Back fresh from Spring ’11 market, where I spent the day consulting for a brand new online boutique with a slightly different sales model — but more on that a little bit later! First, here are a few reader questions that have been sitting in my formspring forever (sorry about that!):

Do showrooms have buying seasons, i.e. are they only open for browsing and orders on certain dates?

Yes. Technically. In the industry, we have a thing called “market week” which is a window of 4-5 days that buyers can see the new lines. Market week happens about 5x per year in New York and LA and twice in Las Vegas. In LA at the California Market Center there’s also market tuesdays. If you need to go on a different day, it doesn’t hurt to ask the reps if you can stop by, but all samples might not be available and a lot of reps travel.

When can I order linesheets?

They aren’t really something you order, you just ask for them through a sales rep. You can ask for them any time, but every designer is different so they may or may not be ready for the season of your choosing.

How many brands and accessory lines do you think someone like me should start out with? And how much do you think I would have to invest for a year on inventory?

There are way too many factors — it would be hard to throw out a relevant number without knowing more about your plans. However, a good placeto start is by planning what your retail price range will be, the size of your store, how many lines you want represented and how many pieces from each line. Keep minimums in mind too — usually you’re required at least 4 sizes and 4 bodies per delivery (more for jeans and shoes), or $500-$1000 wholesale for accessories (usually).

If you have more questions, or would like to work with me one on one, check out my consulting services page!

This past weekend I had my first big, professional styling gig — a mock magazine cover for our booth at the next bridal event (in case you didn’t read some of my other posts, I’ve been working as the editor of a local online bridal magazine for a couple of months now). This was a long and crazy process, which started a few months ago when I pitched the idea. After that it took a couple of weeks to select a model, but I got lucky when Sammy responded to my casting call — she had exactly the type of look I was hoping to find: delicate, symmetrical features, wide eyes, dark hair, porcelian skin, tall and very slim.

A few days before the shoot we both went into a local bridal shop and got her fitted for dresses. This was a ton of fun — it was almost like getting a friend ready for a real wedding! Fitting her was interesting though because most of the samples were size 8 or size 10 and the model was about a size 0, so we needed tons and tons of clamps. All the dresses looked fab on her.

But the fitting was the easy part; after that, the entire shoot almost fell apart at the last minute. I lost my venue, my photographer and almost my model all just a few days before the shoot! But luckily, we ended up getting it done and the finished product is FANTASTIC. My MUA Victoria and hair stylist Carleen did such a fabulous job, and we all got creative towards the end and pushed the boundaries with the styling. I can’t show you the finished product until January, but here’s a bit of a taste for now:

I’m really hoping this turns into an actual tear; keep your fingers crossed for me and my entire team!

Photo credits go to my awesome photog, Vanessa Cabrillas!

Shop our Black Friday & Cyber Monday sale, on now!

This past weekend my model friend and I carpooled down to Delano to do a beauty shoot for a photographer friend, whom I’ve been collaborating with quite a bit recently. It started out as a beauty shoot but sort of evolved into an overall fashion shoot, with pops of color. Still, the make-up was a big focus of the photos, and all of the colors were pulled from the looks I put together.

We had two fabulous models, Niki and E-maginne; both girls totally worked it!

This was my first time shooting with E and I can’t wait to test her again in the near future — the girl is going places; such a high fashion look!

Recently I’ve added the title of stylist (or at least aspiring stylist) to my fashion repertoire; in addition to doing shoots for Ooh La Luxe, I’ve branched out by connecting with local boutiques and styling shoots for the local online magazine I currently work for. The first one of it’s kind that I completed was for a downtown shop called La Coquette, which is also one of my favorites — they carry this great mix of high end lines like Yoanna Baraschi, Madison Marcus and Cynthia Steffee, along with more affordable labels like Lush and Collective Concepts.

My friend Niki (who actually found me via this very website, crazy huh?) is an aspiring model and posed for the pics. We spent two hours at the shop shooting about six different looks, most of which we took outside on what was officially the hottest day of the year — great planning on my part, right? Ultimately, bearing the heat really paid off, because the outdoor photos looked 1000x better than the indoor ones, quality wise.

We were also lucky that the shop was located right next to an alley with a really cool black and white painted wall.

Any shoot involves a lot of hard work, but it’s so much fun, and it’s very rewarding when you’re able to use your skills to help create art. I’ve been wanting to try my hand at styling for so long, and now that I have, it’s addicting! So far I’ve done 3 total, and I have a couple coming up, not to mention a couple of other photographers who are interested in working with me after putting up a model mayhem profile — all test shoots, but a great way to hone my skills. And who knows, I might just end up picking up a paid job one of these days!

Oh yeah, and I kinda photographed these pictures too — yikes!

Q: I want to open a boutique that carries all kinds of jeans. It’s really hard trying to get a hold of vendor (seven, tr, etc) NO one has called me back or emailed me. Can you please help me out with any tips. When I go to these trade shows are those vendors there?

A: First off, that sounds like an awesome idea for a boutique. Really, really awesome. Secondly (and more importantly), who have you been contacting, exactly? Are you contacting corporate or some name you found on their official website? You have to make sure you’re contacting their showroom/sales rep. Check the LA Fashion District Lines directory to make sure you’re calling the right place (if you’re on the east coast, just give them a call and ask who reps the line over there). If youre not getting through via email, keep calling and calling. Eventually, someone at the showroom HAS to answer. And of course, whether you’re talking on the phone or via email make sure you sound professional, like you know what you’re doing, and use the right lingo.

From my experience, those lines don’t show at trade shows (probably because theyre so big that they’re closed for distribution in a lot of areas and don’t really need to bring in new buyers, I’m guessing). I rarely see any denim lines, actually, except a couple no one has heard of. And Ive never seen True Religion or Seven or Citizens at D&A or Brighte or any of the shows here in LA, but I’m guessing they do show at MAGIC. If you can’t make it to MAGIC you’ll need to go straight to their showroom, and usually during market week it’s deemed “okay” to do so.

Funny story though, the last time I was at market week we pass the showroom for either Seven jeans (Im pretty sure it was them, if not True Religion), and I’ll admit it was pretty daunting. They had a receptionist that you had to pass through before you could enter into the actual showroom, which is something Ive never seen before!

Okay, maybe that’s not helpful, but the point is you always have to try, try, try. If you get a no, ask why and then make changes. I’ve gotten a number of lines that were “closed for online distribution” because I fought for them a little bit. And one of the reasons why Im revamping my website is to open a few doors that were closed for me early on. So best of luck to you, and wish me good luck as well!

More questions? Follow up questions? Hit me up in the comments section of this post, via email or anonymously via formspring!

Hey guys, I’m behind on the form spring questions by about a week. Sorry about that. On top of everything I’ve been trying to do recently, I’ve been sick since last Thursday and I haven’t been to work since then (except to mail out a couple of things). I don’t even know what I would be doing right now if I weren’t in a salon and if I were the only employee at my shop! Anyways, I’ll start catching up tonight. If you have a question or just want to read the answers, check it out here.

Oh boy, It’s been FAR too long since I’ve blogged. Things have been going smoothly, and everything has been at a pretty normal pace so there hasn’t been a lot for me to discuss. The boutique passed it’s one year anniversary in May, and back when this started back in 2008 I didn’t expect to be opening a brick and mortar shop the following year.

Oops…did I just let that slip? looks like the cat is out of the bag! Sort of. I’m leasing space for Ooh La Luxe! within a local salon; the lease contract is in hand and should be signed within the next couple of days. And we WANT to get this open by November, so things are moving pretty quickly.

You know how they always say, in business, and the fashion business especially, that it’s all about networking and selling yourself? Very true. To be honest I’m not the best at doing that, partly because I’m in a very small town and it’s not easy to network with others. So, as usual in my life, I turned to the internet. I was hanging around craigslist looking for jobs listings and I clicked the salon/spa gigs categories, where all the salons list their booths for rent. I figured, there’s nothing to lose (completely ignoring the “do not solicit” warnings) and email all the recent listings telling them about myself, what I do and asking if they were interested in some type of boutique partnership. I didn’t expect to hear anything back but about 4 days later there was a message on my voicemail from a salon saying they were interested in meeting me. And the rest (will hopefully be) was history.

The salon is VERY high end and full service, well decorated and the area has a bit of money. They even have six tanning rooms I can use as dressing rooms, with full length mirrors and hooks and everything. It seems pretty perfect.

So, needless to say, I’m quite exciting. Right now I’m sourcing supplies like bags and tissue paper and trying to get samples from different companies, getting price checks on hangers in bulk, and looking ahead to the spring, since the spring market will be here in just a couple of weeks. It’s very exciting because this opens up the possibility for me to carry SO many different types of merchandise like denim, swimsuits, flip flops, lingerie, more jewelry and some lesser known brands.

Can’t wait and I hope everything works out.