this is my favourite time - when all the designs come alive and you create little masterpieces. This is where the magic happens and gorgeous clothes are born!