New Year - New Beginnings
/Happy New Year
As we enter 2019, I hope this will be an exciting and fulfilling year for everyone, and particularly for myself. In late August last year (2018), I decided to branch out from my previous life and try something new in my spare time. In January this year (2019), I will formally be dedicating one working day per week to it. I thought that this first blog post of the year would be a good time to tell you a bit about how this all started and what I hope to achieve in the coming year.
A Change of Heart
In August 2018, I was no longer enjoying the job that I have loved for many years, so I was considering making changes to my life. A completely new job was too drastic for my level of dissatisfaction, but I had an idea about using the costume making skills I had developed as a hobby over the previous 30 years as something more. I knew a few things; that I needed something different to distract me from work problems, that it needed to pay for itself and that I needed to carry on working nearly full time for several years to come. That was all I knew in late August; the following weeks were a roller coaster of discovery, invention, accounting and - I have to admit it - fun.
Following a discussion with my husband about these vague ideas we agreed to give it a go and invest some of our money and much of my time to see if the idea was workable, leaving any non-reversible decisions till later. The first tasks were to get advice on starting something new. Scottish Enterprise offer advice, support and all sorts of services for businesses, including a link with an organisation called Business Gateway. Business Gateway help people with a new business idea to get started regardless of the scale of that business. They have web pages that help you to understand tax, how to get organised and so on. This was the first point at which I started to consider what I was really getting into - keeping accounts, self-assessment tax, sole trader status, etc. I decided that if I was going to do this, then I should jump in and do it properly, I should start a business.
Over the coming weeks in January, I will post more details on some of the things that I have learned or done that are described below.
Although I had decided to start making costumes for sale the first things that I made were nothing to do with costumes! I needed a list of the basic things to line up first, such as a business plan, getting advice form other sole traders I knew, doing some market research on who else is making costume and who wants to buy, deciding on a theme and several other similar things. While talking to my oldest son about this, he strongly recommended choosing a name for the business as early as possible as it could be embedded in many of the organisational things such as internet domain name, web-site presence, bank account, etc.
After two weeks of pondering, worrying, waking up at night, trying out names by Googling them for similar ones, checking Company’s House for registered names and so on, I finally came up with “Properly Dressed”. Very quickly, my husband and I developed the strap line and I sketched out a logo on paper, which he drew out in the Inkscape drawing package using some open access clip art of a thistle and a Tudor rose. He also found the IM Fell font, a digital copy of an original printer’s font from the 17th century. Within a few days we had the final logo, banner and business name.
So welcome to :
A New Look
Having got a name and a concept, which had been based on discussions about what I had to offer, what I wanted to do and what would be different about this costume making business, it was back to the list.
In a very brief text conversation with someone I knew who makes historical costume, she strongly recommended a website and not sticking to just one historical period. Setting up a website (this one) turned out to be one of the most fun things I would do in the set up phase. Once more in discussion with my son, he recommended a website hosting company, Squarespace, who provide websites templates that you can choose from. That means the basic set up already exists and you tailor it to suit yourself - no HTML programming, no Web Designer, no costly updates later if you want to change something. Bearing in mind that I was still working full time (and I travel a lot for my main job), I set about creating the website, making use of the free two week trial period to refine my choices and develop the page structure.
I was incredibly fortunate about one thing. On a Saturday in late September, we had a rare morning of bright sunshine with the classic yellow light of Scottish autumn. I gathered a load of dressmaking related things and set them up in the garden to take some “arty” photos. I hope my blog readers and customers are as happy with them as I was - though any photographers among you will probably think they are poorly done.
On 29th September 2018, I registered the website on which this post appears, after one week of laying it out, adding my own photos, writing all the page texts and so on in my free time. Registering it made it visible to anyone who went looking for the site name www.propelydressed.co.uk.
I also discovered while doing this that my younger son makes an excellent clothing model. I went looking in my photo library for suitable photos of any of the family wearing clothes that I had made as examples of what I could do. It turned out that my youngest son is the most photogenic of us all, though he is not so sure! After asking his permission, many of the product photos of male clothing are of him.
As a way to start the website quickly, using existing photos of people wearing clothes I had made was great, but it limited me to the 17th century, since that is the period that we re-enact. However, I knew I wanted to branch out into other periods later, so I had to create a web site framework that would allow for changes later.
Trying it Out
With an idea for a website underway, it was back to the less artistic aspects. I had an idea for a trial run of getting customers, making some things repeatedly and working out costs and payment systems. I would advertise in my re-enactment groups for 10 people who wanted to buy a pair of breeches - why I chose breeches and not coats or bodices or skirts or anything else, I don’t know. Why I thought I would get 10 people all wanting the same thing, I don’t know. However, it forced me to think about a pricing structure for basic men’s clothing so that I could advertise the trial. That turned out to be a good thing as I developed a sound pricing methodology really early on. I recommend this to anyone else thinking of making hand-made goods for sale that need to support the maker as well as cover materials costs. I will describe the system I use in a later post in January, for anyone who is interested.
One day in September, I took the biggest step so far - I wrote a Facebook post aimed at a few regiments in The Sealed Knot that I have links with introducing the idea of me going into the costume making business and asking for 10 people who wanted a new pair of breeches to contact me. I was overwhelmed by the response - but not for breeches! I had so many responses asking when I would make tartan trews, women’s corsets or stays, shirts and so on. It was a great indication that there is a market out there. I started recording the responses and followed up on the 9 inquiries that mentioned breeches. I knew I could not dedicate the time for all the varied requests and did not want to let people down but in the end only three requests for breeches converted into actual orders.
Since the end of September and all from the first contacts from that first post, I have actually made three pairs of breeches, a pair of under-breeches and I am now making a 1640’s pair of stays - not bad with a full time job as well. I have also increased the visibility of Properly Dressed with regular posts on Facebook and Instagram and this blog. The most successful blog post, which in fact seems to have reached re-enactors in America, Australia, New Zealand and all across Europe!, was a controversial one on historical accuracy.
Onwards and Upwards
In 2019, I will formally be working 4 days per week for the company and 1 day per week for me. This will allow me to dedicate more time to getting new customers for the costume making, developing new product ranges and working on new advertising methods that operate outside of the seventeenth century Sealed Knot links that I currently have. My current product range can be found here and it is growing all the time, contact me here if you have an idea and want to discuss it.
I dread the “what will you be doing in 5 years’ time” question often asked by ambitious young people. I have never had a 5 year plan for my life. Well I have one now. I plan to continue this schizophrenic existence of being an engineering manager 4 days per week and a historical costume producer 1 day per week for about 5 years. My longer term plan is to make the costume making my full time activity and to have it as a boost to my pension income for many, many years to come.
I wish you all many years of happy enjoyment of whatever you choose to do in life, especially if you do it in historically accurate clothing! I choose to make costumes for fantastic people who like to re-enact the past with great gusto and a large dollop of authenticity.