I
was recently looking over my ‘about me’ page and realised over two years have
passed and life’s changed a lot! So, I
thought I would update it and collaborate it with a kind of end of year
reflective post so all you guys can see where I am at with work and life!
WHO
AM I?
Good
question!! I’m Emily and I am the
director of a [K.I.D.S] ltd which is
an acronym for kid’s inspiration and design services. As a business, we offer creative trends and
design solutions to a host of international brands and retailers. We also produce a seasonal kidswear trend
publication that offers creative inspiration to boutique brands, retailers,
studios and freelance designers. This
year we have also launched our first e-course on trend forecasting which went
live over the summer!
I
also strongly believe in sharing knowledge and both giving back to your community
and future generations. I think it’s
really important to share your skills and knowledge with people to give them
support and guidance in how they can pursue their dream careers in the fashion
industry. I do this through my e-courses
and by teaching on university courses in my field.
SO
REALLY WHO AM I?
I
am married to my husband Jamie and we have two small children Alfred who is
three and Elsie who is one. We live in a
village called Isleham near Cambridge where we have been renovating and reviving
an old barn conversion to call home.
I
see work as just a part of my life and I am passionate about spending as much
time as possible with my children and enjoying life. Outside of my office hours you will find me
out on adventures with my kids, in the garden and allotment growing and
preserving foods, cooking or walking with Alfred, Elsie and our Jack Russel
Tilly around Isleham.
My
Instagram feed pretty much sums up our lives as a family and me as a working
mum!
MY
JOURNEY TO TODAY…
Although
it sounds cliché, I had always wanted to design clothes since a really young
age. I don’t think I knew I wanted to be
a ‘designer’ as such but I loved making clothing out of any material I could
get my hands on and you would always find me in the craft corner at Nursery.
During
my younger years I lived on a small arable farm near Cambridge with my Mum, Dad
and Sister with my Grandparents and my Aunt and Uncle living across the
yard. We had ponies, ducks, chickens, Dogs,
Cats, Frogs, Peacocks, Tractors and Combines!!
It was a really safe and precious childhood where I roamed acres of land
building dens, daydreaming in the sunshine and gluing and sticking indoors on a
rainy day. It was pretty idyllic and I
feel lucky every day for the childhood I feel so privileged to have enjoyed!
As
I got older and education started to get all serious, I excelled in subjects
like Art and Design and got by in all the other more academic subjects. I feel
so sad, now that I have my own children, that the education system has changed little
since I was a child and curriculum is so general and tests seem to be the only
reflection of a child’s progress and achievement – how silly and outdated is
this? I wish I could sign my two out of
any tests and instead merit them for what makes them individual and acknowledge
that although maths, English etc.. are thoroughly important life will not stop
if you don’t master ALL subject’s. Life
is one big lesson and I hope they learn as much in their seventies as they do
when they are seven! Anyway, maybe that’s
for another blog post!
I
left school with a good set of grades and (reluctantly) attended Sixth Form
College at the time! In all honesty I
didn’t really enjoy sixth Form at all.
Although I was always in the art department (taking Art, Photography, Technology
and History of Art) I found that I was being taught how to pass an exam rather
than developing my creativity, which really frustrated me and almost made me
losse passion in the subjects I loved!
However,
I persisted in order to get that ticket to Art Foundation then onto
University. My A-Level grades were pretty
disappointing and even made me doubt about continuing with education in all
honesty, but I put it down to a bad experience and applied and got accepted
onto an Art Foundation course YAY! For
those of you that maybe live abroad or are unfamiliar with what an Art
Foundation course is; it’s a one-year course that allows you to develop a
portfolio ready to apply for art school in the UK.
Art
foundation was one of the best years of my life! Thank goodness I stuck at those dull
A-Levels! For a whole year I got to
experiment with every aspect of design; graphics, fashion, textiles, ceramics,
sculpture – you name it - I did it! I had
some really great tutors and a fantastic year group supporting me. I was proud of every bit of work I produced
and excited about taking my portfolio to University interviews at the end of
the year.
UNIVERSITY
I
applied to a number of Universities (like all students in the UK) and was lucky
enough to get my first choice, which was the Surrey Institute of Art and Design
which later was to become UCA University for the Creative Arts in case you look
it up now! I chose this University as it
offered the perfect course for me and it was just on the edge of London so I
could shoot in for studies and socialising (and a bit of shopping) It is also a
smaller art school so you become an individual and don’t get lost in the crowds
and I really liked that.
So,
in September 2003 I packed up my shiny new mac laptop (that I saved allll
summer to buy) along with my other prized possessions, loaded up my dad’s car
and moved down to Sunny Surrey to start my degree in Fashion Design! It was all a very new experience, living on
my own, living in a big city after living on a farm in the country for so long,
but I settled in, made friends and got on with my work!
I
didn’t really enjoy my first year at University and in reflection I put it down
to huge life changes at the time for someone of nineteen years of age and I
didn’t 100% enjoy the format of the first year of the degree AND I didn’t like
my tutor either! Sound like lots of
negatives but I arrived back at university after a long summer of had work in
Bars back home and returned a much older and wiser twenty year old! This year I really threw myself into my
studies and got everything I wanted back – a great time, great work and great
grades – smiles all round J !
During
the summer holidays of my second year I worked back home for a couple of months
to save for my final year AND booked a ticket for a two week trip to India and
ignited my passion for travel and well and truly caught the travel bug!!! You may have read some of my travel posts
that I add to the blog when I’m aboard!
I returned to University in 2006 for my third and final year full of
eagerness and excitement.
Like
the majority of student’s I had to take out a HUGE scary loan (which I’m still
paying off now!) to get through university.
With the thought of the debt I taken on and the knowing that I really
have to start earning some money soon (hopefully in the fashion industry) I put
my head down for the year and worked my little socks off – although I still
found time for some fun too!!!
My
third year consisted of a work placement (which I did at Plain Lazy in
Brighton) two major projects and a dissertation. I passed with flying colours and graduated in
2007 with two very proud parents along side me!!
HOW
DID THE BLOG START?
Now
I guess that’s where the story beguins… It is also when my blog was born; I had
to find ways to promote myself as a graduate designer and wanted to set up a
website, however, I hadn’t the knowledge (or the cash) to do so. Instead I started a blog (this blog) posted
all if my projects on it and sent the details out to prospective employers. At every interview I attended people
complimented me on my little blog and they and they had all taken the time to
look at it. Starting my blog was one of
the best spent mornings of my life!
EARLY
CAREER
I
was so lucky that I found myself with a job as a designer a few weeks after
graduating! I worked for a small
supplier in north London designing product and print and graphics for a variety
of brands. This is when I really
developed my skills in Illustrator, Photoshop etc… I rented a room in a bedsit, made a whole
load of cool new friends and survived on a shoestring! I also blogged some of my exciting work along
the way too which if you look back in the 2008 section you may be able to see
eeeekkkk!!!
After
a year I moved into central London and worked for a variety of suppliers over a
few years and had the time of my life designing by day and partying by night! When I wasn’t partying, I was designing my own
prints and graphics and soon started working for a little design studio called
Lemon Ribbon. My prints started to sell
to loads of brands and retailer’s all-over the world too which was really
exciting!! I blogged some of these too!
At
this point in my life I was dating Jamie (my now husband) who lived over a
hundred miles away. I was working crazy
hours, design prints late at night, partied a bit and begun to miss the
countryside and found myself returning back home, or to the bjamies on the
coast most weekends. I was starting to
feel sad about having to spend the rest of my working years in London and never
having the chance to enjoy the great outdoors like I used to. So. after much debating and wondering and
discussing and talking and thinking a bit more I decided to go freelance! I’d got a good client base from my prints
that were selling and a few contacts from years of working so with support from
my parents and boyfriend I went for it in 2011 and have never looked back!
GOING
FREELANCE
To
save money and so I could live with Jamie we moved back towards Cambridge to a
lovely home where we bought two dogs, some ponies and we (or rather I started a
vegetable garden) I set up a little design studio in the spare room and started
putting my heart and soul into designing prints, doing fashion design
consultancy work and blogging!
I
worked freelance for four years while we lived at our first home! Jamie and I got married and our son Alfred
who was born in 2014 was closely followed by Elsie in 2016!
FREELANCE
ADVICE
Promoting
yourself as a freelance designer is one of the most important things. I was lucky that my blog has done that for me
without me having to put that much effort into it. I seem to get a huge amount of hits and pop
up on peoples Google searches all the time, which is great! In total I’ve had well over a million
hits! I’ve never got involved with
promoting my blog, accepting advertising offers of so called sponsorship
deals. I’ve just tried to keep it
straightforward and to the point. I
share my trend work and the odd piece of print too and that’s about it - I hope
you like it!
STARTING
[K.I.D.S] LTD
The
year of 2014 was a really REALLY busy year!!!
My freelance work had been going great and I had noticed I was beginning
to specialise in helping clients launch and re-launch brands, offering creative
design support to boutique brands and retailers and my trend information was
being heavily sought after. I decided to
then start a proper business focusing on these elements which is where I am at
today. The business is growing and I
have brought a lot of my old freelance contacts on for the journey!
Two
days (yes two days) after having Elsie we moved into a new barn conversion
which gave us lots more space for our growing family and room to establish a
proper office space.
That
kinda brings me to the end or at least up to the current day! I’d love to hear if this post has been useful
to anyone or if anyone has any more questions that I can answer for them?
x
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