It already feels like a lifetime ago but it’s only been about a month since we were in Greece celebrating our 20th anniversary. I can still feel the breeze off the caldera and the total state of bliss and relaxation from our ten days spent there.
Multitasker that I am, while we were there I asked Craig to take a few snaps of my new Victoria Emerson wrap bracelets that arrived just in time for vacation. It was SO hot there that I relied heavily upon simple accessories to give my outfits that extra bit of something. These bracelets were the perfect solution! If you’re not familiar with Victoria Emerson, they make it super easy to instantly update your outfits with on trend bracelets and necklaces.
I loved pairing up their Alicante Boho cuff with my tanks and shorts. It’s multi-layered design comes in one piece that closes with a magnetic clasp. Easy done-for-you layering!
I practically lived in my lightweight linen button downs and was able to pair them up with these pretty neutrals with freshwater pearls and shades of blue.
Want to know the easiest way to update your work wear look for fall? Just add color!
Bright color is everywhere for fall 2019 and combining fuchsia with plum has to be one of my favorite ways to wear it. You can go as bold or subtle as you want with either an all over monochromatic look with a pop of bright color or a bolder punch with all over color. You can’t go wrong when combining these two colors!
The pieces in both of these looks have so much versatility! Even if you don’t work in an office, the plum blouse and fuchsia sweater would both be adorable paired up with jeans. Just add the bright suede bow heels to finish out either look.
Sidenote: Don’t you just love how both of these outfits perfectly coordinate with the decor and color of my favorite coffee shop? Their raspberry iced green tea made for a darling accessory!
I instantly fell in love with this seasonless yarn sweater. It’s lightweight and comfortable enough to wear during the summer to fall transition.
In case you didn’t know, in addition to Get Your Pretty On, I also have a jewelry and accessories brand that I started with my college daughter Aubrey last year. This month we’re celebrating a relaunch of Alison + Aubrey along with a new web site and some really cool new custom products that we’re both super excited about! I thought it would be fun today to go through some of the challenges and biggest lessons of our first year and share some of the changes we have coming up.
(Psst…we’ve got a pretty sweet giveaway later in this post. Don’t leave without entering!)
As we all know, social media is often flooded with unrealistic portrayals of success coming easily. It’s rare to get a glimpse into the messy stuff that really goes on behind the scenes. In one of my recent Coffee Chats, I made a commitment to you that I’m going to be more open about real life stuff. As much as I love seeing (and celebrating) what makes others successful, I usually learn even more from reading about their mistakes and missteps. That’s what this post is all about.
Starting any business is HARD but I’ve had even more challenges with this one for a variety of reasons – most of which were my own unrealistic expectations. I entered into this thinking “hey, I’ve started businesses before, this will be a piece of cake!” In some ways, it was easier but in others it was way more complicated than I could’ve ever dreamed.
The first nine months were a constant uphill struggle through the learning curve. This product-based business is a totally different animal from GYPO. There were so many new things to learn – everything from setting margins to tracking inventory and finding reliable suppliers for products and packaging while balancing quality with affordability.
But before we dive into the mistakes and lessons I think it’s important to know WHY we started this business because that’s what’s kept us going when the going got tough. Aubrey and I have always loved fashion and shopping. It’s been one of our favorite shared experiences ever since she was a toddler. I’ll never forget pushing her in the stroller through the shoe department while she was instinctively kicking off her shoes so she could try on new ones. She was a natural born shopper! We always wanted to collaborate in some way over that bond. When we realized that we always borrow jewelry from each other a lightbulb went off and the idea for Alison + Aubrey was born.
Our main goals with starting the line were to:
Share our bond over fashion and jewelry in a bigger way and to help other mothers, daughters, sisters and friends do the same. Jewelry is one thing that crosses the generation gap and fits everyone. It’s so easy to borrow and bond over.
Teach Aubrey what it’s really like to run a business. She’s been involved in every single step of the process. In her business course last fall, her professor was blown away by her thorough understanding of what it takes to start and run a business. She’s already had so much real-world experience at such a young age.
Lastly, to help cover her college costs. I’ve always told my kids that they need to have some “skin in the game” with their education costs because it gives them a greater appreciation for it. We do what we can to help but she didn’t want to come out of school with a ton of debt from loans so we agreed that a portion of the profits would go directly to her college account.
Now onto the juicy stuff…the mistakes we made and more importantly what we’ve learned.
Five Big Mistakes We Made in Year One
1. Finding Good Quality
Honestly, this was probably our biggest rookie mistake. We struggled to find good suppliers, especially in the beginning. Because we were flying blind we ended up with a few products with quality issues. A few items tarnished easily, especially in humid climates and some of them were really fragile or were just plain cheap looking. All of these things were impossible to distinguish without seeing and wearing the pieces in person. We now both wear every piece in real life to take it on a trial run and hopefully discover issues before our customers do. We’ve also been able to weed out the bad suppliers and recently started designing some of our own pieces. Now that we’re more involved in the manufacturing process we have greater control over the end product and quality issues have been few and far between!
2. Managing Inventory
When we started I almost felt like I needed a masterclass in inventory management. It’s an incredibly complicated game of numbers that can make or break a business. Not enough inventory? You get customers frustrated by sold out links. Too much inventory? You risk having unsold items taking up space in your warehouse and hurting your bottom line. Because we are a small business, we always erred on the side of stocking lower quantities. Now that business is growing and we’re more comfortable with managing our inventory, we’re able to stock more of it. We’re getting into a good groove now with supply and demand and running into far fewer issues with availability. Our biggest delay now is restocking products but we can almost always get more within 4 weeks if we sell out.
3. Calculating Pricing and Margins
Yes, this is Business 101 but again a totally new concept to me. Shipping, labor, packaging, jewelry cards and inserts – it all adds up! I’m embarrassed to admit this but until very recently I was not calculating labor costs into our pricing and margins. Now we have spreadsheets built out with all of our costs per unit in a formula so we know that our pricing is set to keep our products affordable while covering all of our costs.
4. Going it Alone
At first, we were a two woman operation – Alison and Aubrey! It didn’t take long for both of us to realize that we’d need to add in some extra man (and woman) power to keep us going. My husband Craig is now involved as much as he can be in just about every area. We have a part-time hire Amanda who handles order fulfillment and customer support. I also have an amazing marketing and social media girl who takes all of our ideas and makes them even better!
5. Going “Radio Silent”
OK, so this one was my hang up but I hate being sales-y so instead of talking about Alison + Aubrey I’ve kept mostly quiet. You haven’t heard much about it here on GYPO because I wanted the brand to stand on it’s own. The fact is, by not talking about it I’ve been keeping a significant part of my life and something I’m proud to have built with my daughter from some of the people who mean the most to me…YOU. I’m kind of proud of myself for doing this post because it’s time to share!
Now that we’ve talked about the mistakes there is one thing that we can toot our horn about and that’s this:
The ONE Thing We Got Right from Day One: Customer Service
With five years of Style Challenges under my belt, I’ve had more than enough opportunities to learn what makes really excellent customer service. Even through all of the challenges and missteps, we’ve always, always, always made sure we do what it takes to make our customers happy. Great customer service is one thing any business always has control over. You can’t always control quality or inventory but you can control how you treat your customers – 100% of the time. I like to think that we get that part right.
Although it’s called Alison + Aubrey this is truly a family business. Our oldest son Devon steps in to help out with order fulfillment and our younger daughter Ava is happy to be a stand-in model for Aubrey while she’s off at college. Craig does everything from organizing and managing the warehouse to all of our photography. We all have our part in the success and we all take it personally. Even our husky Skye gets a piece of the action!
We’re excited to announce that we’ll be launching our own line of branded wrap bracelets next week. To celebrate this new product launch, we’re giving away a $150 product credit to Alison + Aubrey. There are two easy ways to enter:
Visit Alison + Aubrey and leave a comment below telling us your favorite piece. (each comment counts as one entry)
Follow us on Instagram and leave a comment on any of our photos. (each comment counts as one entry)
Enter as many times as you’d like! One winner will be drawn and notified next Wednesday, August 21st. Good luck!
When the Nordstrom Anniversary Sale catalog hit my mailbox, there was one thing I was more than a little excited about – fall 2019 trends! The catalog was chock full of them and has me itching for cooler temps and diving into creating the Fall 2019 Style Challenges® Capsule Wardrobe!
Confession: I don’t typically shop the sale all that much, but you already know that if you checked out this post. There are a few things that are absolutely worth getting during the sale – closet staples (which I covered here) and the next season’s trends. Since the sale always comes in the middle of summer, it’s the perfect opportunity to highlight what’s coming up and get a head start on picking up some fall pieces at a steal.
Without further ado, here’s your 2019 fall trend preview.
Fall 2019 Trend Preview
1. Snake Print
If you’ve been slow to warm up to this trend, fall is going to give you another really good opportunity to try it out. Honestly I think snake pattern is even richer for fall. You’re going to see it on everything from handbags and shoes to accessories, skirts, pants and tops. Try a little or try a lot!
I’m kind of giddy over this news – high boots are back BIG TIME for fall! Yes it’s been all about the ankle boots and booties the past few years but the always classic, always chic high (or tall) boot is back in rich shades of suede and leather. They pair perfectly with skirts, dresses and skinny jeans.
Fall 2019 is all about the brights! After a few years of muted shades, I for one couldn’t be happier. There are so many gorgeous saturated colors on trend but especially yellow, teal, red, green, orange, fuchsia, bright pink and royal blue.
How can classics be trends? They really can’t but they are worth mentioning. Fall is typically the season where we see a major shift back to tried-and-true wardrobe staples, impeccable tailoring and warm browns.
A perennial favorite – fall florals in rich shades of teal, burgundy and blue are always a good idea. Not to mention they pair perfectly with other patterns! You can expect to see pattern mixes of florals with plaid, snake print, leopard and more.
We can’t forget about everyone’s favorite casual closet staple! Fall 2019’s denim trends are here and this year, it’s anything goes! Classic styles will abound along with high rise, flares, straight jeans and of course, our beloved skinnies. There’s something for every fit and body type!
Real talk. It’s taken me a few years to figure out the best way to share the Nordstrom Anniversary Sale with you. I’ve blogged about my struggle before here and here. Retailers spend a lot of time and money with their marketing departments to create a sense of urgency and FOMO (fear of missing out) around sales like this. But it feels strange for me to point you in the direction of all this ‘stuff’ to buy simply because it’s a ‘good deal’. After all, that type of approach just doesn’t jive with the philosophy behind GYPO and our mission statement.
My lightbulb moment came when I realized that I can approach the sale the exact same way as I do the Style Challenge. If you’re new around here, that means focusing on building a solid foundation of closet staples and then incorporating trends. The entire point of the Style Challenge is to have less stuff and more style. So let me preface this post by saying…
If you do need to update some closet staple pieces, then today’s post is for you. Now is the time to take a look at your closet staples and figure out where the gaps in your closet are or to upgrade to a higher quality item.
Not sure what is considered a closet staple?
Grab my free shopping list of closet staples HERE.
Before we dig in there are three quick things to cover:
WHY IS THIS SALE SUCH A BIG DEAL? Sales happen all the time, right? Why the fuss? Most sales happen at the end of a season when retailers are trying clear out old merchandise. The Nordstrom Anniversary Sale is unique because the items on sale are brand new pieces and particularly focus on upcoming fall trends. Getting such deep discounts on these new pieces is unheard of from any other retailer.
HOW DO YOU GET THE SALE PRICE? Nordstrom releases the sale in waves with Nordstrom cardholders getting early access for a full week before the general public. If you aren’t yet a cardholder you can apply here to take advantage of the sales now before they sell out. The sale will be open to the general public on July 19th.
WHAT ABOUT THE TRENDS? I’ll be sharing my fall trend picks here on the blog next week when the sale is open to everyone. Stay tuned!
Now that we’ve covered the details, let’s jump in to the deals!
TOPS
BOTTOMS
DRESSES
LAYERS
FOOTWEAR
BAGS
JEWELRY
ACCESSORIES
What closet staple gaps are in your closet?
Did you find any pieces in the Nordstrom Anniversary Sale this year?
Do you struggle to put outfits together? Are you stuck in a yoga pants rut? Not sure if you can make the latest trends work for you? You’re in the right place!
I’m Alison, a mom of three and recovering yoga pants addict on a mission to make getting dressed and feeling pretty the easiest thing you do all day! Learn more about my story HERE.
I am so glad I was part of the Fall 2019 Style Challenge. It gave me confidence and so many great outfitt ideas. The ladies in the group were very supportive and I will defintetly be doing another challenge in the future.
Betty Weyandt Lamont December 20, 2019
I’ve been participating in the GYPO Style Challenges for three years now and I’ve loved it. I’ve always loved clothes, but I didn’t know how to put outfits together. My closet is now full of mix-and-match outfits, I have learned how to dress myself, and there is no more stress in figuring out to wear. The private FB group is full of wonderful ladies that build each other up. It’s so fun and is seriously the best group on FB.
Kirstin Rasmussen McFarlane November 20, 2019
Get Your Pretty On has changed my life, seriously. I have always chased what is trendy but found from season to season, that things go out of style and I was wasting money on items that I would only end up wearing a few times. GYPO has enabled me to simplify my closet, helps me make smarter purchasing decisions, and I feel so put together and confident using the outfit formulas that are provided. This program is a GAME CHANGER. I've been following GYPO for a few years now and my only regret is not jumping on board sooner.
Michelle Kline November 20, 2019
Great community of ladies, helping each other look stylish, without breaking the bank, and using much of what you already own.
Chosen Faith November 19, 2019
GYPO challenges have been one of the best things I have done! It had taught me so much more than just creating a closet of clothes that I love but also to have confidence in myself, how to pick and choose colors that work for me instead of against, and had given a wonderful community of Pretties who are so special.
Maraline Freeman October 16, 2019
I love GYPO!!! I finally feel put together and stylish! The shopping lists and outfit combinations make shopping and getting dressed effortless.
Krista Probst October 16, 2019
SHOP THE ACCESSORY LINE
SHOP THE LOOKS
A NOTE TO READERS
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