Episode 11: Chic Happens

0:09Hello everyone and welcome to another episode of Pretty Busy. I've been pretty busy this morning and I booked an hour studio time and rocked up 50 minutes late so luckily we'll be talking about chic season today which I can just roll off the tongue because we're so excited for Chic to launch tomorrow by the time this episode goes out, which is super, super exciting. Starting with what's keeping me pretty. Now I had a few options for today, but I'm going to run with a new blush that I'm obsessed with, actually a new brand that I'm obsessed with. And that is sculpted by Amy. When I was back in London a few weeks ago, they have loads of taxis around London and they're running a series with the founder where they interview various people.

0:58So I did the interview and I obviously went home with some goodies and I feel like I've been living under a rock. Their product's really good. I'm wearing the Cushion Foundation today. Love the Hydra Tint. But I especially love the cream blush. I think the one that I'm wearing is called something Blossom. Just love how it applies, like super, super airbrush. Like I've not got a blush that applies like that. It's like a cream blush. I feel like I always have like powder or liquid. But I'm really enjoying that brand, but really enjoying the blushes. And then what's keeping me busy is obviously Chic Season.

1:34And that's why I wanted to do a full episode on Odd Muse in this season. Because one thing I keep saying is this season is not just a collection. It is everything that we've been working behind the scenes on coming into fruition. because stuff like this takes time. So I feel like for resort season this year, we was able to reshoot the whole website. We was able to plan an amazing campaign with kind of like a world behind it. But this chic season, we have had all the resources and all the work has come together so amazingly. All the new fabrics, all the new silhouettes, everything behind the scenes, everything that we've implemented internally.

2:19it just feels like a rebrand. So the reason I wanted to do an episode on this season is because I feel like customers see the final 5%. So the product, the website, the campaign, but there is truly so much work that goes on behind the scenes to really build this season out. And the way in which we're separating Odd Muse now is we always used to launch collections and now we kind of launch seasons. So we have four seasons a year. Jan, Feb, March is adulting. And the reason I named this adulting is because it's kind of like this time in, you know, also to side note, whenever we're thinking about these seasons, we're thinking about where our customer is in her world and in her life.

3:08So Jan, Feb, March to me, I called adulting because I just feel like it's this time where we're like really building out our wardrobes but building out like our new goals and ambitions for the year but also bridal is a huge market for us in Jan Feb so I think getting married is pretty adult so that's adulting and then we move into defrosting which is like our pre-spring era she's getting excited for summer she wants to start layering she's maybe wearing like knee-high boots with a dress it's all just like kind of similar to autumn winter but getting excited for summer defrosting may june july really is oh we've got five seasons guys may june july is obviously key resort season we did not change the name of that that is resort odd muse resort um and then as we go into august september this is chic season this is the everyone really sees august as this awkward time in the summer where it's kind of like the end of summer you're not buying any more summer clothes because you're kind of like finishing up your summer you might have like one or two trips left but we're we're getting ready for autumn and instead of seeing it as this like solemn time where we have to chase the last of summer and summer is ending what I really think about is that for a for a fashion girl it's actually a really exciting time because personally that August September time more September is just the most fun time in your wardrobe and I feel like it's this time where you really just invest in like really good pieces you're really thinking about how you want to dress in autumn winter and again layers transitional colors fabrics just a really fun time in the wardrobe so we've moved into chic season and you can just see everything has come together the website looks amazing even the way in which we shoot e-com the way in which we used to shoot e-com was super high flash super like loads of movement I used to love it but it doesn't really represent how elevated the brand is and you could never really see like the details of the product and so even just like e-com makes me super super proud and the way in which the website's laid out the way in which the collections built out that this is a big collection this has got way more categories in it so this September marks six years of odd muse which is insane if you would have asked me at 2020 2020 if you've asked me at 22 where I saw this business going in six years I'm not sure I would have even thought that we would make it to six years I really wasn't thinking beyond one week back then um But I definitely wouldn't think that we would be where we are now, even, you know, forgetting all the stores and how successful the brand is, even just from like an aesthetic brand point of view, I just would not have thought that we would be here.

6:17I feel like I've learned so, so much. I feel like the team have learned so much and it is really representing a evolution of the brand. And I always say five years of founder, like it really took me five years to just really level up myself as a founder and you know, how I approach work, how I enjoy work and how I kind of like engage with the brand. But for the actual brand, it's definitely been six years it's taken like six years to get it to a point where I can see it being for the next five years which is a really interesting place to be as a founder because when you're first starting it is so scrappy it is all over the place you really cannot look into the next week like I remember the you know going into new years like getting through Christmas and deciding in January, you know, what we want the brand to be in that year.

7:14And we are just so much further ahead than that now. And I just would have never thought of that. So to now be in a point where I'm looking at the brand, I'm looking at the product, I'm looking at the website, I'm looking at every little detail. And I can actually say, this is odd news for like the next three to five years. that is such a amazing feeling but also that's not to make you feel pressured because the first six years the first years of you building are supposed to be scrappy and they're supposed to you know you're really not thinking about what what the brand's going to be in three to five years you are just trying to maintain something and make sure you can get into the next year but it is coming that moment is coming it takes a lot of work a lot of tears but it's coming and I think one thing I've really wanted to highlight with you know Oddmuse being six years old now is our customers are six years older than what they were in 2020 when they first discovered Oddmuse and that really is a big chunk of our customer of course we have loads of people discovering odd news every single day we still have that 22 year old customer that discovers us maybe for her graduation um but the main bulk of our customer now is 28 plus and I have been saying this for the last two years 28 plus 28 plus 28 plus the main bulk of our customer is 28 plus and I feel like up until this year we were kind of just in this habit of speaking to our customer like she still was that 22 year old girl that I was.

8:59And so it was time to level up the marketing and time to not even level up the product, but expand the product, expand the offering, go into new categories. I think one of the biggest dangers when you launch a brand is trapping yourself into a box of what made you successful. So the structured dresses, the odd new cinch, that will always be core to our brand. Like I speak a lot how, you know, when we launch this collection tomorrow, when we do trade on a Monday, still the cap sleeve dress will be in the top five bestsellers. I know it. It constantly just beats anything. The cap sleeve dress and the square neck midi, it will always be core to our brand.

9:45But one thing that I was really adamant on branching out of was just being a dress brand. you know there's there's there's a risk to being just a dress brand because you don't just want to speak to people when they're you know going to an occasion I think that's amazing that we can be part of so many special moments but if we've got that customer why would we not want to elevate her wardrobe beyond occasion dressing and I feel like for a long time we were just kind of like this sells really well let's make another version of this and let's run with this and our collections were constantly inspired by products that works before and that wasn't a bad strategy that definitely got us to the 30 million point but I think as we expand towards this 100 million brand it's actually thinking about the customer and designing more for the customer if she likes this dress if she likes to you know invest in a good dress what does a jacket look like for her what does a workwear wardrobe look like for her?

10:46What does denim look like for her? And then I kind of think, how can I look at all these different categories? Where are the gaps in this? So with the suede jacket, for example, a lot of people have been saying to me, why don't you just do a faux suede jacket like 595 for a jacket is crazy. And yes, it is. We're not expecting all of our customers to buy into this product. We're not expecting all of our customers to be ready for this product. But a lot of our customers six years in are ready to invest in a 100 % suede jacket. And even when I was thinking like, okay, faux suede jacket, there was a massive boom over the last two, three years of high street brands absolutely smashing the outerwear department and really just nailing that silhouette, you know, the funnel neck or the faux suede, you know, the bomber, they really just kind of like nailed that but when you receive it it isn't going to last and you know the fabric isn't quite good enough and it isn't a for it just isn't a forever piece it's you know amazing for the aesthetic but it's not going to last you 10 plus years and I really just recognized a gap for a mid-luxury suede jacket I mean this isn't even mid-luxury it's luxury but when you compare it to suede jackets on the market again that first reason why I started odd muse that first problem is absolutely there you've got a Saint Laurent suede jacket for 7 ,000 pounds and you can get a fairly okay suede one on ASOS for 80 pounds and Zara I saw one in there for like 200 pounds and then even when I'm looking at Massimo Duty real suede going for 400 pound but a very kind of like thin no structure jacket I actually purchased one last year and it's kind of just a blazer with no like real construction and buttons and that was around 400 pounds so I was like we need a full-on suede jacket with a beautiful collar stitching cuffs buttons all these details and we need it for under a thousand pounds because it doesn't exist um so that's a real gap in the market I saw with suede and then even moving into denim you know there's so many high street brands that do denim I'm not just going to do a denim jean because odd news has customers now and they might want to buy a denim jean it's how can we innovate in denim when we first started doing denim we you know put it into our beautiful synth dresses we did this really dark indigo wash with like this orange stitching like so gorgeous super super luxury Zimmerman actually have done a lot of that this season um and so did Jacquemus actually last year I remember we released our dark denim with like this orange stitching and Jacquemus done exactly the same so I'm always trying to line up with like luxury brands and then even thinking about our fabrications how can we go into new fabrications but keep the odd news DNA hey, tweed.

13:52When is tweed not timeless? When is tweed not going to be relevant in your wardrobe? It is so, so timeless. When I think of timeless, timeless fabrics, I don't actually think about just capsule colours. And I think that's what Odd Muse used to be. You used to log on to Odd Muse and you would get a beautiful black, white camel piece. And back in 2020, brands really weren't doing that they weren't really doing like good capsule pieces um but six years later capsule means more and we can actually invest in that more and we can source new fabrics and we can really just think about what does odd muse mean now that we are expanding and I feel like with this collection I have gone so or sorry with this season I have gone so hard with breaking this down to my customer.

14:45Like I'm really not just showing you the beautiful campaign. Like I've wrote, I wrote a sub stack last night about how, mainly for my paid subscribers, about how we are fully marketing this 5.3 million pound season. That is our target this season. You know, how many customers we need on site, how many sales need to go through, what percentage of that is going to be new products what percentage of that's going to come from core what percentage of that is going to come from bridal how many units are we sending out gifting we're sending 400 units out from this newness new collection to gifting really just breaking down all the marketing behind it because up until this year I feel like odd music's main marketing stream was social media and I think that's amazing like we was able to grow our brand organically so so much but I think one common misconception on social media is that social media is marketing.

15:47My brand director actually said this to me when she first joined. She says, marketing means everything. And that the word marketing, marketing means everything. And therefore it means nothing. There are so many streams to marketing and that sub stack article really breaks it down into kind of digital marketing, paid marketing, earned marketing, owned marketing, you know, all the fun terms, AOV, CAC, ROI, all that fun stuff. And even from that Substack article, I've really broke down the rebrand on my LinkedIn. I'm filming this episode today because I'm so desperate for people to know the amount of work that goes on behind the scenes specifically for this kind of new era.

16:33There has been so, so much work and I feel like I've been talking about it all year, but it genuinely takes eight months minimum to see something fully produce so you know at the beginning of the year if you look at chic season you will see that we have been testing on you on this for a while we introduced our new cotton mix fabric we introduced denim dresses last year to see how you guys kind of liked denim from us we introduced the trench jackets to see how you guys were like in outerwear we was never going to drop our first ever jacket to be a 595 suede jacket we nailed the trenches this year I actually keep saying odd news are really underrated for their trenches the funnel neck trench and even the cotton trench that we did in pre-spring this year sensational um knitwear we've done a very small knitwear drop and now in chic you're starting to see just casual little knitwear pieces that have been dropped into the collection so we've been testing this on you for a while we reshot the whole website in resort we've been like working towards this but this season it's 100 % and even behind the scenes it's 100 % like the team took me through the full strategy for this season a couple days ago and you know it's the first time I've been taken through a deck like that and every area of marketing had their own section to speak on whether it was the website whether it was influencer whether it was meta ads and whether it was CRM like honestly I could talk all day about it and it was so fantastic to see and so eye-opening to see how much bloody work goes behind the scenes to get you all on site on launch day and also to get you guys to see this new brand okay should we talk about the suede jacket again because I haven't spoke about it enough my brand my little big brand is releasing a suede jacket for 595 pounds now I always say odd muse is a brand built by its community and not for its community life is all about making decisions sometimes you make questionable ones like buying a new tv that's too big for the wall because the electronics store employee was a little too good at their job.

18:57Then sometimes you make great ones, like protecting your home and auto with Progressive. You get customized coverage options so you can be sure you have the right coverage. Get your quote today at Progressive.com. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company affiliates and other insurers not available in all states. And a lot of people have been asking me lately, am I terrified to release this suede jacket? Because it is not news to anyone that often when brands try new things, especially when it is more expensive, it can be met with discourse. It can be met with, you know, people not being very happy about it.

19:36It can be met with people thinking that all of a sudden you're really alienating your customer and, you know, there's not a hundred other SKUs on site that they could purchase. It always just gets met this way. but the people that have supported Odd News over the last six years, I love you so much because you have given me the confidence to just go fully in with this suede jacket and make such a moment of it and there's so much excitement about it and that really comes from, you know, this is slow fashion. This has taken six years to earn my place to create a luxurious piece, one luxury piece.

20:20And the first, this has been taken a year to make as well. And the first, I'd say the first inkling I got, we were sampling it just to see, you know, we had a ridiculous sample made that was gonna have to retail for like 1200 pounds it it really wasn't an option but we had it sampled just to see you know that would be the starting point and I remember when we opened the store on New Bond Street um last year in October and so many of you queued up for the 100 % wall need cardigan now if I'm correct that is it's over 200 pounds it's amazing cardigan we're bringing a long line version out it's amazing um and I remember thinking like I think this if I can get this suede jacket for under a thousand pounds I think we have a chance because this customer is going to spend on a good layer and that's when I started to really kind of say to everyone no we need we need to get this under a thousand pounds but we we need we need to get it we need to get it and that just goes back to just you guys giving me the confidence and even even when I got the first sample through I remember putting it on my story and just saying I really want to release this jacket but it's gonna have to be super expensive like what do people think and I had so many responses like no I want it I want it this is literally what I'm looking for and you guys just gave me confidence in that gap in the market piece that I was just speaking about like I knew it was a thing I just needed to know that my customers were going to receive it that way and again I just feel like we've really just nailed a gap in the market for a mid-luxury suede jacket and I keep speaking about how I think this suede jacket is kind of the the blazer of this new era it is that product that is really going to solidify us as the new brand that we are going to be.

22:30And I want to speak a little bit on this because I don't want people to think that we're moving into an unattainable space. We will always be the brand that you can get a fantastic dress for under$200. We work with so many retail partners now that tell us that is our superpower and sometimes ask us to be a bit more expensive. But being that attainable luxury brand is our superpower. And you know what, I feel like for a little blimp in time, I used to hide away from the fact that we are a attainable luxury brand. And what I've realized is, and what I think a lot of this is a lesson a lot of people should know, is I in a lot in a lot of rooms, when we're talking about odd muse, I am the expert in the room, I know what this brand is.

23:22And it is supported by the amazing industry leaders that stock us and give us this feedback and just seeing how how amazing they've received this collection lights me up like we have had our biggest wholesale season the product is has just been absolutely perfect for them um but I think going back into us really maintaining that attainable luxury as part of our DNA is always going to be so so important to us and I think you can really see that in this collection and in this season there is a lot of dresses that you love and know or muse for there's some experimental pieces like the blue suede I don't expect everyone to buy that but I expect the coolest most fashionable customer to be wearing that in New York Fashion Week this season and you know there's still the trend we've made sure the trenches are still in stock alongside the suede jacket so if you're not ready to purchase a suede jacket.

24:23You can get our amazing funnel trench. There's just something for everyone. And I think a lot of the times when brands do test new things, it can be mistaken as, oh, they're, you know, they're becoming too expensive because brands do do this. Brands absolutely do this. I went in Zara for the first time in forever the other day, and I could not believe the prices. I also feel like the quality is going down as the years go on. So I don't know while the quality is going down and the product is getting more expensive but that's an issue Zara can discuss internally so yeah this so this suede jacket is definitely a statement for Obmuse it definitely represents that there will be more of this to come and this is part of our strategy I you know I'm putting it out to the universe I really want to be stocked in brands like Harrods with department stores like Harrods, Net-a-Porter, My Teresa and I need to be doing more of this.

25:19But two things can exist at the same time. Our DNA is our DNA is what we're dedicated to is, you know, our customer. But I think to reach, to reach new customers, as well as, you know, bring you guys along, we need to be doing more of this. And again, it will be it's a journey, it won't be like next season, we'll have a million suede options, and they'll all be 700 pounds, we will work our way up to this but I think it is just me really thinking about the next three to five years of the brand with intention we keep saying we are scaling to 100 million without losing soul everything is going to be super super slow and intentional I have no investors telling me I have to hit 100 million next year in order to make them happy like I will hit 100 million in two, three, five, 10 years time.

26:10I literally don't care. It's just a goal. And I think I'm really content with where the brand is right now. But this suede jacket really just represents that movement and just how hard people work behind the scenes. It seriously takes a village, literally takes a village, especially when I speak on marketing. So marketing is our biggest dysfunction in the business. It's where most of my kind of like staff investment goes. A lot of the other teams feel quite lean because even on the product side of things, in the grand scheme of things, we don't actually launch a lot of product. We, you know, in 2023, we launched 60 products.

26:52This year we've launched a lot more products, but still we're only pushing, we're not even pushing in a year what goes through like a brand like ASOS or Zara's new page every single week. So for that reason, I don't need five designers. I don't need 10 merchandisers and a million buyers. And there's just like an army of marketeers and odd views. And it's really just showing in this season. I'm really happy with it. I'm really, really proud of it. If you can't tell, I'm like a trashy cat smiling from ear to ear. I just think it's so amazing. So to round this episode up, I also just want to talk about some last little fun things we're doing throughout the world of chic because I think one thing I used to really really struggle with up until recently is what to you know what to say at odd muse outside of a launch period so we will have like a week-long soft launch and then we'll have the launch week and then there's two weeks either side where we we used to struggle on like what to talk about because we've gone from a brand that used to release no product to a brand that actually releases quite a lot of product and what's important to understand is not every skew needs to be this have this big hero marketing campaign whereas odd muse like two three years ago you know our summer collection in 2023 was three dresses so every single dress got like a huge marketing moment a huge social media push but when you do that when you've got a full built out collection with you know tops like this and like knitwear and stuff that obviously isn't like so exciting on social media but fits into your wardrobe and fits onto your basket perfectly so that's been really interesting to navigate so when we're now thinking about what are the conversation points outside of the product and we really kind of honed in this season so we did an autumn winter press day which was really exciting and seeing press actually try on the new product and feel the new product was amazing and we did the online press day so I had around 400 of you on a webinar where I took you through like the the whole season I showed product that people hadn't seen yet it was like pre-reveal and I've pushed out obviously the Substack article that I told you about I've been telling everyone on LinkedIn about it and outside of launch week we actually have a really really fun influencer moment we're also doing our first brand trip this season which is very exciting and I'm glad we're doing it in this season because a lot of brands do their brand trip in the summer and they do a summer holiday whereas at odd muse we like to be different so we're doing it in autumn winter and it's going to be super cozy vibes and I'm very excited for that what else are we doing this season we have our odd muse impact lunch which I'm very excited about so back in this year we launched the odd muse impact which is basically it isn't like a huge like marketing for us okay It is literally because I am really content with the brand right now.

30:09I'm really happy with where they are. I'm really happy with where the brand is. It's super consistent. It's nowhere near as stressful as it used to be. I'm in a good place. So I saw it as the perfect opportunity to launch an impact side to this brand where we can actively start giving back not only to our community, but just trying to make the world a better place. Okay. everyone needs to do their bit so obviously it was very on brand for me to start with a female founder grant so I have chosen a winner I put this out on international women's day we've now chose a winner so many amazing people applied literally I shortlisted it to 20 and it took me two months to choose a winner um but yeah we have given a 12 000 pound grant to a winner which everyone keeps messaging me every day like have you announced the winner have you announced the winner.

31:03Guys, this is not just like a regular competition where I'm just going to like post the winner on my story. I really want to show you the winner like a few months later once they've, you know, used the grant and so that you can really see the journey that they've been on. But one of the ideas I had is to host a impact lunch for them. So we will be, I mean, I haven't even told her this, so I don't know if I can leave this in, but we'll be doing something very, very special for the founder and yeah I guess I can't talk on that anymore then but um we're also implementing various different things that we can do internally we've always been really super we've always been really good with our um samples we've always donated them to various different charities women shelters women going out to work for the first time um since like certain life events so So I think just really bringing that together and really showing the story of Odd Muse, but also considering how can we be constantly giving back each season?

32:06And even bringing our supplier story into this, like the supplier story of Odd Muse is something that I tried to shy away from because for a moment in time, someone tried to like rewrite that for me. But now I'm actually really owning that I have one of the best supplier stories in the game and really just kind of like showing that as the impact as part of odd muse impact because more fashion brands should be operating behind the scenes the same way odd muses bold statement but i mean it we still just have we have one supplier we have one knitwear supplier now and again we had those conversations with the brat with our main supplier where they was like we can make you an amazing dress we can do amazing tailoring but to match odd muse quality we are not knitwear specialist.

32:57So we went out together and found a knitwear supplier. I'm just very proud of Odd Muse behind the scenes. So I'm not going to shy away from it anymore. So there'll just be more of that shown in chic season and just really speaking about the brand and not the product. And I think that is where I've wanted Odd Muse to be for a while. Okay, guys, I think I'm going to round off there because I could talk about chic season all day. I feel like you can just see the excitement in my face about this season. I'm so, so proud of it. I'm so excited for launch tomorrow and I guess I'll see you next week. I hope you enjoyed that.