Day Seven Hundred and Thirty!

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Day Seven Hundred and Thirty!

OK so this is embarrassing! When I first became self employed I started writing my blog…a sort of day in the life of a designer type thing! I got to Day Three then clearly got too busy or bored of writing….. I can’t remember which and here we are on Day Seven Hundred and Thirty! OOPS!

So how on earth do I update you all on the missing seven hundred and twenty seven days since I last blogged?! Well I will try and do it quickly now, then over the next few weeks write some more specific blog posts about the big events that have occurred in my own life and the life of my brand!

OK so first of all we have re-branded from ‘Fazane Malik’ Limited Edition Womenswear to ‘Fazane Malik’ ENGLAND….this is because we now have proper international stockists and with my name not being particularly English sounding I wanted to clarify this point as British brands are very sought after abroad!

This is our new logo:

 Fazane Malik England Logo

We started being stocked by a Chinese boutique based in Shanghai around a year ago called SoMi who are also helping us to secure other wholesale accounts with other boutiques and retailers across China. The second one and most recently (we just shipped the collection) is Boudoir Shop who are based in Greece but sell throughout Europe! It’s all very exciting and we have had an enquiry through from a boutique in India just today so fingers crossed that one works out!

I’ve been crazy busy the rest of the time clearly! I won ‘Midlands Independent Designer of the Year 13/14’ last year which was very exciting and has helped to open up a lot of doors for me!

Fazane Malik On the Catwalk After her show (LR)

…yes that’s me on the catwalk just before I got my award looking all shy! I’m wearing my #Shannon Jumpsuit BTW!

I decided not to enter this year as I have been so busy and felt that I needed to concentrate on other things. However I did offer to help out or at least pass on the award to the next winner but I didn’t even get an invite to the show which makes me a little sad!

Anyway I recently got another award too….’Runner Up Entrepreneur of the Year 2014′ at the Nottingham Post Women In Business Awards which was beyond exciting!

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To explain why I won this award you need to know about the second arm to my business I now have which I set up in mid 2013…around Day One Hundred and Twenty!

 Fazane Fox Apparel production & development

For this part of my business I work with small to medium sized retailers and brands on their production and development either here in the UK or in China as I have lots of experience from my previous job (see Day One for more info!). I started this with the help of Alison my fashion mentor from Fashion Angel as I was really struggling to make ends meet with my label alone and realised I needed to bring in another income stream to help fund it!

Amazingly I found a niche in the market with my services and business has never been better! There are so many amazing designers that just don’t have the knowledge, skills or contacts to transfer their design into reality and that’s where I step in! To date I have worked with over 12 amazing brands ranging from resort wear to maternity, high fashion to streetwear and even gardening clothing for women! I’ve even been discussing making sofa covers for someone today! I barely do any marketing as the service is so niche so quite honestly the future is super exciting in that area…just imagine where I could be with it in a few years time! I’ve also started working with a number of freelancers to do each part of the process and am project managing each project….much like I used to do in my last job!

It really compliments my label as my clients have more trust in me as they can see I’m running a label too so have more trust in me….and the contacts I make through the production arm help to inform my label too! So much so that I am now looking at UK production for my own label instead of China where I get it manufactured now.

It was because of the introduction of the second arm to my business and the way I run them side by side that the judges felt I should be in the running for ‘Entrepreneur of the Year’ and out of over 100 businesses I made it to the finals…and finally Runner Up! Amazing!

In other news I am now 3 collections along since my last post….SS14, AW14 and the latest collection SS15 which will launch in January for pre-order with all items being available for purchase from April!

small for website

Lots of other things have happened in my business life in the Seven Hundred and Twenty Seven Days since I last blogged but I’m going to save them for another post or I’ll be here all day!

Personally however….I got married!…I’m now Mrs Fazane Fox! This is me and my WONDERFUL husband on our wedding day and yes I designed my dress!

Fazane Malik Bridal

You can see more pictures over on my Bespoke Bridal Service Page as yes I now offer a made to measure service!!

Anyway I’m going to sign off now and tell you more stories another day….

Thanks for Reading!

Much Love

Fazane!

xxx

By | 2017-06-14T22:53:50+00:00 December 2nd, 2014|Blog|0 Comments