Meet Alida and Mom

Hello! My name is Alida Wilson. I am seven years old. My mom is a fashion designer. I think she does it very well. I enjoy trying on clothes for her, but sometimes they are sewed wrong. But usually they aren't. I enjoy being the daughter of a fashion designer. See you later!

sisters' opinions

peter (me) here again. after that last blog i kind of ran out of ideas. so i had to ask my mom (ouch)! i mean, what teenager wants to write about fashion anyway, much less ask their mom! however, here i am, and here you are (hopefully), so i might as well get started.

so, my mom said that one thing to do was ask my sisters about what they think about her clothes. having nothing better to do, i agreed. so here are my results (wow, i feel professional):

alida, age 7: dresses, because you can twirl (seriously?).

grace, age 5: some dress that she was wearing, because it had a cute jaguar on it (oh, help).

madeline, age 2: mama clothes (i don't think she got the point).

so, there you have it! the whole list of my sisters' opinions!

the sewing room

hi. peter here again. i'm on spring break, so i get to stay home and experience my mom's sewing better than ever. now, i'm not the kind of person who gets outside a lot, so i get to stay inside all day and read/nap to the sound of my mom's sewing machine going full tilt. this was until we got a basketball hoop the other day, but that's not what i'm supposed to be writing about. anyway, she has an embroidery machine, the kind that will keep embroidering whether you're in the room or not. this gives her the ability to keep it making that annoying rattling no matter what. for example, i just got a video camera, and when i use it, one of the most prominent sounds in the video is the noise of her sewing machine. on the plus side, i am now effectively able to block out any annoying sounds whatsoever, thanks to interminable practice. oh, well, i suppose i'll just have to live with it (sigh). see you!

futile efforts

hi again. this would be peter, of course. my mom quit. strange, isn't it, how five minutes ago i was sitting in this same place, complaining to the world about how i never wanted to blog, but my mom bribed me into it, and now here i am again, drawn by the irresistible pull of another dollar to my name. anyway, i was thinking about how my mom tries to sell us on the idea that designing toddlers clothes was "cool." you should hear her at dinner. "so, who wants to see my new dress design?" (utter silence) "hey, i think i'll show you my new dress design." (groans) "hey, guys..." and so on. what this goes to show, i can't figure out, so i'll think about it and write again later...

maybe sometime in the next century, if you're lucky. - P.W.

taking over

hi. peter wilson here. recently, my mom told me that she was too lazy to run a blog, and i could take over if i wanted. so, i'll give it a try. now, of course she wants me to write something real deep about the trauma of being the kid of a fashion designer. yeah, right. half the time, i barely know what's going on in that mysterious "sewing room" of hers. anyway, i decided to take the job, though without the generous offer of a buck per blog, it probably wouldn't have happened. scratch that. it definitely wouldn't have happened. but, here i am, so i might as well resign myself to the inevitable.

Announcing our new websites!

OK, I know it's been awhile. Blogging has taken second... third... well, not first place for awhile. I've been up to creating a new brand for tweens, and a new website to go with it: southstreetclothing.com.

We've also moved pixyworld to .com as well. And we're working on getting our supply chain and our sales chain running more smoothly. It's a lot for a brand-new brand, so be patient with us! :)

A Hybrid Model for Garment Production

The traditional model seems so wasteful: make $20,000 worth of samples which you will distribute to your showrooms, ALL of which cost 3X the standard garment production cost, FEW to NONE of which will ever be sold to recoup any of the money.

In launching Pixyworld, we just couldn't do it. Why not do a real production run right off the bat, with reasonable production costs, and sell direct to the retail customer, at a reasonable retail price?

Well, this approach turned out not to be the whole solution either. Selling to the retail customer, "cold," without brand recognition, turned out to be unworkably slow. We realized that retailers and showrooms do provide a valuable service to the designer, especially the new designer.

So we have begun giving samples to showrooms and taking wholesale orders. Mind you, the samples we are giving them cost a fraction of the typical sample cost. Also, we believe we are giving retailers a much-needed option: to buy small quantities for immediate shipment, rather than ordering large quantites 6 months in advance. In today's retail climate, retailers need this kind of flexibility.

But there are still two down sides to this approach: First, it limits our sales potential to what we actually have in stock. Our fabrics, to date, are non-reorderable; so we have no way of taking orders for more garments than we had made initially. Second, we are finding that many retailers, used to the season-ahead ordering system, simply don't have money to spend on orders for immediate shipment; they have already spend this season's money, last season.

So our idea is to move toward a hybrid approach: make a moderate-sized first production run, rather than making samples. Make these garments available for immediate sale. But design the garments so that they are also re-orderable. This way, we can also be taking orders to be filled at the beginning of the next season.

This approach can only work if our collections are extremely versatile, season-wise. Also, it will only work while we are small enough to avoid the stigma attached to "last season's" designs. But those are exactly our strengths. Perhaps this can be a way forward for today's new boutique line.