Two years ago I started working at a nightclub in Newcastle called Digital. I made friends with another Rachel who was hired at the same time as myself. We share a lot of interests, and although I hate to admit it, she's like a better version of myself. We started tie dying clothes together at her house. We were just playing with patterns and old clothes, but we had a lot of fun.
As planned, I left the UK to travel Australia for three months. This trip broadened my mind a Hell of a lot. Although travelling may seem exciting, it leaves you with a lot of spare time sat in airports and on Greyhound buses. Armed with a sketchbook and a pack of coloured pencils I started designing.
I have always been creative, and have drawn clothing for as long as I can remember, but I have never had too much confidence in my art skills to study design at uni. But I do like to draw nonetheless.
I decided to make a few of my designs come to life, and when I returned to the UK I moved back to Manchester, got a part-time job in a bar, and started saving for equipment.
After a month or so I had saved up enough money to buy dyes and invest in a supplier. Whenever I had some spare time on my hands I was using it to create my designs. Each design took roughly about a week to make, and usually a further week to find a photographer and list them online.
To begin with, a lot of interest was shown in my designs, and I was making a nice profit. However, I didn't start designing to make money, I do it because it's something I enjoy doing.
One of my lecturers at uni ran a small market fair in the canteen one Wednesday, and invited the students and staff of the faculty to run stalls of their own. I took part in this, and began creating new stock. As it was close to Halloween, I even rolled out some special stock. This was a great experience, and preparing to run a market stall was hectic. I made bunting, flyers, stickers, a look book, custom forms, labels, and other decorations. I got my photographer to help me, and take photos on the day. It was a long day, and a long week leading up to it, but it was really fantastic in the end.
This helped me learn more about my brand too. I could see, first hand, what people thought of Wharfrats, and the specific market it was attracting. Operating a store online is cheap and easy, but you will rarely ever get to meet your customers, and this can be a huge disadvantage. From experience, I know how difficult it can be to receive feedback on your products when selling online. Although I have never had any bad feedback from any of my products, I almost feel insulted that someone wouldn't want to leave me any kind of feedback. But I do live by the motto "no news is good news".
I have decided to create a new range for my brand, and as I am in the process of creating this new range, I thought I would share some of my favourite items I currently have in stock.
All stock is available in my Etsy store here.
