Building the Boutique

Well I’m still exhausted.

Last Thursday afternoon I returned home from my (second) trip Las Vegas this year….and my first trip to MAGIC! Keep in mind, this was something I was waiting for since I first started planning my boutique back in 2007, and because of poor timing I was always unable to make the convention (we would always take a family trip to Vegas a week or two before the the show — it was like rubbing salt in a wound!).

I pulled in to town late Monday night and left bright and early on Thursday, so I only had two full days to experience the show. And even in two days, I didn’t get to experience everything, not even the half of it. On Tuesday I met with a client, a really fab girl from Wisconsin who has great taste in clothing and is opening a shop, both online and off, in her hometown. We spent about 6 hours at Project, and still didn’t get to see everything!

And WWDMAGIC was great for the juniors market and more affordable contemporary wear.   This is where my favorite booth from the entire show was located — the Desigual booth.  They not only gave away AMAZING huge tote bags to everyone at the show, and served wine and cheese to guests, but they also had rotating stage where they painted peoples clothing.  I promise it was cooler than it sounds.

MY QUICK TIPS FOR MAGIC

1. Try to stay the whole three days – it’s cheaper not to go down on Sunday, but boy do you miss out on a lot if you’re not in town the first day!  There’s just way too much to see.
2. Do your research ahead of time — log onto MagicOnline.com, find out EVERYTHING that’s going down, and map a plan of action.  Because MAGIC isn’t limited to exhibitors, there are also classes, speakers and parties.
3. Wear comfortable shoes! — it amazed me (but didn’t surprise me) how many women went to this show in huge wedges, trying to look cute.  Well no one looks cute when they’re limping!
4. Scope the place out the day before – especially Mandalay Bay; it’s not easy to find their conference rooms, we had to walk about a mile through the hotel just to do so.  It’s always a good idea to go a day before the show starts and get an idea of where everything is, that way you won’t be late for any appointments.
5. Never buy water inside the convention area — this should have been my number one tip!  Project was selling tiny bottles of water for $3; no thank you!  If you walk outside to the hotel gift shop you can get a large bottle for the same price.  Better yet, visit one of the CVS’s or Walgreens on the strip and stock up at an even cheaper price.
6. Get a tote bag early – and leave your purses at home.  On Tuesday they ran out by about noon.  But luckily we were able to find bags at some of the designer booths.  You’ll definitely need it for all the line sheets you’ll be carrying around.
7. Stock up on magazines on your way out – at MAGIC they give away tons of fashion magazines (Vogue, Nylon, etc) but if you can, don’t grab them until you’re leaving because they really weigh you down.
8. Take advantage of the free transportation — but grab a map first because it’s confusing!  MAGIC offers free car  and shuttle service between Mandalay Bay, the Convention Center, and the hotels on the strip, which saves a LOT of money in gas or cab service.  (Just don’t believe the “limo” hype; those are only for so called VIP’s)

Tip number nine: go to Jean Phillippe Patisseree in the Aria hotel (or Bellagio) and get one of these yummy raspberry macarons! Terrible service, but delicious desserts!

Q: When is a good time to start ordering your clothing? And I would like to have some brand names, but I really don’t have to; I would really like to just have some really nice trendy clothing. Where should I begin to look?

A: Well, as a (future) buyer, you hopefully have at least a few lines in mind already. And if you don’t, it’s a good idea to get out there and start shopping (in your city and outside of it), reading fashion blogs and fashion magazines because it’s just as important to know what the latest brands are, and what the celebs are wearing, as it is to know the latest trends.

When you’re ready to buy, you’ll be visiting fashion showrooms and trade shows to see the collections you’re interested and hopefully, find more you love. There are TONS and TONS of showrooms in LA and NY (and a few in other parts of the country) and generally, showrooms tend to be consistent with the types of lines they rep, so when you find one line you like, you just might fall in love with a few other lines with the same sales rep.

Trade shows are also a good option for people who are scouting out new brands, and it’s a lot less intimidating than walking into a showroom for the first time. I’ve mapped out some of the major ones, and how to navigate them, in my post Fashion Trade Shows & Showrooms .

As for buying lead time, generally the window for buying starts about 6 months ahead of season; next week they’ll be showing the Spring ‘12 collections at MAGIC in LV; it will also show in LA in October, and in NY somewhere in between. When the window closes differs per brand. It’s safe to place an order during that time, but it’s also good to consider immediates in this economy — and trust me, the designers have more immediates these days then they did when I first started.

Definitely check out the California Market Center calendar of events — this is a pretty good guide as to when certain seasons start showing.

So recently I’ve been getting a lot of questions about finding inexpensive merchandise and merchandise from indie designers, both of which are tough right now, especially the former, I feel.  Keep reading for a few of my tips and tricks!

I mean how do I reach out to the indie fashion designers? I want to start an online store somewhat like ModCloth.com; this is a huge dream of mine and I haven’t found anything helpful online until now.

Most of the brands on Modcloth aren’t even indie designers.  They carry a lot of the same labels you see every where else (including Ooh La Luxe) , they just choose pieces that reflect the vintage pov. As far as I know, there isn’t one spot where they all congregate, besides etsy or sense of fashion, or a similar site.  I would recommend following indie fashion blogs and magazines like Lula and Dujour, and emailing the ones you like directly, or try to go through some sales reps/showrooms (like AltitudePromotion.com) and trade shows the traditional way.  There are tons and tons of great emerging brands, even if they aren’t necessarily “indie”.  Hope that helps!

I want my store to offer trendy quality clothes at affordable prices but most of the brands are super high.  Do you happen to know of any brands that carry nice trendy clothes with good quality material at affordable prices not only for us but for the customers?  How do I go about purchasing these garments or shopping online to view there lookbook?

Are you me?  I’ve been facing this issue recently, more so than ever — and I could write an entire blog post just ranting about how over priced such basic designs have become these days (I mean $120 for a plain jersey blouse, really??).  For an online source I would recommend Joor.com, but honestly, most of the brands there are expensive too.  I’ve found that the best way of researching inexpensive lines is to work backwards — go to boutiques that carry cute clothing that is within your price range, write down the label names, and research them when you get home.  This can work online too sometimes — usually you can find one inexpensive label and find out who’s carrying it, and often times that store will carry similar lines at the same price points.  If you find out who represents a line, it never hurts to ask them who else they represent as well.

How do you go about dealing with vendors when not having a physical store? How can I handle this?

I get asked this a lot, and it’s one of the best questions an aspiring buyer can ask. I just communicate with them as any other business professional would at first  — I tend to email them first and if they don’t get back to me I’ll give them a call.  It’s tougher in some ways when you’re online; there will be rejection from certain brands that are already saturated, and once in a while some just won’t sell online at all.  It also takes time to establish trust, especially if your website isn’t designed yet — a lot of labels want to make sure they’re associated with a certain level of “quality” and want to know what your site will look like, and will judge you on the design.  Generally, the less expensive the merchandise is, the easier the line is to work with.  Anything that comes prepackaged shouldn’t be a problem.  If it’s a very well known brand, like Alice & Olivia that you’re chasing after, I would just recommend finding an up and coming alternative!

NOTE: If you’ve sent me an email, or left me a comment, and I haven’t responded yet, it’s probably in my queu!  Which is pretty backed up right now, so I apologize for the delay.  I will get back to you soon!

I know, I know, I’m about two weeks late with this post! I have a good excuse though, and trust me, being sick for the same lenght of time is no fun?

The summer/fall ‘11 market was one of my favorite market week experiences to date, and I wasn’t even the one buying! (heck, maybe that has something to do with it) This time around I was working as a consultant for a new private sale online retailer. I met up with the owner in the lobby of the Cooper Building bright and early on the first day of market week. I arrived prepared with a plan of action in hand — a list of about a dozen labels and showrooms that I felt would be a perfect fit for boutique.

We spent the next five hours working our way through the Cooper Building, the New Mart and the CMC looking at my suggested lines, her favorite lines, and a few surprises along the way. And it’s really funny how many amazing new lines I came across when I wasn’t the one buying — like Lauren Moshi’s insane new jewelry line, Sam Edelman’s new lower priced shoe line, and an amazing range of bags all priced under $130. We got a sneak peek at the new sweet valley high inspired collection from Wildfox — who knew neon cropped tops and graphic body suits could be so much fun! The only thing that didn’t impress me was the new House of Harlow sunglasses — too many retro/novelty shapes, and the plastic looks really cheap and not at all worth the price. Joey Showroom, however, had an amazing new shoe line plus a great handbag line to make up for it though (as snotty as some of their reps may have been to me in the past!)

And I felt like this new boutique owner got a pretty good taste of the good and bad sides of working with sales reps. Most of the reps were great, two in particular were exceptionally professional (they were sales directors and showroom owners, surprise surprise) and one in particular was completely useless. You know, the awkward type who basically forces you to extract information from her instead of volunteering it. That and she just walked away from us in the showroom — how rude!

Buying without spending your own money is actually a ton of fun. And ultimately, seeing how pleased the shop owner was with my services was the best reward. She and I got along great too, and I know she’s going to be wildly successful. I’ll be counting down the days until her store opens because there are number of things I want to snag for myself!

StyleMarket.us is what Gilt would look like if it were emerging designer-centric. If the name is new to you, Style Market is a members only online marketplace for independant designers. For those who live further from metropolitain areas, where indie designers maybe less prevelant, StyleMarket.us makes up and coming brands accessible from the tip of your mouse. And I’m officially in love with the designers there. I actually pulled multiple pieces from the showroom for my promo shoot back in August, like the Zeira Black Champagne and Leather Bracelet, Michele Delville Earth Essences Stackable Bangles and the Faso Pear-fect Duo Earrings (the photo is on the page!).

The man behind the site is Joseph DePalma of Joseph Stephen PR, a firm that specializes in up and coming designer labels, and Style Market includes, but is not limited to, the brands he currently represents. And best of all, Joseph plans on launching a wholesale marketplace in the near future; buyers can email wholesale@stylemarket.us to be notified with the showroom goes live.

Visit StyleMarket.us to browse or buy! Use code btb1110 for $10 off.

Q: Hi Kim! It’s pretty easy to find what’s hot currently even two-three months from now isn’t hard, but with the trade shows six months in advance… How do we know what’s going to be “it” fashion in 6 months? You always seem to know!

A: Very good question! Trend forecasting isn’t always that easy, but it’s not necessarily as hard to do as you think — all you have to do is keep your eyes and ears open. You really do need to immerse yourself in fashion, which shouldn’t be hard to do if you love fashion enough to open your own boutique. Pay attention to the runway shows — this is key. It’s pretty convenient since fashion happens before most of the markets. If you watch closely you’ll start to notice repitition. If you don’t notice anything, just log on to thefashionspot.com and visit their trends forum. You’ll see threads starting (and some bumped) about all the new trends people are spotting at fashion weeks.

Also, a lot of trends carry over from the year before or earlier in the year. For example — how long have booties been hot? Since I was in COLLEGE (I graduated 3 years ago, people). How long have open toed booties been hot? Eh, about 2 years or so? And what about cut-out booties? Since, say, last year. Trust me, they aren’t going anywhere come fall/winter.

So to sum it all up — watch fashoin shows, read TFS, shop a lot, read lots of fashion magazines and celebrity gossip blogs too. The last tip seems weird but honestly I’ve found at least half of the designers I carry through celebrities. And all trends cycle, so if you can think of a trend that was popular, say, 10 years ago, and a lot of other trends from that time have already come back into style, you can bet that one is about to step up to the plate again (I mean, hello leather pants and one shoudler tops that were all the rage when I was a Freshmen in high school).

Q: I’m planning my first trip to market. Is it mandatory to make appointments?

A: Yes. Well, actually it’s not, but I would STRONGLY recommend it to anyone who’s going for the first time. Why? It’s less work and less confusion for the showroom, and trust me, during market they already have tons of work and tons of confusion going on. It will also save you a headache if the showroom decides not to sell to you — and yes, this can happen. Some showrooms want to check out your area, make sure other boutiques nearby aren’t carrying the line, or they just might want to know who else you’re carrying and what your shop looks like, etc. Even if they do let you place an order, they might check later and decide not to actually FILL your order, so why set yourself up for the disappointment?

So this weekend I finally entered the world of “budget clothing”. For a now while I’ve been wondering where some shops get less expensive pieces. When you’re working with contemporary designers, it’s hard to find collections that retail under $100; I can count all of those labels on one hand, I can’t name one I actually like and would carry. So after a lot of research (ie. googling) I came across a couple of brands, which eventually lead me to the online showrooms. Turns out these showrooms are pretty much where I expected them to be — deep in the heart of the garment district. In fact I remember stumbling upon a few of them on accident while shopping with friends down there one time.

And, as usual, I’ve uncovered a whole new set of frustrations. Where do I begin…

So, I’m mainly looking for more affordable pieces for my shop at the salon. These lines are great because a lot of the tops retail for around $35 and the dresses a little bit more for that and the jeans actually LESS than that. Is the quality the same as pieces I carry now? Of course not, but some of it is a lot better than one would expect. But you have to look….and look, and look….and then look a lot more to find them. I mean, there’s a lot of horribly ugly crap in this market, and I really wonder who’s designing for these labels sometimes to be honest. But every once in a while you stumble upon a gem.

The real issue here is with minimums — not delivery minimums (they’re usually about $100), but size minimums, because budget lines come prepackaged with a set number of items in each size. Im used to buying four pieces and being able to choose which sizes I want, but with these lines you’re (on average) required to purchase six pieces (sometimes 5) and you don’t even get to choose the sizes. And for a small store, six pieces seems a bit daunting. If you’re talking jeans or shoes, be prepared to stock a lot more.

Even more frusterating, though, are the sizes. Just earlier today I was looking at a VERY promising line with peices retailing around $80 and $90 each. Only thing is they require you to buy 2 small, 2 medium and 1 large. Yeah, maybe in LA sizes 2 and 4 are more popular than 6 and 8, but in my town? Not so much. I asked the sales rep about this and she told me that I can “always add more larges on to the order”. Well thanks, but that’s not exactly what I was getting at.

To make matters even worse, most of these showrooms are closed on Saturdays….even during market week. I know they don’t work ahead of the season, but this I don’t get at all. I guess they think all buyers live in LA or can just abandon work in the middle of the week.

So far, I’ve found a couple of great jewelry vendors and placed an order for a few pieces. I’m pretty excited about them; cute stuff, and it’s all going to retail under $25. Should be a great addition to the salon, since we have absolutely NO jewelry there. Crazy, huh?

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…

(more…)

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