Building the Boutique

So the opening date I proposed before has come and gone.  I’ve had to delay the opening for two reasons; 1. I’ve had to send quite a bit of things back recently.  Always, always, ALWAYS check each garment, and check your invoices to make sure you weren’t charged for something you did not receive!  And also check your old invoices from the showroom to make sure you’re not going crazy and the showroom really did send you a dress in the wrong color.

The second reason is because I could not find a mannequin.  No mannequin, no photoshoot. No photoshoot, no pictures.  No pictures, no website (or at least no customers!).  But thankfully I managed to track one down and I’ll hopefully get into the studio sometime in the next week or two.  I can’t give a specific launch date this time around, but I’m hoping for early May.

In the mean time I thought I’d answer this question from Letitia:

Hey Kim,

I know you posted about start-up costs, but I was wondering if you could do a post for funding. Just how does a savvy student like yourself manage to find the thousands of dollars you mentioned to get started?
-Letitia

Thanks a bunch Letitia for all your comments, I REALLY appreciate them! So how did I get the money? While I was in school I worked as a celebrity & fashion blogger, and I still do actually. I had one particularly lucrative but unfortunately short lived gig last year; I didn’t spend a dime of the money I earned from it, and that’s what I’m using now to start my business. My parents also said they would make an investment if I needed it.  So far I’ve spent about $7500 on merchandise for the first three months (but also keep in mind that I probably won’t be able to buy much for Summer).

I’m really just lucky to be in such a good position financially that I can get this started at such a young age. I didn’t take out any loans for college, so I have nothing to pay back. I also don’t pay any bills, save a gym membership.

Check out this interview I did with Lauren over at her fab blog, La Petite Fashionista. I’m flattered that she cared enough to want to talk to lil’ old me. Good luck with you fashion internship, Lauren!

Aah, the first post. I usually hate writing these but I think this one will be pretty fun, so here goes. My name is Kim, I’m 22 years old and I’m launching a boutique. You may know me from one of my other blogs; I run Girls Talkin’ Smack which is a fairly popular celebrity blog and I also worked for Oxygen Media (over at Oomph.net) for several months, so blogging is nothing new for me. Running a business however is new, but I’ve always been an entreprenuer at heart.

I’ve honestly been dreaming of owning a boutique for years. Actually I would probably be uber excited doing anything in the fashion industry that doesn’t involve removing censors. I graduated from FIDM earlier this year with a degree in Fashion Merchandise Product Development. When I first applied I thought I wanted to be a fashion designer, and then a switched over to wanting to be boutique owner, and for a while there I thought I would end up working as a sales rep. Well, I still want to do 2/3 of those things. Plus get into styling. Plus continuing writing/blogging. Oh, and did I mention having my own empire? Alright, forget I said that; baby steps.

So why did I decide to create this blog profiling my journey? Mainly to help people, but also just to vent if I ever need to! I know there are a lot of people out there who are interested in what I’m doing and who have question, so hopefully you’ll find your answers here!

The boutique will be online only and it will be called Ooh La Luxe! (oohlaluxe.com). If all goes well it will be open for business around February or March of next year.