Thursday, May 19, 2005

..on making a dollar out of 15 cents.......

It all started with a conversation with my marketing consultant......pretty inocuous really. We sat in a cafe along the fashion row of Brooklyn's Fulton Street.... As I sipped coffee and sthough aabout whether these eggs really were "Egg's Benedict", we discussed the ways in which a perosn could approacht he fashion market as a profession as oppossed to an ego-boost. She shared strategies and tips and I just drank it all in.

As our conversation drew to a close, I realized that in all of our discussion, she had not suggested print or media advertising..........what about a website (surely EVERYONE has to have a website , right?) - As a veteran of the handmade industry, with a crochet design company under her belt, she encouraged me against print or web presence......"Unless you know how many items you can get out within what amount of time - you are going to be in a world of trouble when interest hits. .......cause when it "hits" you had better be ready for it....."

I thought about all of this when I returned to work that Monday (and they WERE Eggs Benedict - this verified by my Sous Chef husband!)........With the aforementioned 15 cents in my pocket, I began surfing the web, continually looking at website designs, preparing for that fateful day when I TOO would have a website....scanning for what looked right.....seeing what the standard was and noting successful techniques for mounting picture online......and then I found them - Tara Handknits, two women, in California who had an unbelievable 6 Groups of products - I mean they had the hat, the scarves, the gloves, the children's hats, the mittens, the legwarmers, the curtains, the towel sets (with or without monogram!)

I mean really they had it ALL.......

....Wait a minnit
....how the heck did they do this.....
...I know the RULE - I heard it from my marketing consultant - you're not allowed to have a website (see how I hear things?!) unless you KNOW where and how your hand made items are going to be produced....

Riled up and ready to go, I searched their website to find out where the little 7 year old blind girls were that were being contracted to make these items (who were probably making them in the basement of an abandoned building no less!)...

....but found no such girls - blind or otherwise! - I found thatthese two sisters had developed a relationship with ACP - the Association of Craft Producers located in Kathmandu, Nepal. I began to search "knitters cooperatives" and WOW - the rest is history.

Sue Rock Originals - the beginning........

sue rock originals came out of the need to bring the classic tradition of crochet to the growing handknit and crochet marketplace. We are design company that has produced of a line of hand crocheted seasonal accessories and clothing. We will be launching a travel bag in the fall that has been produced in collaboration with the men and women of Rwanda and Kenya. Their knitting and crochet cooperatives have been key in making this possible.

Without any liquid capital and in an effort to "make a dollar out of 15 cents" I searched the internet for crochet patterns. These wound up being the initial pieces to a now extensive vintage pattern collection spanning the early 1920’s to today. Ebay would be next – as the resource for first purchases of yarn. Its back and forth correspondence style between buyer and seller encouraged a wonderful sense of community. One relationship afforded a remarkable windfall – all of the remaining stock from the yarn store she had closed 3 years ago (at 10 cents on the dollar!). As I surveyed the mounting patterns and now non-stop boxes coming to my door, I marveled – "God must certainly have a plan for this….."

Hats turned to scarves and scarves turned to skirts. As the retail market continued to flood with Mexican made ponchos and imported Chinese scarves, I diligently worked on crochet fedoras, bubble cloches and dense, tailored men’s accessories. A chance meeting with marketing consultant Jada Goodlet turned the direction of the company to a whole new perspective – a line of travel accessories in rich fabrics and wonderful colors for the high end travel market. But how to have these items created easily and affordably? Enter Cari Clement, originator of the Fiber and Craft Entrepreneurial Development Center (FACED), one of the Centers for Social Responsibility located in Kigali, Rwanda and a thriving knitter’s cooperative. With her and Liz Wald of EDImports, sue rock originals has the samples for its travel line and the beginnings of a thriving business relationship.

Through working with people such as Jada Goodlet of Goodlet Consulting, Liz Wald of EDImports, the United Nations Micro Economic Development Group and businesses like 4W Circle of Arts and Enterprise in Brooklyn, sue rock originals will most assuredly be successful.

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