London etc.

Well after our exciting kitten drama, we pendalino'd ourselves to that there fancy London for a whirlwind of a day in the capital.

First stop Oxford Circus, quick stroll through the fabulous Liberty (Pretty Woman fantasies of spending sprees ensue) then brunch in a little café off Carnaby St. Carnaby Street has gone through a complete transformation in the last few years. When I was living in London it had lost its identity and heritage and just become a strange mix of Gothic shops and tourist tatt, now its a shopping area in its own right with quirky independent shops and quaint pubs and cafés - well worth a visit!

Then we headed off to Oxford Street to check out some of the flagship stores, we were particularly paying attention to how the big stores accommodate small brands so it was more research than shopping ....oh for more time....

So armed with a bit more knowledge we headed off to west London for our meeting with a top high street store. Scarey stuff, the offices had just been renovated with 'hot desk' meeting rooms so we didn't get a good nosey unfortunately but it was interesting to see a the set up - a lot of people work here!

The meeting was short and sweet, a simple chat and presentation of our clothes, talk about plans for the stores and of course prices. We left optimistic but thinking it would be a matter of weeks before we heard anything.

The next day we got a phone call! Loved our designs want them in store for December!

As a small brand it's a great opportunity to get ourselves out there, but its a lot of hard work. We've never done so many prints in such a small time and it just throws us into a whirlwind of logistics. The last few days have been spent with calculator in hand trying to work out how long each process takes, and how viable it is to create these garments!

Then we received the manual, that is all the rules and regulations we need to adhere to in order to supply to a big store. There are so many things to consider, each garment needs to be folded and wrapped in branded polybags, with barcodes, and boxed in specific sized boxes. A delivery needs to be timed and arranged with hourly time slots, delivery driver wearing high-vis jacket and bearing a signed delivery slip.

Well our heads were spinning, lots of phone calls and emails ensued and we managed to get things in place (all at an extra cost to us of course). But all these things add time - looks like we'll have to spend a whole day packing and wrapping!

So then we hit a problem - cashflow! Big businesses have a different pay structure and that means we have to produce it all before getting paid. Without time to arrange credit accounts with our suppliers I had a very scarey day when I had to spend a lot of money we don't have - eek!

So one week on we're in the thick of printing and working out yet more logistics as we go.... We've spent £350 on a CAD cutter that doesn't work so looks like we're cutting out hundreds of transfers by hand - the machine that will do what we want is over £1000 so we can't afford that just yet!

Even little things can make a difference when you're under such a time pressure, not running out of printer ink, making sure you've got enough swingers and safety pins. All of which add time and money on to the order.

If all goes to plan the garments will be in store before Christmas, as part of a tee shirt shop stocking other great small brands like Illustrated People and Big Fluff. There's going to be lots of publicity and promotion and if it goes well the possibility of re-orders, which is just as well because by the time we've paid all the hidden costs we'll probably just about have enough money left over to buy that CAD cutter that will save my poor hands from blisters! (at least we'll have it for future orders...)

I'm so looking forward to seeing it all in store it will be a real statement of achievement - I've built a small label up from absolutely nothing and soon more people will know about Me&Yu!