"Wonderful Women" Meeting and Goal Setting

Last Sunday I venture up to London to a “Wonderful Women” meeting at Eat, Shop, Do in the Kings Cross area.  I was very excited about this as I really miss working in London and I have wanted to go to a Wonderful Women meeting for a couple of months now, but never quite got there for one reason or another.

Wonderful Women is an all women, business support group set up by the lovely Ree Ree Rockette of Rockalily Makeup.  Ree Ree set up the group to help other like minded women that run their own businesses.  Often when one sets up a business it can be quite isolating.  People often tend to work alone at their home at first to help cut costs, so the group is as much about socialising as helping each other out in business endeavours.  Each member of Wonderful Women has a different specialist area, for example I met Sam of Wonderland Wig’s, Helen of New Empress Magazine, Rosie, who makes wedding dresses and costumes and Tigz Rice who photographs Burlesque performers – to name but a few!  Each member having different skills, I feel really adds to the group as we can all give each other advice that maybe we ourselves might not have thought of – plus I now have a friend who can be my photographer and another that can sew up samples for me if needs be!

The meeting was in a gorgeous location, and I was very excited to be there.  Eat, Shop, Do is in the Kings Cross area of London and you really can eat, shop and do things there.  As you go in there are a selection of vintage tea cups, tea pots and all sorts that you can buy.  There is also an old fashioned type sweetie shop which I was very tempted by but managed to avoid.  It then steps up into the cafe area where you can ‘do’ things; I think they do all sorts of crafty courses and there were lots of paper aeroplanes hanging up so maybe they had a course in that?!?!  The cafe sold lots of yummy cakes and cocktails as well as the usual tea and coffee.  I thought I had better start with a cup of tea as I hadn’t yet had lunch but later moved onto a ‘Ruby Shoes’ cocktail that was SOOOO yummy but totally went to my head.

So the meeting commenced and I met lots of lovely people as I have previously touched upon.  We all introduced ourselves,  I was one of three new members, and then began setting ourselves 5 year, 3 year, 1 year and 6 month goals.  Now I hadn’t really thought about this before!  I have just been focusing on my launch this September at the Goodwood Revival, so it was nice to actually think – what do I want for Betty Blue’s in the future?!  So here they are, the long term and slightly shorter term goals that I hope to achieve:

5 Year: Be in a financial position to try and crack the US market, having my own retail stall at the Viva Las Vagas Event.

3 Year:  Be in a position that I am breaking even on a financial level and may be able to treat myself to a pair of Christian Louboutins!!  Be comfortably established in the UK scene and start to spread internationally in Europe and hopefully further.

1 Year:  Have established myself in the UK Vintage/Retro Scene, where I am starting to be recognised as a brand to go to for all lounge wear needs.  Start to wholesale my garments in prestigious UK stores.

6 Month: Have my launch in September where I can hopefully explode onto the Uk Vintage/Retro scene, and create repeat custom by continuing to bring out new products regularly.

All the goals were done through a Live Twitter Feed for the Wonderful Women group........this is where I got lost and resorted to good old fashioned pen and paper!  So my other short term goal is to learn how to use Twitter!!  Something which Ree Ree has agreed to show me as she is somewhat of an expert in Twitter J

So there you have it, my new goals!  I hope you are there to follow me in my goals and I hope to meet them, I certainly have the oomph to follow them through.  If you want more information on Ree Ree Rockette, Rockalily Make up and Wonderful Women, why not take a look at Ree Ree’s blog - http://www.rockalily.com/blog/

I hope to bring you more exciting news about Betty Blue’s first outfit very soon........

Betty xxx

My First EVER Blog Post :)

Hello all in the blogworld.  I have finally taken the plunge and decided to start my own blog.  I have always been rather resistant to these kinds of things as I am a little bit of a technophobe, and I don’t really get why anyone would want to know about little old me - I lead a very boring life!!  BUT as I am now entering a new and hopefully less boring phase of my life, I have decided to give it a whirl.

So you may be wondering what this “new phase” is.  Well I have rather bravely, if not foolishly, decided to set up my own clothing business.  It is called Betty Blue’s and concentrates on what I love most in fashion; Vintage styled/Retro/Repro type clothing.  Yeah yeah I know already been done right?  There are heaps of brilliant companies out there creating vintage inspired and reproduction clothing, and I am an eager customer of them.  The last thing I would want is to over saturate a market that has already been captured, and quite frankly I don’t have the energy to compete!  So what else is left in the retro/vintage area that hasn’t been captured?

Well I could have gone down another route which is also a HUGE passion of mine, and just so happens to be what I have a degree in, which is lingerie design.  But again there are soooo many great companies who do that already – some of which I have worked for and are good friends of mine (check out Kiss Me Deadly, my personal favourite).  So again I wouldn’t want to compete in that market as I don’t want to annoy anyone, and it has already been done.

There can’t be any other avenues to go down right?  WRONG!  I believe the loungewear market has been massively overlooked.  When one thinks of loungewear one might think of sweat pants and hoodies.  These are personal favourites of mine..........embarrassingly am wearing both right now....it’s cold!!!  But for a “Vintage Girl” (I use this term lightly) it’s not the most glamorous of looks.

As looking like a 1930’s/1940’s woman has seen a surge in popularity (and other eras of Vintage clothing) this has seen a price hike on Vintage clothing.  Therefore if I’m paying ££££ for a gorgeous Ceil Chapman or Horrockses dress, I don’t want to ruin it wearing it around the house when I’m cooking, cleaning or lounging on the sofa - which I do so like to do on a horrid winters day!  Vintage clothing can also be quite fragile and I have 5 dogs so cotton dresses are not always practical!

My lovely logo - as designed by the equally lovely Jack, thanks Jack !!!

And so Betty Blue’s was born www.bettybluesloungerie.com yes you did read that correctly!  Loungerie!  It’s the new “fashiony” word for loungewear that is sort of loosely lingerieish like negligee’s or soft bras, that sort of thing (I learnt this whilst working at an ever so swish lingerie boutique in London). More will come about what type of loungewear items I will be producing. Feel free to take a look at the website, although there isn’t anything much there at the moment.  Betty Blue’s grand opening won’t be until September where I have a stall at the Goodwood Revival event in the Market Area.  I am frantically trying to finish of patterns and samples so that I can have garments manufactured – otherwise there won’t be anything to sell haha.  But I’m a glass half full girl, so everything will get done in time.

So until September, I am going to have a stab at this blog malarkey and try and reach as many people I can, passing on things I find interesting and any little insights into what is going on at Betty HQ (mainly a lot of tea drinking and swearing at my sewing machine and computer!!!).  It may also be interesting for anyone who might be thinking of starting up their own business – I have certainly learnt from other people’s mistakes in their businesses.

So until next time.   

Toodle pip

Betty xxxx