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First blog post
This is the post excerpt.
Developing My Talent Pool
My 11 year old brought me several clothing designs she’d come up with, inspired by the cartoons she’d been watching. Since it will be a while before Margaret Lawton’s launch, I can contemplate developing my talent pool.
-My daughter loves creating things. I’m thinking Production.
-The neighbor kid has an uncanny gift for putting together stylish, classy and eye catching clothing combinations. I’m thinking Stylist and Design.
-The second neighbor kid has leadership capabilities and makes work fun.
-The third, a bossy little 4 year old, definitely C-level material.
–The babysitter has forgone college to create little sewn products on Esty. I’m thinking Design & Production.
-One of my little nieces, long legged and bi-racial with the face of an angel, would be a great model if I can get her to sit still.
-My other little niece is a self teaching go-getter…I’m thinking she can do anything in front of her.
None have reached puberty yet, except the babysitter, so I have a little time to develop this amazing pool of raw talent into a highly skilled, productive working design and development and production. I pay them in back scratches and snacks.
She Laughed When I Asked if it Was Her Daughter’s Bra
I was folding clothes at my neighbor’s house. We get together often to share meals among ourselves and our combined mob of children. Putting clothes into piles according to person, I asked if this was her daughter’s bra…the 12 year old’s.
She laughed…it was hers.
Once she told me she had “dressed up” to come to my house because she was wearing a bra.
I guess not everyone needs to wear a bra, or sleep in one. Nonetheless, an informal survey of my friends indicated that half of them slept in their bras, myself included.
I have several pieces of lingerie from my mother’s trousseau. She got married in the late 50’s. As a kid, playing dress-up, I fell completely in love with the dreamy, flowing fabric and how if made me feel like a princes. One of the things that I love about the pieces today is the built in support.
There are some brands today that offer support in their gowns. When I can combine that with contemporary and traditional fabrics, echoing the vintage styles I fell in love with as a teenager, I’ll have something special to share with you.
Putting the Kids to Bed
I have a day job and a night job. The little startup I work for during the day had been immensely successful, and I am hoping to emulate their creative, unstoppable spirit that has floated them to the top. At night, it’s about being the mom for my little girl and two nieces who now live with my husband and me. Then, it’s about being the wife until he heads off to work in the morning.
My plan is to take what I have learned about sales, marketing and startups to launch a little clothing line (lingerie/nightgowns-think Grace Kelly). There is much leg work to do before getting to production, and later launching. For the time being, I am devouring all I can about what things need to be lined up, what resources are out there for a small startup like mine, and who I can meet along the way. I am hopeful we can help each other out.
Getting Started
I sit here like the artist with a blank canvas. It is exciting to put the pieces of the puzzle of a new business together.
I sit here like the artist with the blank canvas. It is exciting to put the pieces of the puzzle of a new business together. There are many resources for me to draw on, and I’ve found there will be times that I need certain resources to find other resources. Who would have expected it would be so difficult to find a pattern-maker in the US that would make patterns for lingerie. What Margaret Lawton intends is not strappy, but flowing, not edgy but timeless.
Once I find this pattern-maker(s), I’ll need to do sourcing. I’ve found that this is trickier than one would think as folks don’t really want to talk to me until I have certain things in place such as a business license. Oh well, I have a few years prior to production anyway.
I want to start with as much cash as possible, and not get into borrowing money. I work for a start-up in my day time job, and we just got $40 million in VC money, so maybe I will change my story once I get started.
So off I go to getting started. My objective today is to set up a CRM, and I’m using Hubspot. We use it at my day job. It’s free and nimble and I’m ready to get started. I have some wonderful professionals with whom I am connected on Linkedin and Twitter.
Margaret Lawton Getting Started 