Feel free to contact me to respond to any of my posts! Thanks for reading...
- Melody Wilson
3/31/09
Inventory in the Bedroom
I take comfort form the story Mary Gelhar tells in The Fashion Designer Survival Guide about a young designer who's apartment was so full of inventory, her husband had to take refuge at Starbucks to find a place to sit down. At least we're not that crowded!!
But it can't be denied that we do have Pixyworld inventory stacked in our bedroom. It's neatly stacked, and securely packed, but the fact remains that it's there.
Right where our next baby's crib should be, should there be a next. (Would Freud have something to say about that??)
Doubtless, we will soon move up to the dizzy heights of Having a Seaprate Warehouse. And I'm sure that, then, we will look back with fondness at the gritty days, down in the trenches, when we were sleeping amidst our products.
3/30/09
Puppy Love
My little girls have never been super into dolls, but they LOVE stuffed animals. (They love real animals too, only we can't have cats or dogs because of allergies.) So it seemed natural to do a Pixyworld collection with a pet animal theme, which I had to call Puppy Love.
The color combination really pops on this one. I did a design with these colors when I was selling customs on eBay, after a customer asked me to do something with puppies and kittens. I got a lot of enthusiastic comments on the colors, so I decided to make it one of Pixyworld's launching collections.
It has turned out to be a favorite with my girls. They pet the animals and even talk to them! It's nice to remember, in the midst of trying to run a viable business with good profits, etc., that it's really about making little girls happy.
3/29/09
DIY Webmastering
So, I find myself a webmaster (webmistress?? that sounds scandalous -- how about web queen?) by necessity, for my toddler girls' clothing site. Not because I love computers -- on the contrary!! But, because no other volunteers seemed to be materializing.
I've picked up a smattering of HTML along the way, thanks to some great online tutorials, including htmlcodetutorial.com. (Who writes these things, anyway??) And I've also had to enter the mysterious world of Reciprocal Linking and Top Sites Lists.
At one low point, I found myself drawn to sites like www.googlesux.com, after all the inbound links I had so carefully cultivated suddenly disappeared off of my google webmaster dashboard. But they have gradually reappeared, and when all is said and done, I figure we might as well accept our google thralldom and think about more interesting things.
So, for now, here I sit at my computer. I hope to carve out a little studio time amidst all the webmastering, one of these days....
3/28/09
It's In the Fit (that's where it is...)
There are so many thing that have to go right in garment production, to make a pleasing product. It's no wonder I find myself returning half the clothes I buy from Chadwick's, my cheap online clothing source.
But if I had to pick one detail that is make or break, it's fit. And I'd say that with the childrens' clothes I design, sizing is even more challenging, but just as important.
It's more challenging because children vary tremendously in both height and weight, whereas in standard adult women's sizing the differences are mainly in weight. (Fortunately we now have petites and talls, but even there, there is a relatively slight difference in height.)
I had a stress attack this morning, when looking at counter-samples made by an overseas factory we're working with. It was clear to me that they had done something to my patterns!! I agonize over my patterns, and what they had made was clearly proportioned wrong. Fortunately, having paid nothing yet, I was able to ask for another sample, after getting to the bottom of the problem.
Is overseas production worth this kind of stress?? The jury is still definitely out.
I might say the same for my design studio, the wellspring of Pixyworld children's fashion, should it ever be accused of being... shall we say, less than tidy? I had to admit to finding a large piece of unused marker paper the other day, after having made do without any (thinking I'd run out) for several days of pattern making.
But I like to class myself as "artistic" (as if that somehow explains the tendency to allow one's environment to become progressively less livable.) Or, there's the other great descriptive, "intensely focused." That's why I have to throw my scraps on the floor, rather than in the trash can. I'm just too focused to bother with mundane things like trash cans!
But I do clean up when the mess threatens to get in the way of my work. That's when I have no choice. And it's a great opportunity to rediscover wonderful things like old fabric samples, and get re-inspired by the new possibilities they open up!
At least I keep my creative clutter confined to one room. What more can my tidy husband ask? (Except to be able to see the studio floor so he can vacuum it...)
3/26/09
A New Look at Wholesale
It seems that with the advent of e-commerce, the rigid dividing lines between apparel wholesalers and retailers is softening, and Pixyworld is ready to step into a newer hybrid role. We have always been open, in theory, to wholesaling, but we seemed to have readier access to the retail market. Not to mention profit margin -- which is miniscule for our wholesale sales at present.
However, we've been getting more and more wholesale inquiries, and it's caused us to take another look at the potential there. I've never forgotten how, awhile back, Baby Gassy Gooma had a sliding scale for smaller wholesale orders. That works for us, and also seems to work well for smaller retailers who can't buy large quantities at first.
The ideal for us could be a happy medium -- retailing for the financial profit and the energizing effect of direct contact with the consumer; wholesaling to boost production quantities and increase brand recognition.
3/25/09
Little Kid/Big Kid -- and in beTween
If I've heard it once, I've heard it 100 times -- Pixyworld needs to add bigger sizes. Moms want it, girls want it. So this season we're adding sizes 6 and 7.
There is an age, though, where kids stop wearing matched sets. Not that all kids wore them before that age -- but they definitely go from cool to uncool somewhere around age 7. Funny, isn't it?
My two boys, 9 and 7, have made the transition. Now they don't just not match -- they usually clash. Boys' athletic clothes are sold as separates, for the most part, but that doesn't stop the manufacturers from putting all kinds of colors and stripes on them, hence the clash effect for boys!
It seems that beyond age 7 there's a need for a new look for girls, too. Limited Too is doing a great job appealing to tweens, but I've heard moms complain that their clothes look too old for their little girls. At any rate, a little more competition wouldn't hurt, right?
So maybe someday we'll have to start a new line for girls 6-12. So much designing to do, so little time!
3/24/09
Flower Power Colors
When I did my first manufacturing run for Pixyworld last year, I tried to choose colors that would appeal not just to me personally, but to a wide range of customer tastes.
For example, I had learned, through selling custom outfits on eBay, that in toddler girls' clothes, pink just sells. As an Autumn, I can't wear pink at all, so it's not a color I naturally gravitate to. (Though it looks gorgeous on my little Summery 4-year-old!)
At any rate, I had to let myself go on just one collection. For Flower Power I chose chocolate brown and violet -- really a periwinkle blue. For me, a beautiful color combination is a heady cocktail -- I was high on this one for weeks!
With Flower Power, the risk has paid off with great sales. I don't expect to hit it every time, but I sure do enjoy the ride....
3/23/09
Skinny Jeans: What's the Skinny??
When Pixyworld puts out our next jeans collection, what cut will make the cut?? According to MiniHipster.com, the skinny jean is here to stay. I have to say, when a company like BabyGap is selling them at full price, the prognosis does look good.
The tricky part is that right now we seem to be between trends, as evidenced by the plethora of choices available there. There's wide leg, straight, & boot cut; embroidered, whiskered, and appliqued.
Or, one could interpret it differently: perhaps we are actually entering an era of individuality when it comes to jean styles. Could it be??
My little girls have never been super into dolls, but they LOVE stuffed animals. (They love real animals too, only we can't have cats or dogs because of allergies.) So it seemed natural to do a 
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