Design and the Market - Group Enterprise Research Project - Final Presentation

“Start Creating Jobs For Yourself.”

Judy R Clark graduated from Heriot-Watt University in 2006 with a first class honours degree. Shortly after she decided to move back home, to save money and concentrate on trying to sell her work in various Scottish boutiques. As well as this, she signed up to the Highlands and Islands business course, which provided her with opportunities to attend networking events, exhibitions and arranged fashion events. During this time she met Sandra Murray MBE at a fashion exhibition and she kindly took her on as an intern for one year. Still striving for bigger and better, Judy applied for countless internships with Alexander McQueen and Vivienne Westwood and after many rejections she was accepted to Alexander McQueen, when her idea to illustrate the bottom of her CV attracted their attention. Judy commented that her internship with McQueen taught her primarily how to run a successful studio, how to co-ordinate people and work as part of a team.
“This is something you really have no idea about until you experience it.”
Judy worked as a textile designer for McQueen creating fabrics for swatches or colour ways and producing mood boards. She said she would go back again in a heartbeat but that we shouldn’t underestimate the hard work involved in working for a big design house. “You would spend a full day there, mostly standing. It was pretty gruelling.”
Its interesting how as soon as Judy finished her internship she let the hub of London and moved back to Scotland. She has since set up her own studio space in Edinburgh and is establishing herself as one of Scotland’s best up and coming designers.

 "It's not a major operation it's just me in a room"

Many people who interview Judy in her studio arrive with big expectations. They don’t seem to realise that being a new designer can mean working long hours on your own locked up in a room. Judy mentioned that it can sometimes make you feel isolated and that's not very inspirational, but its just part of building up her business. However she tries to make the studio space itself inspiring, filling it with vintage objects, materials, sketches, and mood boards which give it a creative atmosphere. Often found lying in amongst all her nic nacs are her 2 cats called Vivienne and Westwood and they also help keep her company when she’s working long hours.
Judy’s success has lead to a busy few years with many projects and exhibitions to organise, as well as keeping her business ticking over. But why is she doing everything on her own? She could have interns but she said but it's hard to know whether there what she’s looking for or even whether they’ll get on. She's really not keen on working alongside other fashion designers either because when they're using the same inspirations they can start to come up with very similar ideas and Judy loves her creations to be unique.
Then how is she managing it all own her own? Judy admits she would not have been able to start up at all without winning the NESTA founding, called Starter for six and the JOLOMO award. She learned a lot of what she knows about business from NESTA support, where she got lectures on things like cash flow and yearly projections, something I think we all accept at this stage we know nothing about. She jokes as long as you keep all your invoices extremely organised and can bribe a friend to help you, you’ll be fine. Nesta provides you with enough money to start up but she says she would advise us to try and not to spend so much money when just starting out. After Nesta she entered the JOLOMO award, an award set up by the artist John Lowrie Morrison to encourage and recognise young emerging talent. She said she was completely broke before JOLOMO so has always described it as the stepping stone to her career.

“Who’ll wear it? Well I’ll wear it!”

When asked to describe her niche in a few words Judy said, distinctly modern, with a theatrical edge, Harris tweeds juxtaposed with exquisite Nepali silks and of course tailoring. Her inspiration she admits is largely from historical garments and her love of TV show house of Elliot , she commented that “I once spent about five hours in the V&A in London just looking at the costumes and dresses.‘ You can see this influence in her work along with inspiration from her world travels to exotic places. It’s the combination of these aspects that makes her work so eclectic. She describes her audience as “eccentric wearers,” someone who loves “bespoke style”.
In 2009 her unique style was noticed by New York’s fashion elite, when she was invited, as a top Scottish designer to showcase her work in ‘Dressed to Kilt’ in New York. She managed to nearly sell out her entire collection within a few days of arriving, fashionistas lapping up her classic yet contemporary Harris Tweed creations.
She was described as ‘a great ambassador for Scottish fashion’ and invited back for future years.
Dressed to kilt was all about a celebration of everything she stands for, she wants to keep her look fresh without conforming to changing fashion trends and this is probably easier because of her timeless historical influences. When asked who’ll wear it she said assertively, “well I’ll wear it!” This shows her complete confidence in her work and her unwillingness to change her ethos for anyone! She has a passion for what she does and she does it the way she wants!
Because of this she has been given some great opportunities, recently getting the opportunity to design a dress for Fords centennial year. The challenge was to make the dress out of car parts, from car keys to rear lights to seat covers. Even when working with this unusual material she has retained her use of crinolines and historic style. Making the jacket out of a car seat cover with movable speedometer, so you can choose how fast you want to go. The dress has been a talking point all over the world, being featured in Marie Claire, The Sydney times and USA today, even Jeremy Clarkson has blogged about it.

 ‎"It's all about the networking"

A point that came up time and time again whilst chatting to Judy was the importance of networking. Our own design and the market module puts a great emphasis on creating a professional online presence for yourself, to raise your profile and create useful connections. Judy would see other designers updating blogs or making connections via twitter and think why am I not doing that? If you are not promoting yourself online there is a whole world of business you are missing out on. Judy maintains a blog, along with Twitter and LinkedIn accounts to connect with her market. She describes social media applications as a direct link of communication with customers, investors and anyone else of interest, giving them a much better insight into her working life and creating a personal connection. Social networking has also helped her reach out to a global marketplace that would not have been available to her otherwise.
When it comes to physically going out and networking with other designers at events and shows Judy insists you must be strict with yourself, "push yourself to go to everything" were her words of advice, regardless of whether she wants to or feels up to it, Judith attends as many networking, forecasting and relevant events as possible. She tells herself “at least I was there”. Because of her connections with the highlands and islands business course and Scottish design awards, she has good friends and connections in Scottish design circles who she says are like a community to draw help and support from when needed, even if it is just someone to accompany her to yet another event. Judy is also registered with Textiles Scotland who provide information on what events are on and where. However it's up to you to make the effort and remember a casual acquaintance made at an event could prove invaluable later on in your career.

“Well there only drinking wine”

Judith is an incredibly motivated and driven young woman, with numerous awards and nominations to prove it. And the secret to her success; a deep-rooted sense of self-belief. To Judith the most important thing you can do when setting out in business, before knowing about cash flow, or technical skills or even the techniques behind what you are selling, is a true belief in yourself and what you want. Without it you wont get very far.
Knowing the right people, and knowing how to get to the right people has also been a very useful tactic in her success. And this is how the Spencer collection came about. She met someone who put her onto Colin Gilchrist and from an interview he did with her the offer to work with them arrived a month or two later. So it can be a case of it’s who you know, not what you know. The Spencer project was to create a new women’s wear range for their clothing label. She said the with the first collection of the Spencer range she had to make smallcompromises, toning down her designs but keeping hints of her unique style throughout. This was a tactical compromise she said as usually she preaches against creative compromise commenting “Never compromise, like I say, believe in what you do and stick to your guns. If you think it’s great then that is enough”.
If the Spencer collection did well there was a view to future sponsoring by the company and therefore perhaps a bigger studio and even a small workforce. Not something she likes doing but she knows that once the label is established and recognised she can start to really make it her own. This self-belief applies to everything related to her business.
Such determination in her work life goes hand in hand with sacrifices in her social life. She often finds herself declining invites to parties or social gatherings in favour of a few more hours sewing or attending a networking event. When this happens, Judith simply reminds herself “Well they are only drinking wine, I’m not really missing out on that much”. This sort of perspective has helped her throughout her career.

“Next on the TO DO list”

When asked ‘thinking back 5 years ago did you think then that you would be where you are today?’ Judy said she would not have dreamed that she would have done as well as she has. She commented that when you do budget projections etc you don’t believe you can make that amount of money, but you can! Judy has realised that she is catering to a broad market of mostly 30-60 year olds who have a larger disposable income, after showcasing along side Alison Macleod of Tiger Textiles at the A-List charity Fashion Show ‘Dressed to Kilt’. She also found there was a bigger market for her bespoke couture in New York, as people there have a lot of appeciation for her work and more money to spend. She has in the past sold jackets for £400 to students who seem to have spent their whole student loans just to buy a piece of her designs and she ahs even had people buy her garments as artwork to hang on their walls.
Judy said although she is proud of her achievements, she is never satisfied and that every achievement must be followed by another. Like her recent exhibition in Urban Outfitters in Glasgow where she explored the design story of the world famous fabric, that is very close to her heart, Harris Tweed. One thing she hasn’t done yet is London Fashion Week. People don’t fully understand how strict the criteria is; that you must have a certain amount of stockist’s and have a certain turnover. She said she would Love to go but its impossible at this stage as she needs to expand but its next on her to do list and hopefully she’ll make it there next year!
To expand the business the first step would be to hire another person simply to tackle her ever growing workload, she has also said that she knows she will eventually need to move the business to London as this is the creative capital of Britain and it would lead more opportunities her way. In the future she would ideally like to run her own design house with a workforce, massive collections and shows in Paris, London and all over the world.

 “Don’t be a fashion bitch” 

With a number of successes already under her belt, it could be easily forgiven to get caught up in the fame and fortune of her continual accomplishments, but for Judy, it is her down-to-earth, realistic attitude that has shaped her into one of Britain’s most inspirational young designers.  She is dedicated to her work, admitting that the Judy R Clark production was just her, her two cats and a small studio space. “Work really hard”, was her advice for prospering within the fashion industry. Her drive to succeed is underpinned by her faith in her own creativity and self belief, which seems to be what keeps her motivated and an aspiring entrepreneur.

When asked what would be her one thing for graduates and new designers starting up to bare in mind, her answer was simple and clear: “It’s your business, you have the answers”.
It is Judy’s self assured attitude that has propelled the triumphs that she has reached in her work. “Push, push, push” and “be determined” she insists. “You shouldn’t be apologetic when being asked questions about your business”. She has a steadfast outlook on her own enterprise!
Judy’s unpretentious approach to her work and work ethic are what make her successes come to light. She is clear and concise in her attitude toward communicating what she wants for herself and her business saying “remember when speaking that everyone else is just normal like you” and argues that anyone who wasn’t, wasn’t worth having your time anyway.
Her last piece of advice to us was to ‘believe in your own business, believe that what you are doing is great and even if you seem to be the only one who agrees, still believe’.