Building the Boutique

This trip to market was much better than my last trip, for reasons I can’t even completely explain. Probably because the last one ended on a not-so-great note with me being unable to find a certain vendor (which was all my fault it turns out!). I think being well fed beforehand helped — we hit up the downtown California Pizza Kitchen before visiting the showrooms and I had the yummiest mahi mahi tacos. Mmmm! And you know it’s got to be good if I’m blogging about it despite food being completely unrelated to this blog.

The Cooper Building

Havaianas
Man, I thought the New Mart was the place to be? Almost all of the lines I wanted to peak at were located in the Cooper Building this time around. The first being Havaianas — you know, those really cute flip flops with all the cute patterns. I fell in love with these a couple of years ago when a boutique started sending me swag for blogging about them. My motivation for carrying the line is mainly my shop in the salon; it’s something everyone can afford, and something everyone NEEDS in Bakersfield weather!

Now, these are pieces I probably could’ve ordered off the linesheet at home, but I wanted to see them in person because most of the colorways are teeny, tiny thumbnails. I’m talking about 1″ in size, maybe smaller. So you can imagine my dissapointment when the reps only had three of the patterned style samples — those are the ones I wanted to see the most. I was also surprised to learn that you get charged an extra $10 if you don’t order 18 pieces. It’s not THAT bad but I really wish the reps would tell us things like this ahead of time.

I ended up writing 14 pieces total, in four styles, including these cute brown and gold ones with a bird pattern (these are carry overs from last year so you might have seen them), amazing beige/brown animal print ones, hot pink peacock print and metallic “mint” with a metal flower. The last ones are VERY pretty; such a gorgeous shade of green. I couldn’t help but snag a couple for myself as well.
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I went down to LA for the day on Saturday (and just missed the bad weather, thank God!) for the Summer 2010 market. It’s been a long time since I’ve been to market, since I ordered a lot in small quantities last year via linesheets. Even if it’s a smaller market, compared to Fall or Spring, it was so nice to be at the industry trade shows again.

Transit
Our first stop was the Transit shoe show inside the California Market Center. Um, I like shoes, like most women, but the shoe show is always the most boring exhibit. There are so many vendors and they’re all selling the exact. same. thing. Same trendy strappy sandals, gladiators in every color, booties, and jeweled flats. *yawns* The only line that really stood out to me was LAMB. They have a pair of super high heeled sandals coming out that are REALLY unique looking; I can’t even explain what they look like, but you’ll know them when you see them. They’re also launching a line of leather thong sandals which are really cute, good prices too. But it looks like another boutique here in town has already snapped them up! Shoes would be great to have, but they’re such expensive inventory to carry with all the sizes and what not. Oh, and the fact that I don’t have any room for them might be a problem as well…

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Next weekend the LA fashion district will be gearing up for the Summer 2010 market, which I couldn’t be MORE excited about. I haven’t been to market in a while, since I didn’t buy ahead of time for Spring. Actually, I’ll be doing my Spring buying while I’m up there and taking a look at what’s in store for Summer. It sounds backwards, but since I’ve changed my business model a lot, and opening my retail location here in town is one of the reasons why.

As I mentioned a few months ago, opening up in a salon was such a last minute thing. I think I spoke with the owners a month or a month and a half before everything was up and running. We opened in November and the Spring ‘09 market took place in October. I ALMOST went to it and placed orders for a whole bunch of stuff, and honestly, I’m glad that I didn’t. Because now that I’ve gotten to know the clientèle here it’s definitely changed what things I would put in the shop (mainly price wise), and of course, buying for a brick and mortar location is much different than the web.

So my new model is to sell what I have BEFORE I buy more (and I recently learned that Banana Republic does this as well), and I plan to stick with it for a while. I’ve said before that depending on immediates is risky business, and it can be, but luckily I work with some pretty flexible lines. I’m also limiting my budget by a LOT, but considering how small my space is, a little bit goes a long way. So here’s what I’m planning on carrying…

Denim – finally! I found a great premium line that retails around $100 AND they get a ton of press.
Footwear – Okay, just flip flops. But it’s a start!
Maxi’s – Once again. But they’re such HOT sellers, and they’re inexpensive, easy to ship and hardly get returned.
Tops – I’m usually more cocktail dress focused but tops will definitely be a bigger selling point in the shop.

So I plan on bringing in at least two more lines, MAYBE 3 depending on how I can stretch my dollars. And on top of that I’m looking into jewelry, but I’ll talk more about that another time

Q: I would like to open [a boutique] at the end of summer 2010. Should I be purchasing clothing now? As I do not currently have a storefront I am concerned that it will be hard to get my inventory which is obviously so essential. I love the idea of immediates, but I realize I can’t count on them. When I try to get wholesale information online from certain labels, they seem to want a location, a website or even a photograph of the store. There was also a trade show I had looked into ( The Pool Trade Show) which wanted to see two completed invoices as part of the application. I do have a tax id number, but that’s about it at this point! Any help or advice you can give would be so appreciated! Best of luck to you this coming weekend as the holiday madness begins!!

A: If you’re opening at the end of summer, rest easy for now because the Fall collections (and even though it’s the end of Summer, you’ll want to have Fall merch at this time) start showing in February (at MAGIC in Las Vegas), and will continue to show into the next month in other cities like LA.

Pool isn’t a trade show I’d recommend going to for your first time. Try getting into the Brighte Enk, Designers & Agents and some of the other smaller ones (like Transit, etc) that happen in Los Angeles all at the same time. There’s also Market Tuesdays at the California Market Center. I was able to go to these shows (specifically Brighte) before I had a website or any invoices; they basically want to see your business license and business cards. Easy stuff! A lot of times you can use a deed as well.

If all else fails, I’d recommend securing your domain name and putting up a “coming soon” graphic of some sorts. And make it look nice and creative; have your web designer do it, and put your logo on it and maybe a fun, colorful background so the reps take it seriously.

Best of luck to you too!

Itinerary
1:30 – Kathy Walker Sales
2:30 – Agent Icon
3:30 – Bluebird Showroom
4:30 – Bright ENK

This was my fifth trip to market week and I had more appointments than ever! The first two were at the New Mart and the second was at the Cooper Building, which I had been to before but only for the Designers & Agents trade show, and the last was Voom at the Brighte ENK trade show in the California Mart.

This was also the first time I got into LA and actually had time to spare. Usually I get there 15 minutes early or something and we’re scrambling to eat before our first appointment. But this time around I had an hour just to hang out and catch the trade shows. We went to Focus, which is on the top floor of the California Mart….now I understand why I never bothered to go up there before. They had such a poor selection of vendors up there, minus one or two.

We also zipped through the Transit shoe show quickly. Now, there are TONS of shoe vendors there, and good ones too. And they’re all producing the same things. I can tell you right now that styles won’t be changing next Spring from Spring 2008. Booties, gladiator sandals, ballerina flats and strappy heels in abundance. Shoes are something that will probably be out of my budget for a very long time now.

D&A at the Cooper building was a HUGE improvement over the last two times I visited it. I found a new line that I LOVE! It’s a brand new, unknown label Kitchen Orange. It’s definitely something I would consider but I’m so weary about adding more lines that have little press.

And I’m sure some of you have heard of Fluxus. I really regret not inquiring about this line when I was creating my budget for Spring. I thought they were only about gray knit vests but they have some impressive mini dresses, coats and shrugs for Spring. Ugh! If I hadn’t gone over budget (WAY over budget) I would’ve been all over that! Definitely in the Fall though, if not Summer.

Bags are also something I’m considering later on in 2009. I’m thinking Linea Pelle or Hayden Harnett. Or who knows, something new might come around.

D&A also has a special market for Green retailers this year, which is great! Didn’t get to check it out though, unfortunately.

Showrooms & Buying
There wasn’t too much that wowed me for Spring, at least not like Holiday, but I did find a bunch of SUPER cute dresses! I got that maxi dress from Lauren Conrad that I posted about last week, as well as an adorable black and blue printed chiffon bubble dress, a couple of wraps and some cute tees. I also ordered a bunch of maxi dresses from Gypsy 05 as well as their sweat suits. Ordering for Love Quotes Spring hasn’t opened yet but the colors are super pretty, albeit the same ones from last year. Boring!

Plastic Island…oh man, I’m glad I went back to this line! So many gorgeous, fashion forward pieces and at great prices too. There are two mini dresses I picked up that I’m absolutely in love with, a great white tuxedo jacket and this amazing navy skirt with tiered strips that totally reminds me of 3.1 Phillip Lim….just half the price and just as good quality.

I’m also looking to branch my merchandise out into basics, so I stocked up on PVC/latex/faux leather/whatever leggings, tanks and tees from LNA. I know, I know…every other boutique carries LNA but EVERYONE needs tees! And any extra search traffic is welcome.

Lastly, there was Voom. Voom always delivers and their Spring stuff is especially cute! I can’t wait for you guys to see this denim tube dress they have; it’s outlined with red and white strips and it has a dove cut out on it. I think it’s going to be next hit in the way the Eva Longoria elephant dress was.

Spring 2009 Preview
Most of you are probably worrying about getting your fall wardrobes together and not even thinking about next spring, but here’s a preview of the new stuff anyways. They should show up early February.

*The red jacket will actually be in this week!
TRENDSTALKING

Hot Colors:

Pale/dusty Blue

Periwinkle blue

Violet

Lilac

Silver

Mustard yellow

Sunshine yellow

Navy

Vintage rose

Pale green

Hot trends: Fringe, florals, tiered strips (aka mini layers), tuxedo style, leggings, burn out, maxi dresses, asymmetry, zippers….blah blah blah, not really anything new.

I’m back from a full day of buying yesterday! My dad drove us down to the showrooms and my mom and I went through and did the actual buying. It was so much fun getting to do this again, selecting the clothes is my favorite part of the process. And I got shut down on the pictures again guys, sorry! Anyways, here’s a complete recap of everything that went down:

12:00
We arrive in downtown LA and I’m SO happy because we’ll actually have time to eat before the appointments.

12:20
After parking the car, I realize that’s far from the case.

12:30 – The New Mart
We head across the street to the New Mart for our first appointment at Kathy Walker Sales. Every building in downtown LA is seriously ancient. The elevators are so old and slow and it takes hours just for them to get to our floor.

Another thing I notice….no one goes to Fall II/Holiday/Resort market week. Seriously, the other times I’ve been there (for Fall and Spring) there’s a mob of buyers waiting for the elevator at the New Mart. This time, only about a handful of people were down there.

So we got to the showroom about five or ten minutes later. It’s a pretty nice space and they carry 7 or 8 lines here (including Gypsy 05 and Linea Pelle). Each sales rep in the showroom reps all of the lines broken up by location, which seems pretty unique because I usually see a rep per brand. Anyways, after all that rushing the sales rep tells us she’s running behind and can’t take us at the moment. Now I start to get kind of worried because I spaced my appointments out by an hour plus we had plans for the evening, but I find out that there really isn’t such a thing called a “scheduele” in this industry. Oh. Okay. Good to know.

But I still like to be on time.

12:45 – Designers & Agents (Trade Show)

Since there’s time to kill, we hop on those slow-as-mollasses elevators and head on to the third floor to check out D&A. And for the second year in a row, I’m disappointed with the merchandise being shown here. I thought it was only me, but I found out that this show has a good reputation of having a pretty bad selection. Ouch! Honestly, it’s true. You’ll find a few gems (Alice & Olivia, Iro and a couple other big brands show there), some decent denim lines, and lots of great accessories, but that’s about it.

1:00 – Kathy Walker Sales
We’re back at the showroom, and the rep can take us now. She’s a really cool girl, and gives us a ton of valuable insight about the business and the lines as well. She was very honest about which pieces would sell well and which to stay away from. While I was there I took a look at two new lines for fall; one clothing and one accessories. Oh, and the rep even had to pull a few strings for me to be able to get both collections, because both of the lines were planning on cutting off distribution to online sales. And it’s understandable, since we are brand new, but interestingly the fact that we carry Voom helped.

1:45- Sway Showroom

Yup, we’re running about fifteen minutes late for the second appointment of the way. Thankfully the folks over at Sway Showroom on the 9th floor of the New Mart didn’t mind. Once again, the sales reps are super nice an friendly. Everyone says that people in the industry, and sales reps especially, are snobby but I’ve been lucky to only work with the nice ones!

She showed us the new up and coming indie line that will be on OohLaLuxe.com this fall. Okay, people…this line is GORGEOUS. I already had an idea of what pieces I wanted but so many of the pieces were just so beautiful in person. The line is young and hip, but it has a touch of elegance to it, and usually you don’t see both. I went out on a limb with a couple of the choices I made from the line, but hopefully it pays off. It’s pretty funny too because they didn’t even show me one of my absolute favorite pieces from the linesheets because none of the other buyers cared for it. I still don’t get that; I placed an order for the pieces anyways and I’m hoping it goes to production.

And before I headed out the reps show me a handbag line that I’ve never heard of. Cute, I’m thinking, but I was really weary of taking on another line that doesn’t have much press and isn’t well known. Turns out that this line has been gettin a TON of press…I’m talking Gossip Girl, Desperate Housewives etc., pretty much the who’s who of stylish celebs and TV shows. How did I miss this brand? And I wanted to add some bags/clutches for the holidays. They also had a very flexible minimum, so of course I took advantage of the opportunity. I ordered four clutches and five make up bags from them. They’re super cute with this great mixture of patent croc and suede. I honestly can not wait to get them!

2:30 – Voom @ Brighte

Honestly I can’t remember what time it was, but we probably weren’t on time after having to rush back across the street and register TWICE; once for the CMC (why they need this, I don’t know) and also to get into the Brighte ENK trade show, which always takes forever. They gave us free bags though so I can’t complain too much.

I meet up with the rep for Voom who actually remembers me, which is pretty amazing since it’s been almost a year since I’ve been there. My budget is so much tighter this time around than it was last year so I had to pass up a couple of cute Voom pieces, but I’m very happy with what I got. Picked up couple of cute little black dresses and some others.

We looked around the tradeshow as well, which is smaller than D&A but they have a better selection, in my opinion.

To sum it all up, the trip was successful. I did go over budget, again, but it was a good over budget and not an “I have no self control” over budget. I picked up four new lines, which will be revealed sometime tomorrow, so be sure to check back for the Fall preview!

Last weekend I got the chance to check out the Designers & Agents trade show in LA. I had been in the same area twice before but I didn’t even know this existed! It’s about four times larger than the Brighte market, and it takes place at the New Mart and the Cooper Building across the street.

Sadly, I have to report that this trip was sort of a bust! All of those lines and I didn’t really find any that I would want to buy from. There were one or two clothing lines that caught my eye, and a handful of amazing accessories lines, but I doubt I’ll be carrying those any time soon.

And boy were those sales reps unhelpful! You’d think they would come prepared with line sheets or at least postcards for prospective buyers, but no. I picked up a whopping total of ONE line sheets and a small stack of business cards. Well, business cards won’t help because after a 2 hour drive back to Bako, I won’t remember anything I just saw. Also, out of all the sales reps I traded business cards with, only one emailed me with their line sheet. Well, she gets the gold star for the day.

The free bag was nice.

Last week I received three new shipments; very exciting! Here’s a first look at a few of the pieces. Above is one of my favorite pieces of the whole bunch, this top from Egoist. The camisole is built in so it’s one piece. And the bow is removable. It’s just so quirky, yet wearable, and it will go great with jeans.

A pair of shorts from Egoist and two skirts from Plastic Island. I’m so into these skirts, I might just have to keep one of both for myself. The photo does the black one no justice because it has this sort of brocade style print on it. Just wait until I get that professional photography!

WE OPEN APRIL ?? NOT SURE NOW …

Happy new year everyone!  It’s officially January 2008, and for that I couldn’t be more excited.  First let me apologize for not doing too much blogging recently, but I’m sure you didn’t want to read about me eating, sleeping and staring in to space.   There hasn’t been much to do but that will change very soon.  Since it’s the beginning of the year that means I’m about 3 1/2 months away from the official launch of my boutique!  So yes, hopefully this year will bring good things but as of right now it’s bringing a whole lot of excitement.

So what are the next steps for me?  I’ll be going to the Brighte market in LA in two weeks.  It’s the same market I posted about before, but this time we’re staying over and I’ll hopefully have plenty of pictures for you (if they let me!).  I have appointments with two more lines I plan to buy and I might pick up an accessories line, it just depends on how things go with my budget.

Hopefully I’ll get to go to MAGIC in February too but it’s starting to look less than likely (no biggie; I can go in August).  And then my first delivery comes 3/30.  So in March I’ll be designing my website and on getting shipping and packaging details together.  And of course lining up a photographer, and doing my first shoot as soon as the clothes come in.  So I’ll definitely have more to discuss here in the coming weeks!

Oh and one more thing…

My new years resolution: Wear less pants.

I told my parents this and they looked at me weird.  Really, I just want to stop living in blue jeans!  I always pair my jeans up with a really cute top or something layered, but I need to work in more skirts, dresses and stockings into my wardrobe.

I guess we all could work on our style a little bit this year!  Whether it be spending less money or spending more money on quality/quantity items, or whatever.  Do any of you have new years fashion resolutions? Let me know in the comments section!

Someone on the fashion spot once told me that all your buying plans pretty much go out the window once you actually get to the showroom.  That could not be any more true.

So this weekend is market week, and the Los Angeles Fashion, Gift & Home show at the California Market Center.  Actually it got started on Friday and it ends tomorrow on Monday.  I’m glad I only live 1:30 from LA so I was able to drive down for the day instead of spending $150 or so on a hotel room.  I got to my old stomping grounds, downtown LA, around 12:00.  There was a big war protest right down the street which caused the traffic to be back up and a lot of commotion.  Great timing!

My first appointment was at 1:00 with the Agent Icon Showroom.  The sales reps were super nice, helpful, and most importantly honest.  I ended up spending about half of my budget on two amazing up  and coming lines.  For one of them, I had seen the line sheet and planned out what I would buy ahead of time, but I ended up spending quite a bit more!  It wasn’t a problem since I ended finding more pieces that I liked.  And I’m really confident about what I chose.

I was a bit bummed though because my absolute favorite piece from the line sheet looked quite different in person.  Always see the clothes in person before buying!

Meeting with the showroom pretty much went down like this:

• We came in, the sales rep introduced herself and showed us which lines they had available.  Usually, the sales reps will either present the top selling pieces to you or you can look through the samples on your own and set the things you like aside.
• Collections are usually broken up into three deliveries; one for each month.  Since my orders are small, I’m anticipating that my order will come at the last possible date.  The samples usually have at tag that shows the color ways, delivery and whole sale price.
• I did ask the sales reps which pieces were doing well and which colorways were doing better for each piece.
• After I pulled all of the pieces I liked, I sat down with the rep, went over everything one last time and chose my color ways.
• The labels I chose had minimums such as 5 pieces per style or $1000 per delivery, or 3 pieces per style.  I also found out you can’t buy just one piece from a collection (and I don’t hold this against the designer!).
• The rep filled out an invoice for me, which didn’t have a total so I had to be very careful about how much I was spending.  I won’t be charged for the clothing until they ship (which is next year) and I was given the choice of COD or Credit.

That was pretty much it.  I was in the showroom for about an hour (I like to look at everything several times before making a final decision).

I also got a chance to look around the trade show.  I wasn’t sure how that was going to work; I think basically, anyone who doesn’t have a showroom on the West Coast (or a few who aren’t located in the CMC) are set up in the trade show area, where you can just walk around and browse through the collections as you wish.  I didn’t buy anything but I did pick of up several line sheets and business cards and there are at least two more collections there that caught my interest.

After that I was pretty much done…..it was 3:00.  Yeah, well, I’m not used to getting up early!