1. Well, peeps, we're coming to the end of another year, and it's around that time that I start to get all reflective and whimsical as I look back on the year that was....
Can I start off by saying a massive THANK YOU to all the awesome sharkies that have been involved with everything Black Milk this year. It really means a lot to me personally and I appreciate every pair of leggings you have bought, every Facebook comment and like, every Instagram selfie, and every time you guys have rocked out on a Saturday night in your shiny BM goodness. I freely admit that we as a company have no idea what we are doing and I am just making this thing up as I go, so your patience and support are definitely appreciated!
I'm giving you all a group hug over the internet right now. You feel that? I know you do...
My personal highlights:
- Sharkcon 1! That was amazing.... we're definitely going back to Vegas, baby.
- Getting the Star Wars deal. That was massive for us and really gave us a new business model that I hadn't considered before!
- Getting the Lord of the Rings deal. Yeah, that is going to be pretty epic.
- Setting up our own printing operation. As some of you might remember, I went to Italy a while back to check out some machinery. Well, I ended up buying it, and now we do a lot of our own fabric printing! It's beautiful to watch the guys put white fabric pieces into the press and watch it spit out beautiful coloured leggings out the other side! It's my baby. I gave birth to a giant mechanical baby, and that's not weird at all.
- Getting nominated for Australian Fashion Designer of the Year.
- ^Jks, that never happened.
Lowlights:
- Customs fees crisis. It has been really depressing from our end because it hurt a lot of sharkies and we have been powerless to stop it. A lot of sharkies stopped buying from us as a result and that was really sad. :( But don't worry, I have a plan!!! (See number 2 below)
- Internet freak outs. I tend to take stuff to do with Black Milk quite personally... like maybe too personally. To the point where I can freak out about stuff. That's not a good thing. And to make matters worse I am really, really bad at concealing my emotions. So everyone is trying to get work done and I'm raging in the office like Anakin Skywalker just before he goes into the Jedi Temple and kills all those little kid jedis (oops, spoiler alert!).
So it's like I read on the interwebz:
"BM is so overpriced, I got the same thing from [evil leggings company] for way less, and they were so much better! And I don't want to support people like jL because he eats babies."
And instead of designing clothes, like I'm meant to be doing - I'm busy sending out my ninjas on a mission to track the perp down and SHURIKEN THEM TO THE FACE.
Kind of petty.
2. "I like to be in A-mer-i-ca..."I finally visited the US in 2012. Had an awesome time as well - got to meet soooo many awesome sharkies in LA, Vegas and NY. But I wasn't just there to hang out with awesome sharkies and have a sweet time at Sharkcon'12, I had a secret mission! Okay, probably not that much of a secret - I was scoping out the US as a possible site for the next Black Milk manufacturing operation!
"But why?" I hear you ask... (yes, I have the power of internet hearing).
Simple peeps - I feel bad that innocent US sharkies are getting charged criminal customs charges. And of course we get blamed for it... grrrrr....
"Hey Black Milk - is this some kind of SCAM!!! I bought some leggings and now I'm being forced to pay more money. WHAT IS UP WITH THAT?!"
Yes it is a scam, perpetrated by your government.
So either the US government decides not to tax people on international purchases, or we need to start an operation in the US. Guess which one of those is more realistic?
"But jL" - I hear you say - "Won't that personally cost you lots and lots of money- just to help sharkies getting taxed by their own government?!
Yeah. I'd do that for you. :)
3. Again there has been a lot of talk about copying lately... I get several emails a day, detailing the dirty deeds of the ELCs. We even had one situation where an ELC was tagging their photos with #blackmilk and even setting up hashtag feeds so that BM customer photos would go up on their website! As we have said before - here's the deal peeps, haters gonna hate, copiers gonna copy, and sharkies gonna nom. :)
4. Pool parties!Don't worry peeps, I haven't forgotten about them! Imagine 200 cute girls in swimsuits and killer heels, sipping champagne around a pool. We are definitely going to make this happen, and it will probably encourage me to make more designer swimwear as well! Maybe we could even combine a pool party with a swimwear launch...
Woah... that's brilliant.
Thanks again for everything peeps, see you next year! :)
x
jL
