Casting call

Henri Bendel open see on Friday. Woke up early, then headed down the 6 flights of stairs with my massively heavy suitcase full of bags. I had spent the previous night figuring out my costing, finalizing my linesheets, and photoshopping the pics so they looked okay. Thankfully I’ve been down this path before and know the drill so I wasn’t too crazed about it.

The App world has discovered that some people don’t actually like math, but need math, ergo the creation of the margin/costing app! It’s this beautiful thing I downloaded onto my Ipad that helps me figure out the cost of goods versus the selling price and what the margins and net margins, and profit and net profit percentages are. It’s such a beautiful app, that even if you don’t care about net margins and profit percentages, you might want to get it. Because it just simplifies everything. (PS: THANKS JC for showing me this on the way to the crappy Starbucks in China!)

So Friday morning, I get all my stuff together jump into a taxi and realize its freezing outside. I didn’t really think it was such a big deal because the last time I went to one of these things there was no line, and I breezed in and out in an hour. Unfortunately, when I got there, there was a line of about 200 people. I did meet some cool people doing cool things though. The couple standing behind me had the most beautiful jewelry collection I have seen in a long time. Wish I had gotten their card so I could post a link! Will try and work that one out.

Long story short, I finally got inside the building and was ushered into another room where we waited by category to meet with the buyers one-on-one. There were all sorts of categories: jewelry, handbags, belts, small leather goods, gifts, beauty (how difficult that must be!). After another 15 minutes and another line to wait on, I finally got to meet with the handbag buyer.

The last time I went to one of these things, the reaction was great, very positive, and we talked about doing a potential trunk show, but I didn’t have any production yet. All I had were samples. This time I was ready, but this time they weren’t so interested. They said they were taking a more structured, ladylike and minimalist approach to their handbags this upcoming season and that my bags were too casual, too slouchy, too unstructured for them at this time.

Massively disappointing, and heart wrenching. But I’m pretty good with rejection. I’ve spent most of my life in dance auditions getting rejected so I know the drill. Eat cupcakes for an afternoon, go to bed early and be really depressed for about 4 hours and then wake up the next morning, forget it ever happened and/or use it as motivation to push farther into the next venture. So, that’s precisely what I did. Without the cupcake bit of course….

The Bendel's thing, while a bit of a letdown, was a real eye opener. They loved my bags last show, but this show they had moved to something else. And that’s cool. Retailers are fickle. Mostly they’re fickle because they have to be. And that’s okay, as a fashion biz, you’ve got to go with the ebbs and flows. And try to survive in the best way you can. I guess I wasn’t the right height or should’ve been brunette. Just the luck of the draw….

xo, ella g