Hello Luci and welcome to the EyeCandies Blog! First of all, tell us what inspired your brand name?
Two years ago I met a wonderful man, we fell in love and he became my boyfriend.
As a present he gave me a cute kitten named Queen Nefertete.
After a year, when I decided to start selling my designs on etsy and on craft fairs, I was looking for a name... And I realised I found it pretty hard to give my designs a name! Looking on the internet, in books, magazines, movies, ... to get inspired for a name. But nothing inspired me for a perfect name! One day, my boyfriend said “You could use our cat's name, it's beautiful.” Ha, and so I did! I contacted Caitlin Shearer, a wonderful artist, for my logo.
My one-of-a-kind collection is very playful and colourful. The skirts are twirly, floral and feminine, the pants easy to wear, ... The main thing about this collection is that the production of every piece is limited (only a few pieces made!)
Most pieces of clothing are only made once, because there's only a limited piece of fabric found. For my pouches, I use all the fabric that's too small to use for clothing, I like to turn everything into something useful and pretty.
I like clothing to be easy to wear, so you can feel comfortable wearing it!
I'd like to continue with my one-of-a-kind collection using vintage fabrics and stop buying new fabrics in regular fabric stores. I'd like my brand to be 100% ecological within 1 year!
Oh great! I'd pick the two girls of CocoRosie, because I love their music and their pictures. To me, they are very inspiring.
I'd dress Sierra (the black haired girl) with a twirly floral skirt, a tight black top with a bow, with a waistcoat on top and a bow in her hair. For the Bianca (blond hair), I'd choose a darkblue harempants with a loose top and a golden waistcoat. Both with lots of jewerly and make up. I like overdressed people!
I love fabrics with floral designs, so I mainly try to find these when I'm looking for fabrics. Mostly I'm looking for fabrics (or curtains, dresses, skirts, ...) in thrift stores and second hand markets.
I like to upcycle fabrics into something new! Sometimes I use new materials as well, to combine them with these vintage elements.
My greatest inspiration is pretty much everything; people around me, the music I hear, people in the streets, evening walks, little things that happen, buying fabrics, ...
I think it's important to honour our planet, so I like to work with upcycled materials. And there is a ecological collection in the making!
I'm pretty new to this online promoting world.
What I can tell you is, that a personal blog works really great, but you should blog on it at least every week, or people will stop looking! People like to follow a journey with pictures and stories an it makes your work more personal.
And since the whole world is on Facebook, having a fanpage or group there is very helpful too! You can invite a lot of people, people who might be interested in buying your items, share pictures, share events, ...
Another fun promotion is a give away, an online event, where a person can win one of your items. People like gifts, and you might reach a lot of new fans!
And I think, one of the most important things for an online shop, is your own website! I like Etsy very much, but since I live in a country were we use Euros, it's very confusing sometimes.
This mission is not completed yet, but I hope to launch my webpage in September/October 2010. Working on it!
Your 5 favorite sites/blogs?
www.todayisagoodday.be
eco collections and pretty shoes!
www.hilde-groven.com
great illustrations and my favourite jewelry!
also my MADE IN BELGIUM-buddy
http://abeautifulmess.typepad.com
lovely blog i've been following for a few months now
www.etsy.com
sooo much pretty stuff! can't stop looking sometimes
www.fleurfatale.blogspot.com
great jewelry from belgium! and a really nice blog
I like tight pants, leggings, twirly skirts, tight dresses, loose tops, Birkenstocks, black boots, vintage items, floral designs, jewelry, scarfs, ...
I like a lot, actually, but since I'm pretty lazy in the morning before working, I mostly pick a few black items out of my closet and that's it! (Depending on going to my office job or my Queen Nefertete work at home)
Finishing touch with my favorite jewelry and perfume (white musk), and ready!
For special events, parties, dinners, ... I like to dress up! (Or overdress, even better)
Since a few months I'm also trying to buy ecological clothing, I'm concerned with our planet and I think we could all make a change by changing our habits, out clothing, our food, our transport ...
A lot of new new things and events, our journey just started! Too many ideas, too little time!
Since the beginning of Queen Nefertete I wanted to work with ecological materials, but they were pretty hard to find here in Belgium. After searching the internet for a while, I discovered a store from the Netherlands with ecological fabrics!
In July (17/07 - 26/07) I'm doing a craft fair in Ghent , for 10 days, with the one-of-a-kind collection I have now and ecological shirts with a design!
After this fair I'm going to make a ecological collection and combine it with my one-of-a-kind collection.
I'm also working on a shop on wheels with one of my dear friends. We'll be visiting markets, fairs and festivals all over Belgium with our caravan. We're still working on her, but on the inside she's almost finished! I'm looking forward to our grand opening in September 2010.
Another fun project with another great friend is MADE IN BELGIUM (you can find us on facebook and we present more than 40 belgian crafters!). The last weekend of August we'll be having a craft fair in Hasselt, Belgium with a lot of talented crafters and an after-party with DJ-sets!
We're also working on a Queen Nefertete website, hopefully to be online September/October 2010.
LINKS: […]
- Etsy shop
- Blog
- Queen Nefertete Facebook Page
- Flickr
- Made in Belgium Facebook Page