I’m of that age where the simplest, smallest thing makes me stop and reflect on the amazing world we live in.
I subscribe to many different business and fashion publications, and over the last couple of days all I’ve read about is doom and gloom in the retail sector. I agree that fashion retail is facing challenging times, but I still maintain that as long as humans have a heart and a soul, they are going to want to interact with other humans. I think the secret is in creating an environment that is unique, special, interesting and most importantly welcoming.
My words, my commitment.
The world is so much smarter, and so much more convenient, and so many more people are shopping online. How do you stay afloat in these interesting times?
You assume nothing and you stick to what has always worked. For Hayley Joy, it’s a combination of respectful sizing and exceptionally respectful service.
Perfect affirmation for my commitment to good, respectful service.
I had a moment today when I sorted out the paperwork with the courier who collects our online parcels. He was busy filling in the waybill slips, and I stood looking at him, thinking to myself, that this man is the amazing conduit between my clients and I. He seamlessly arrives twice a day, picks up my parcels, and magically they are delivered the next day, all over the country. I’ve never really stopped to think how far we’ve evolved in seamless service. Back in the day you would pack a parcel, get in your car, drive to a post office, stand in a queue, book it in, and have no clue when it would reach its destination. Now I’m pretty much guaranteed that it will be there the next day.
The Courier Guy.
Taking Hayley Joy online has been a very interesting experience, and the ease that online affords you, to reach clients who cannot physically come to the store, is the thing that has really excited me. For so many years I would get desperate emails from all over the country, begging for access to real Plus sizes.
Creating an online store wasn’t easy, because this is not a run of the mill product that you put online and wait for somebody to buy. I suddenly had to start convincing new clients, that my sizing is genuine Plus sizes. The trauma around the lack of decent Plus size clothing has inspired me to keep creating, to keep honouring and to keep flying the flag for genuine Plus sizes, and in this very smart world we live in, that dream becomes easier and easier to become a reality.
The smart world excites me and at 52 years old I am in the perfect position to take Hayley Joy to the next level, and debunk all the doom and gloom about retail. I’m so up for the challenge.
This is me, in one of my favourite looks…all black with a pop of colour.
I get asked this question all the time…please open a shop in Pretoria, please open on the East Rand, West Rand, please open in Durban, Cape Town, P.E., Bloem, please open in London, Sydney, Germany, New York etc. etc. I get emails requesting agencies, and so it goes on. I’m going to attempt to explain the ‘why’ behind my decision…here goes…
All of me focused, is so much better than none of me focused.
I could never in my wildest dreams, have imagined how crazy things would become at Hayley Joy. I opened a store, in a small centre, doing something nobody else was doing. I set out to create a beautiful, safe space, that all the forgotten women out there, could claim as their own. Being Plus size myself, meant that I knew exactly what was needed. I also quickly realised, that the need for realistic regular sizes and odd sizes, was a very real need, so I went from setting out to open an exclusive Plus size store, to having a store that supplies all sizes. This decision has proved to be incredibly rewarding.
A Shape not a Size, taking the stigma out of sizing.
Not only do I have the store, I also have a full production facility, that supplies the store. Hayley Joy production, supplies Hayley Joy retail with 99% of it’s stock. I wear many hats at Hayley Joy, but my main job is to develop the shapes and styles, which are unique to Hayley Joy. I have developed a unique size curve, exclusive to Hayley Joy, based on true body measurements. This is what really sets us apart, the Hayley Joy, Plus size range, fits and flatters like a true Plus size range should. The Hayley Joy range is all about respect and honesty. I was determined that when you come shopping at Hayley Joy, there will be enough variety that will afford you choices, you won’t just have to buy something, because that’s all there is.
My production manager Tina, and I, planning a fabulous new dress style.
So to the dilemma of expansion. Because I wear so many hats at Hayley Joy, I have had to accept my limitations. I cannot be everywhere all the time. The two most important factors to me are the quality and styling of the garments. It takes a huge amount of my time to develop a new style, and I can never delegate this. A lot of the designs come together while I am working in the store. I’ll be chatting to a client and we’ll start thrashing out ideas and I will take that with me to production the following morning, and it’s there that my production manager Tina and I, will start planning a new concept. I’m hands on in production and am militant about quality. I never, ever waiver in my quest to put out beautifully designed, perfectly manufactured garments. It says so much about who and what Hayley Joy is about, good quality shows that we respect ourselves and our business. Once again time is a factor here. Because I insist on such stellar quality, our production is a bit slower, this means that unless I give work out, we can never open more stores. I have attempted to give work out, unfortunately it’s always a disaster, as the quality is never up to ‘my’ scratch. I have an awesome production unit and am really loathe to mess with it. It took a huge amount of input to get it to where it is today. There is such a fine line between growth and reality.
I’m this hands on!!
The reality is that I absolutely love what I do, I have more passion now than ever before. I want to always feel this way, and I honestly believe that the day it all becomes overwhelming, is the day I will stop loving what I do, and it will show in the final product.
This says it all!
In my search to find a way to offer Hayley Joy to women all over the world, I took Hayley Joy online, because this is an expansion that doesn’t require me to be too involved. All the background aspects are taken care of by a team, and I only get involved when I need to liaise with a client in connection with size. It will never be as effective as opening bricks and mortar stores, but it carries so many fewer risks, and it allows me to take care of what is most important, and that is constantly creating new styles and shapes, that fit and flatter all of us.
Online orders, on their way to fulfilling my Shape journey.
In a bold move, I opted to remove all the sizes from the labels in my garments, and replace them with shapes.
We’re shaping not sizing at Hayley Joy, a Small is now a Lilac Square.
After many years on the shop floor at Hayley Joy, I felt that it was time for me to lead the way in eliminating body shaming, with dignity. I’ve spent many hours in one-on-one consultations and it always comes down to the same thing – low self-esteem – which isn’t helped by having to buy clothing with a 5XL, 6XL and 7XL label in it. Removing sizes from my garment labels, seemed the most obvious thing to do, after the umpteenth call from a client asking us to cut out the labels from their clothing, because their husband, son, son-in-law or boss were coming to collect on their behalf, and “they absolutely couldn’t have them see what size she is buying.” The final affirmation for me was when a client sent me a picture of a Hayley Joy garment belonging to her mom, that had the corner of the label cut out, where the size normally is.
We’re shaping not sizing at Hayley Joy, a Medium is now a Yellow Diamond.
I’m never one to play it safe, so I decided to go where no other clothing designer and manufacturer had really gone before. I allocated colours to the various sizes, and it felt so good to say you’re a yellow, or a pink, or a green. And then at 3am one morning, which is when my brain tends to decide to have it’s real moments, I woke with absolute clarity…I needed to have coloured labels with shapes. This would mean that instead of clients referring to their size as a 2XL, they become a pink heart (which is the new label for a 2XL HJ garment). As a shapely women, it made perfect sense to me, and I knew it would make perfect sense to my clients, and in turn, would eliminate the stress of a number in a label.
We’re shaping not sizing at Hayley Joy, a Large is now an Orange Crown.
Many clothing brands have dropped the plus-size from the description of their ranges, and are seeing a marked increase in profits, but nobody has gone as far as removing sizes completely. Practically I think it’s difficult to remove sizes if you are a store carrying multiple brands. For Hayley Joy it makes perfect sense, because we manufacture all our collections in our own production facility, exclusively for our retail store. It’s easier for us to educate our present and future clients on how to buy the ranges. It also allows for us to demonstrate our respect for the issues around sizing. I’d spent months on the internet reading comments on anything Plus-size related, and the recurring gripe is this, “Why do we have to be labelled, why can’t we just be part of the consumer chain?”
We’re shaping not sizing at Hayley Joy, an XL is now a Lime Flower.
I had given it much thought, and was in agreement. It was time to start offering fashion in all sizes, with no stigma. Hayley Joy is known as a Plus-size brand, but the reality is that we cater for all sizes. I have many clients who buy Hayley Joy small, because they like the styles and the look and feel. They are really not fazed by what size we go up to. In fact, they are often in awe, that there is a brand who is taking a small pattern, and sizing it all the way up to a 7XL.
We’re shaping not sizing at Hayley Joy, a 2XL is now a Pink Heart.
As a small independent boutique, attempting to do something that radical, within the clothing space, was risky. But for me, I believe that the time was right for somebody to make a move in this very maligned area of fashion.
We’re shaping not sizing at Hayley Joy, a 3XL is now a Turquoise Bow.
Plus-size clothing has a stigma, there is no denying it. I’m hoping that by making the changes and removing sizes completely, HJ has created a precedent, and at the same time, demonstrated to women out there, that somebody has taken heed of all the feedback, and come up with a fun, quirky way to limit the stigma and remove the trauma of shopping by size. I think we’ve been so fixated on size for so long, that we’ve forgotten that we have a shape too, and it’s our shape that defines the clothing we wish to wear.
We’re shaping not sizing at Hayley Joy, a 4XL is now a Red Star.
I hope that this will revolutionise the way women are marketed to in fashion, globally. It’s time for women of all shapes and sizes to be honoured. I want this to become a global undertaking. We the designers, who are claiming to know a thing or two about Plus-size fashion, need to realise that our clients needs are not that complicated, they just want respectfully designed, well fitting, fashion forward clothing, without stigma around their size.
.
We’re shaping not sizing at Hayley Joy, a 5XL is now an Emerald Triangle.
I want to be that designer who changed the way women of all sizes are marketed to. In my own small way, I hoped that this would revolutionise the way women were marketed to in fashion, globally. It was time for women of all shapes and sizes to be honoured. I wanted this to become a global undertaking. We the designers, who claim to know a thing or two about Plus-size fashion, needed to start realising that our clients needs are not that complicated, they just want respectfully designed, well fitting, fashion forward clothing, without stigma around their size. I believed that the first step in taking the trauma out of sizing…and the first step for Hayley Joy towards this, was to make fashion about a Shape, not a Size.
We’re shaping not sizing at Hayley Joy, a 6XL is now a Blue Circle.
Welcome to my Shape Revolution.
We’re shaping not sizing at Hayley Joy, a 7XL is now a Purple Triangle.
2016 was a year of learning for me. In my 52nd year I went back to school for the first time in 35 years. I chose to do an online digital marketing course with Getsmarter…yes me…the once VERY technologically challenged girl!
I ran my business and I studied for 10 very intense weeks, and I passed…proudly.
A certificate that makes me really proud.
I learnt how to REALLY delegate. Yes me the one time control freak. And how did it feel I hear you asking, it felt sooooooo liberating. If you’re not good at it, try it, it is life changing. Hire right, my business coach Brent Spilkin from Growing Pains said, never a truer word spoken. Delegating allows you to dream big, and deliver even bigger.
I love these words.
I learnt how to take a random chance and I signed up for an online iPhone photography course, that has completely transformed my life. It has unleashed a creativity in me that I never knew was there. It has taught me patience, it’s taught me to be so much more observant, it’s connected me with some of the most amazing humans all over the world. It’s awoken my creativity on an explosive level.
One of my favourite photos on my new iPhone photography journey.
I learnt how to expand my business without stretching myself thin. I took Hayley Joy online and have enabled women all over the world to have access to true Plus size fashion, designed by a genuine Plus size designer. To date we have not had one garment returned for a refund, and have only had two size changes. That is an enormous achievement in the online sales world.
So how do I top 2016 in 2017?
I go back to school to do an online graphic design course, to realise a 30 year dream, to design and print my own exclusive ranges of fashion fabrics. They say that the only way we are going to make it in business, going forward, is to stand out. I have every intention of taking my new found love and knowledge of photography, and creating collections of fabrics that have never been seen before. I am going to listen to the future predictors, and I’m sooooooo going to stand out. I want to be that girl that at 52 took on the world and did it her way.
Future fabric inspiration from my magnificent Jacaranda tree in my garden.
I’m not big on sitting in peak hour traffic and I’m certainly not big on William Nicol Drive at 5pm. So when I received an invitation, via my business coach Brent Spilkin, to a presentation at the Microsoft offices, featuring Rich Mullholland, hosted by Heavy Chef, I took the plunge, because these are names you don’t let traffic stand in the way of.
On the morning of the presentation I received an email from Heavy Chef welcoming me, and reminding me to tweet as many times as I could, about the event. I’m not the biggest tweeter, but there were prizes to be won, and I never win anything because I never enter anything!! I managed to tweet twice and the prize I was after, was for an online digital marketing course, with GetSmarter.
I made it through the traffic, attended the event, which was mind-blowing, Rich Mulholland puts on a really good presentation, and at the end they announced the Twitter winners. I just knew I was going to win, and I did. I needed some variation in my working life, it was time to step out of my very predictable comfort zone.
And I won the course…it’s all about the law of attraction they say…that day, I say it was all about manifestation and determination. I really, really wanted to win, and I did.
So after 30 years, I became a student again, and embarked on a 10 week online course. It was the craziest 10 weeks, I didn’t know what had hit me, and as I am a bit of an overachiever, not passing wasn’t an option. I started to engage with people, I spent hours on Google learning about everything digital, and I really started to understand how fast our world is changing, and how important it is, no matter how old you are (I’m 52), that you have to be evolving with it, otherwise you will truly be left behind.
My Digital Marketing certificate.
I’ve received my certificate acknowledging my participation. I passed, which is such an awesome feeling, you have no idea how hard I worked to gain an overall pass rate of 71%, this course was so far out of my comfort zone. It was intense, it was challenging on many, many levels, but the doors it’s opened are beyond anything I could have ever imagined. I’ve met the most incredible people in cyberspace, I’ve connected with relevant people in my field, and I’ve been introduced to a whole new world.
As the launch of the HJ online store approaches, my newly acquired knowledge, in so many fields, is going to benefit me, my future clients and all who are connected to HJ production and retail. The journey is going to be a much more enlightened one.
Through the digital course I came across an online photography course which I joined, and I am now busy seeing and connecting with the world on so many different levels. There is so much available online today. I never thought I could study ‘on my own’ but the support in the forums and groups from fellow students, is like nothing I could have ever imagined.
❤️ Hayley
Done, dusted and submitted, a full Digital Marketing Strategy thanks to GetSmarter who I studied through and Heavy Chefwho I won it through, and of course the best business coach in the world, Brent Spilkin from Growing Pains Business Coaching, who is the realreason this all came to be.
I pushed myself to new limits, I nearly threw the laptop out of the window, numerous times, but above all else, I learnt that it is never to late challenge and educate your mind. I chose the Online Digital Marketing course, because I handle all the social media for Hayley Joy and I knew that it was time to delve a bit deeper, and start really understanding all the aspects.
I learnt how to create a website from scratch and how to optimise the various aspects, I learnt how to read my analytics, with insight that has helped me make major tweaks across my various platforms. I learnt how to delve much deeper into Facebook advertising, I learnt how to create an effective email campaign, I learnt all about cellphone marketing, and then in week 10, I took everything that I’d learnt over the past 9 weeks, and created a Digital Marketing Strategy from start to finish.
I’m both nervous and excited to see those results, and I’d like to believe that I gained enough knowledge in a field that I previously knew very little about.
And so life will gain some normality for a couple of weeks, until Hayley Joy online becomes a reality…soon.
hayleyjoysblog.com 