Interviews | ASV

Jenny Holloway: Paving the Way for Ethical Fashion Manufacturing

Aga Segurana — Mon, 18 Sep 2023 08:00:56 +0000

At ASV, we’re making it our mission to share as much information with our incredible ASV Collective as we possibly can. BUT we can’t do this alone, so we’ve roped in some amazing female entrepreneurs to help us out, offer advice, and provide some inspiration to all of us.

This week we have reached out to Jenny Holloway, founder of Fashion Enter and Fashion Capital.

A few months ago, we held our first ASV Collective panel talk, which focussed on funding and scaling a fashion business. One of our incredible guest speakers was Jenny Holloway, who offered some completely invaluable and inspiring advice for our group of female fashion founders.

But with such good advice on how to reach out to buyers, how to write funding proposals, and how to sustainably and ethically scale production, we didn’t think it was fair that other fashion founders missed out.

So we reached out to Jenny, who kindly agreed to summarise some of the points discussed at the event.

Where did the idea behind Fashion Enter and Fashion Capital come from?

I had lost my brand after ten years hard work to an unscrupulous fashion person who I had foolishly trusted. I ended up losing everything – including the house that was tied into the business. I felt a complete fool! I vowed that I would help designers to not make the same silly mistakes that I had made and hence FEL was born in 2006. FashionCapital.co.uk was actually created in 2001 and was my first job after I had lost my brand. I was working for the Government and supported new designers by creating a site that would provide all information free of charge to help creatives.

You’ve had over 25 years of experience in the fashion industry. How do you think the industry has evolved over that time?

These last two years have been a dramatic transformation towards digital technologies – everything is changing at pace, and it’s important to embrace the new ways, but remember that skills are still so important such as pattern cutting and stitching.

And where do you think the fashion industry is heading?

Definitely, I’m seeing a major step away from mass consumerisation and far more concern regarding who made my clothes and if they were ethically made. Recycling and upcycling is now a major growing area, and seeing designs in 3D technologies before making final samples is increasing in popularity.

With your experience in buying, what is the number one mistake designers make when approaching buyers for the first time?

Being unprepared to give “absolute” and “full” information. You need to go into that meeting to know what price you want to sell at and what price is your absolute minimum. Also, not being prepared to know the buyer and their full range of responsibilities.

What advice would you give to designers who are reaching out to manufacturers?

Go and visit and feel the factory. Do you have a good buzz from it? Trust your instincts here.

What are the main things to focus on when increasing production size?

Are you really going to sell each size and quantity? Reduce to a minimum, then fast repeats. Cash flow is King!

How important do you think it is for designers to keep sustainability in mind when increasing production? And what would your advice be for this?

It’s totally imperative to know the ethos of your brand, and heritage, and this means ethics as well as sustainability. It’s absolutely fine to say the ranges are made from end-of-rolls or deadstock fabrics, but don’t be something you are not. Think about how the consumer perceives it, and watch your grammar!

What would your advice be for fashion founders who are looking to secure funding to support their businesses?

Absolutely go for everything you can and go for the max. This is where you need to review your ten-point plan and have a variety of USPs to understand the business tools such as Boston Matrix and 7ps of marketing. Be on it. Live and breathe your brand.

What would be your number one piece of advice to fashion brand founders?

You need to be the master of all trades not the jack of all trades, and be resilient. This is a tough journey ahead, but it can also be so rewarding. Believe!

A huge thank you to Jenny for taking the time to answer these questions so thoughtfully. We hope you found our interview as inspiring as we did!

For more inspiration, be sure to follow us on Instagram and subscribe to our newsletter.

Speak soon,

Your ASV family xx

The post Jenny Holloway: Paving the Way for Ethical Fashion Manufacturing first appeared on ASV.

Meet Rachel Harris, Founder of Accountant She

Aga Segurana — Sun, 23 Jul 2023 08:34:44 +0000

At ASV, we’re making it our mission to share as much information with our incredible ASV Collective as we possibly can. BUT we can’t do this alone, so we’ve roped in some amazing female entrepreneurs to help us out, offer advice, and provide some inspiration to all of us.

This week we have reached out to Rachel Harris, founder of Accountant She, because when starting a business, one of the things that can be the most scary to understand is the finances.

Rachel Harris is disrupting what it means to be an accountant, a business owner and an employer in 2023. She is a TEDx speaker, content creator, author, business owner and, most importantly… an accountant! Rachel adds value to her audience of 30,000 by creating completely free long and short-form content delivering financial education. She is passionate about free financial education for everyone, she is the founder of @accountant_she, striveX accountants, striveX audit, striveX consulting and striveX mortgages.

Yes. She’s pretty qualified to help us out with a few questions we had about helping our community of fashion founders conquer their finances…

What are your top tips for financial organisation?

1. Separate Personal and Business Finances
Open a separate bank account for your business and use it exclusively for business transactions. This separation will simplify record-keeping, ensure accurate financial reporting, and make tax preparation easier.

2. Implement a Bookkeeping System
Establish a consistent bookkeeping system to track income and expenses. This can be done manually or with the help of accounting software. Regularly update your records and reconcile bank statements to ensure accuracy.

3. Maintain Organised Records
Keep all financial documents, such as receipts, invoices, and bank statements, in an organised manner. This will facilitate easy retrieval of information for audits, tax filings, and financial analysis.

4. Develop a Budget
Create a budget that outlines your projected income and expenses. This will help you set financial goals, track your spending, and make informed decisions about resource allocation.

5. Monitor Cash Flow
Regularly monitor your cash flow to ensure you have enough funds to cover expenses and identify potential cash shortages. Cash flow management is essential for maintaining liquidity and meeting financial obligations.

6. Control Expenses
Review your expenses regularly and identify areas where you can reduce costs. Negotiate with vendors for better pricing, consider alternative suppliers, and evaluate the necessity of each expense item.

7. Invoice Promptly and Follow up on Payments
Send invoices promptly and establish a system for following up on unpaid invoices. Encourage timely payments from customers to improve your cash flow.

8. Plan for Taxes
Stay informed about tax obligations specific to your business and plan for them throughout the year. Set aside funds for taxes and maintain accurate records to facilitate tax preparation.

9. Seek Professional Advice
Consider consulting with an accountant or financial advisor to get expert guidance on financial matters. They can help with tax planning, financial analysis, and provide valuable insights to improve your financial management practices.

10. Review Financial Reports
Regularly review financial reports such as profit and loss statements, balance sheets, and cash flow statements. Analyse key performance indicators (KPIs) and use them to make informed decisions about your business’s financial health and future strategies.

What's the biggest myth about accounting for small businesses that needs to be squashed?

Accounting is not just about recording financial transactions and submitting tax returns. It provides so many amazing insights into the financial health, performance of a business and the financial wellbeing of the founder!

What's the most common mistake small businesses make in regards to finance?

One of the most common mistakes small businesses make in regards to finance is small business owners failing to keep their personal and business finances separate. Separating your business finances from your personal finances is one of the quickest, easiest and most impactful changes you can implement into your business from the very beginning!

What number one tool would you recommend to small business owners to look after their finances?

I would recommend using accounting software to really lean into your numbers and take control of your business! Accounting software provides numerous benefits and can streamline financial management processes. This can cover bookkeeping and expense tracking, financial reporting and time efficiency. We teach all of our clients to use accounting software to conduct a monthly financial wellbeing routine within their business which includes planning for cash, tax planning and setting goals for their business!

At what point should a small business owner reach out to an accountant such as yourself for help?

There are many points in your business journey when it’s important to reach out to an accountant. This could be when you’re setting up a business or changing company types. Tax Planning and Compliance.

An accountant can help optimise your tax position, ensure compliance with relevant tax laws, identify potential deductions and credits, and file accurate tax returns. But most importantly, an accountant can change the way you feel about your finances. You should get an accountant when you want one, is my best advice!

What made you decide to take the leap and start your own company?

Ooh juicy question! I wanted to do better. I trained at a top 75 accountancy practice, so I was technically qualified at a very high level, but I wanted to take that top-tier service and apply it with people at the centre of everything. Financial education is something that is not taught at schools, and so for me, my content and my business is the way that I can do that on a scale!

As an entrepreneur yourself, what advice would you give to those looking to start their business? And for those looking to scale up?

My main advice would be to define your vision and have clear business goals in mind.

Streamline Operations and Processes
Review your existing operations and identify areas where you can improve efficiency and productivity. Automate repetitive tasks, streamline workflows, and leverage technology to optimise your processes.

Invest in Marketing and Sales
Develop a robust marketing strategy to reach a wider audience and attract new customers. Utilise various marketing channels, including digital marketing, social media, content marketing, and targeted advertising. Invest in sales initiatives, customer relationship management, and lead generation to drive growth.

Build a Strong Team
As your business scales, focus on hiring and retaining top talent. Assess the skills and expertise needed to support growth and fill key roles in your organisation. Foster a positive work culture, provide opportunities for professional development, and empower your team to contribute to the business’s success.

You've also gained a great following online - how did you build this community?

I have! Our community is now 30,000 small business owners who want to feel better about their finances! Consistency, community and clarity around my audience and goals has been the secret for me. I’ve always been crystal clear on who my audience is, how I can add the most value to them and what my role is within the industry.

A huge thank you to Rachel for taking the time to answer these questions so thoughtfully. We hope you found our interview as interesting and helpful as we did! Give Rachel a follow on Instagram.

If you’d love to read more interviews with amazing individuals, head to the blog. For more inspiration, be sure to follow us on Instagram and subscribe to our newsletter.

Speak soon,

Your ASV family xx

The post Meet Rachel Harris, Founder of Accountant She first appeared on ASV.

Meet Layla Sargent, Founder of The Seam

Alice Martin — Thu, 27 Apr 2023 12:39:01 +0000

At ASV, we’re making it our mission to share as much information with our incredible ASV Collective as we possibly can. BUT we can’t do this alone, so we’ve roped in some amazing female entrepreneurs to help us out, offer advice, and provide some inspiration to all of us. So we reached out to Layla Sargent, founder of fashion alteration and repair giant, The Seam.

Layla conceptualised The Seam in 2019. The brand is designed as a way to connect consumers and tailors with the aim of reducing waste from fast fashion by repairing or altering clothes. With an online network of over 700 makers across Greater London, serving thousands of people who are booking their services, The Seam platform empowers wearers to have a personalised connection with their clothes.

We asked her a few questions about her business journey so far, and to offer some words of advice to our collective of female fashion founders…

What inspired you to create The Seam?

I spent my childhood with my Nan, a professional dressmaker, who lovingly tailored my clothes to fit and mended them when they became well worn. In my early teens, as the tallest and curviest in my peer group, my Nan’s skills enabled me to understand that the problem with awkward fit wasn’t my body, but the garment, itself. While my friends were swept up by disposable clothes and the rise of fast-fashion, I saw the hours my Nan put into my clothes and became more emotionally attached. I learned that alterations not only make people more comfortable and confident in their clothes, they form a bond between wearer and garment.

When I moved to London, and didn’t have my Nan’s skills on hand to make clothes fit, I experienced the options available to me – high street dry cleaners that felt impersonal, and savile row tailors that felt male-dominated and exclusive – and I wanted to create something more accessible.

What’s the most mind-blowing fact you’ve learnt about sustainability and the fashion industry?

It’s stunning how much a simple act of repairing an item in our wardrobe can have an impact on our environmental footprint. According to WRAP, extending the life of a garment by just nine months decreases its carbon, waste and water footprints by 20-30% each. This fact is a good reminder that repair can go beyond extending the life of the clothes we keep in heavy rotation. We also need to find ways to care and repair for garments before we part ways with them, so that clothing and footwear in a poor state of repair doesn’t enter the waste stream.

Do you think people’s relationships with clothes are changing?

Yes! Since founding The Seam, there’s been a surge in interest towards caring and repairing clothes. We’ve continued to see an increase in the number of people using The Seam’s services as well as the frequency at which customers return for other items in their wardrobes. What we see happening in The Seam’s business is just a reflection in a much wider shift towards a whole bunch of circular fashion behaviours, including rental and resale. We see all of these circular fashion behaviours are interconnected. Our Makers help repair garments in between rentals, as well as tailor preloved garments to fit their second and third owners and beyond.

What advice would you give to fashion brand founders who are looking to make sustainable choices for their businesses?

How long a garment is owned for, and remains in active use, is core to how sustainable it can be considered over its lifecycle. With this in mind, designing and making products to last a long time, both from a quality and emotional durability perspective should be a top consideration.

At The Seam, we partner with many brands to offer customers care and repair services, to aid them in making their pieces last. What we find is that we aren’t just able to extend the life of garments, we can also learn about what design elements could’ve been improved to make a longer-lasting product. When the brands we work with are interested in learning about how their pieces can be made more durable, our repair services are suddenly a critical feedback loop for business decision-making.

My advice would be to design for longevity, market your products around longevity in favour of quick trends, and then back up your business model with the services to make products last.

What have you learnt from starting a business (particularly as you founded the brand just before the pandemic and into these weird times we’re living in…)

Having founded The Seam just before the Covid pandemic, we shut down operations almost entirely for around 9 months in 2020 – of course it didn’t make sense to be sending people to Makers’ studios during lockdown. It was an uncertain time for a business which for many services required people to meet one another in person, but looking back, it gave me the opportunity to shut out the day-to-day operations and focus on strategy and big-picture thinking.

While the world has returned to normal, I would advise all new founders to really take the time to hone their vision before letting day-today operations come in and dictate priorities. Once you start to get customers, and Makers in the case of our 2-sided marketplace, your work becomes about satisfying expectations and meeting demands. Before you get to this point, it’s so important to carve out a clear vision for who you’re serving, what you stand for, and where you want to be in 1, 2, and 5 years’ time.

What are you most proud of in your business journey?

One of my proudest aspects of The Seam is how it’s changing the idea of freelance work for people with a variety of making skills. In the last 50 years, as clothing production has scaled up and offshored, the value of clothing has dropped dramatically, and so has the value that we as a society place on making skills. This reality is also interconnected with making skills being traditionally deemed as ‘women’s work’.

Being a Maker on The Seam means having access to well-paid, freelance work, where Makers have control over their hours, prices, and jobs. While I initially ideated The Seam based on my own perspective as a potential customer in need of alterations, I’ve also gotten to build a community that’s changing the opportunities available to tailors, cobblers, menders and all other kinds of talented specialists.

What's next for The Seam?

Having launched some exciting brand partnerships already this year, including Net-A-Porter and Mr Porter, we’re working to improve our customer journey, and simplify the logistics surrounding our services, to help people more seamlessly transport their repairs to and from their Maker with little to no effort. We’re working behind the scenes on some further brand partnerships and planning some exciting events for the summer months.

A huge thank you to Layla for taking the time to answer these questions so thoughtfully. We hope you found our interview as inspiring as we did! Learn more about the ASV Collective.

For more inspiration, be sure to follow us on Instagram and subscribe to our newsletter.

Speak soon,

Your ASV family xx

The post Meet Layla Sargent, Founder of The Seam first appeared on ASV.