YOUR MY ANGEL VIDEO SHOOT 28.06.09

Had to wake up so early to get to this shoot, but Tamara is a great girl who always thinks of involving us in anything she's doing that'll be of benefit to us.

MUSIC BRIEF:
The "Your my angel track" is a very mature, positive and catchy song and i have attached the mp3 of the track to this e-mail so you can have a listen.
The track is currently getting played on kiss fm and radio 1xtra and we are aiming to have the video on MTV, Chart Show Tv, by the end of July.

The video will be shot in High Definition film quality and the theme of the video will be very glamorous and based around a catwalk. On the day there will be a professional make-up and hair stylist, a professional photographer and the catwalk models.

Tamra B

CLOTHES SHOW LIVE 29.05.09 - 31.05.09

Sales, sales, sales; damn it’s not easy. If we were on The Apprentice, J&L would’ve been fired!! LOL

All jokes aside, The Clothes Show was a great experience and an even better platform for jewel to be publicised. There were a few glitches such as our manufacturer not producing enough garments on time and only when women were trying on the dresses we realised the sizes were made a tad too small. Issue upon issue but we dealt with them well as we all know nothing ever goes to plan.

Clothes Show diary:

FRIDAY 29.05.09
Woke up early, got all jewelled up in our outfits and went to Excel London with the mindset that people would love our beautiful garments and therefore we’d sell out!! LMFAO. Well, little did we know that everyone there was on a bargain hunt!! We can’t blame them; we are just like them, looking for good stuff for a very small price. Some things were even free, such as the Martini cocktails, Kit Kat senses, magazines, goody bags and a free nail polish. How could we compete with that??? Although everyone loved the designs and tried on dresses, you wouldn’t believe we didn’t sell anything!! The only thing they took from our stall were our sweets, can you believe the cheek? Next time no one is taking sweets unless they buy a dress….ok we won’t be that harsh but we were peed off! Anyways, we went home and wiped away our tears as no jewel is giving up that easily!!

SATURDAY 30.05.09
On Saturday, our manufacturer had finally finished a few more of our garments so we had a wider range to display. After sipping on a few Martini’s at 8:30am all nerves were vanished. Crowds came flooding in the showroom at 9am on the dot!! We had our pitch on point, our smiles from ear to ear and most importantly - our prices dropped. Did we sell dresses?? YES, we actually sold dresses!! Whoopee!! We were extremely tired after a two long days but we had to celebrate so we treated the team to KFC family bucket (can’t make money and then spend it all you know), then we went to an after party…SNM.

SUNDAY 31.05.09
We were tired from the night before, however still made it on time to open up our stall to the public. Sipping on Martinis (as you do) and eating sweets so early in the morning made us high!! Selling, selling, selling….GONE!! More dresses sold, many contacts made and interviewed by press and magazines! Sunday was not as busy as Saturday however we sold more dresses. After a hard working weekend (i.e. not even having time to go on face book) we were happy to pack up and go home.

Overall, the clothes show was amazing; thank you all for your support and special thanks to everyone who made it down especially our girls and guys who helped sell those dresses!!

STYLEME-UP.COM

Finally we have made an online shopping presence!!

This year we are working on stocking JeweL all over the UK so you can have easy access to getting that dress you always wanted for yourself or for someone special. As you already know, we are stocked in Fashion Enter Boutique in Croydon Centrale and we are very pleased with the great response the dresses have received from the public. We now have a couple of items stocked on www.styleme-up.com, which is great news for online shopping addicts and people who do not live in Croydon or London. There are some great designers on the e-shop but don’t be swayed, keep it JeweL (LOL). You can easily find us - just go onto the website, click on brands and look under ‘J’.

LAST MINUTE.COM - PHOTOSHOOT 22.03.09

During the week Toya Berry contacted us via facebook and let us know her friend was doing a special offer photoshoot and thought it would be good for us to work with him. So Toya gave us his web add (http://www.lukemiley.co.uk/) and told us to look at his work and make up our own minds. His work is fantastic, we loved it and booked our slot straight away. The shoot was great, we had great models, Lulu, Naomi and Toya who looked beautiful in the dresses. The photoshot didn't finish until 10pm!! Long but well worth it as we got some wonderful shots!!

Thanks girls for your help!!

LAUGH OFTEN, DREAM BIG

Thursday 12.03.09

L:

- Yeaahhhhhhh, at last, dresses are on display!! I immediately announced
on FB that our dresses are finally being stocked in Fashion Enter
boutique, Croydon shopping centre. In order to celebrate we let everyone
know we are giving away a free dress to anyone who goes into the shop,
takes a picture of one of our dresses and uploads it on FB. We had such
a good response from friends and members of our group. So look out for
the lucky winner!!
Later that evening we went out for drinks and a meal with a few of our
friends. We ate, drank, laughed and chatted about old times and all the mischievous things we used to get up to!!! It feels so
good when your dreams are coming true and it feels even better when you
share these moments with people you love and genuinely want you to succeed, as that's what being a JEWEL is all about.

IT'S BEEN A LONG TIME COMING

Tuesday 10.03.09

L:

At long last.....we could finally go to Fashion Enter boutique with our garments. We made an appointment to meet Stephanie (the manager) at 5:30pm. She was as much excited as we were, because being in the industry, she knows
exactly how manufacturers and people in general can take the p*** and let u down. Anyway, she loved the dresses and arranged to put them on show when she's back in the shop on Thursday.

Throughout the week I've been working on getting the things ready for
packaging our dresses. I got in contact with a great company that
provide bags, labels, price tags etc. and more importantly the company
can put our logo on everything and anything we like - check the pic of
the bag!!

I had a bit of trouble getting the right version of the logo the company
could use to print on the bags etc. Luckily a graphic designer we
worked with converted the adobe cs3 version I had to the one the company
needed, which was adobe cs2, (hmmm, I know these things are ever so
technical!!)
So I emailed the logo to the company and await their quote. I must say
we have been very fortunate to come across companies that speak the same
money language as us because the quotes are too good i.e. we can afford
it!!

J:

This week I was liaising with a friend of ours, (who happens to be a fabulous fashion stylist) as she was having a photo shoot to promote her brand new business venture and she asked us to design and make some dresses. The dresses were finished and looked AMAZING (is it weird saying my own work is good.....jeez, who cares, good is good, LOL)!!!!!! I met her later on that evening and she was sooooo happy and pleased with the dresses. What you think?

JUDGEMENT DAY

Monday 09.03.09 JUDGEMENT DAY

L:

First thing Monday morning and all we could think about was 'has the manufacturer done our samples?' hmmm well there was only one way to find out. I called the factory at 9:45am said hello and introduced myself and before I could even ask he said, 'YES, the samples are done, you can come and collect them now.' AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!! I couldn't scream, I couldn't jump around but my head was spinning because all I could think about was what we are destined to do next. I am excited, more than excited, I am ecstatic. These samples are our tools to get the stockists we need!!!! I called J ASAP and told her the news.

J:

When L called me to tell me the FAN-TA-BULOUS news, my reaction was quite mellow, I was happy, really I was, but I just couldn't get excited until I was there and had the samples in my hands. Getting to the factory was not easy, trains were delayed and there was a bit of traffic, so I started getting quite anxious and worried, doubting if things would be ok when I got there....but they were fantastic, fabulous, FAN-TA-BULOUS!!!! I know it might sound quite silly but I became quite emotional, I almost shed a tear, and I'm not the emotional type. What truly made everything even better was the price, especially after the quotes other manufacturers gave us during our 'london town road trip'!!!!!

So we celebrate, we haven't been out for a while, so we go to 'I LUV LIVE' a live music gig in Cargo, Shoreditch. The line up was serious; Charlie Brown, Averlee, Ghetts, MPHO and last but not least SWAY. The night was great, all the acts were good. Ghetts had energy, MPHO had originality and SWAY was very smooth and real. He performed a song call 'happy new year' which was inspiring and also performed his song 'pray for kaya', which I must admit made me shed a tear. It made me think, what would I do if I couldn't save my J? - I don't even want to think about it. The night was not only for enjoyment but for business as we made contacts with some artists' managers.

Now the real story of JeweL begins...

LONDON TOWN - ROAD TRIP

Monday 02.03.09 (this day was so long that we had to split it in to two sections)

PART 1- THE TRUTH SHALL SET YOU FREE
What a beautiful day it was. Sun is shining and I'm off work just to do more work. Today we are not messing around. We need to get stuff sorted because the London Clothes show is in 3 months and we have no garments!! 3 months is not long given the fact that we have so much to do and not enough money (I can barely eat) jokes aside, but yea we need to find a manufacturer TODAY as we need to start calculating how much all this is going to cost before the end of the month!!
So we start our journey in Croydon at the boutique (that is meant to be stocking our dresses), explaining to them why we have been delayed and they completely understand. We really believe it's always best to be honest with people and let them know what's going on so they don't think you are just slacking and messing them about. After that we go to meet our 'manufacturer', who has not manufactured a damn thing for us for past 3weeks!! KMT. We walk into the factory and he is prepared, he packed all our things in one place; the materials, the patterns, EVERYTHING and when he saw us he just walked straight over to our things and attempted to hand them over...well little did he know J was not having it!!
I was not having it at all!!!!! I just put my hands up and said "NO"!!!!!! LMAO. We're laughing now, but at the time there was nothing funny about the situation. We didn't have anybody else, and to be honest we didn't want anyone else..why you ask, because the price he gave was tooooooooo good.
So..like a typical man, he gave plenty of excuses and says "I really wanna help you girls, I just don't wanna let you down, give me until the weekend and I'll have something for you" and like typical women, we say "OK" leaving the factory praying that he does just what he said he would..but this has to be the last chance we give him because we are really behind schedule.

PART 2 - LONDON TOWN ROAD TRIP
Everything written above happened before midday, sounds crazy eh???? But this was just the tip of the iceberg and our day was far from over, because we still had to make our way around what seemed like the whole of London in just 6 hours. We had made several appointments to find other manufacturers that could help us in case our guy did not deliver, we needed back up! They were scattered all over London.
After we left our manufacturer's factory, we made our way to west London, and then from there we had two meetings in east London. Now, the day would have been over for us after our last meeting in east but we did something very silly..we left one of our samples in west London, and had to go back to get it before going home. We got there at 6:15pm!!!!! Let me help you put things in to perspective, we left home at 9am that day, travelled all over London, got home around 8.30pm and didn't eat a thing, the only thing we had was a bottle of Coca Cola L bought that we shared! Hard times, LOL!!!!! Even though the day was long and very tiring we did accomplish a lot and had a better idea of exactly what needed to be done, when it had to be done by and probably most importantly who would do it.
We learnt quite a few things that day. It's always best to sort things out face to face, whether it's business, relationships, etc, this way everyone knows exactly where they stand and you can truly see if someone understands exactly what you expect of them and decide for yourself if you genuinely believe what they're saying. You'll see later on just how good it is to sort things out face to face, especially when it comes to manufacturers, LOL!!!!
Oh and I can't forget another equally important lesson...TRAVELCARD IS GOOD!!!! LMAO!!! There is no way we could have made all those meetings, travelling from south to west then east and then back to west London all within 6hrs without a travelcard- get one!!!

BOREDOM STRIKES AND BLAZERS GET MADE

L.

(some time in december 2008)
Browsing FB, as you do when one becomes idol and what do I come across? Friend's bday party pictures.

Q) ...aaaand who is this friend standing next to?

A) A very seriously sexy looking guy!! I think, wow, this guy is too much.

So I roll my cursor over him and yup he is tagged!!! I know his name, jeez, strike one!! Lmaooo!! So I click on his name and go to his profile and try to add him immediately, and yep, man is already my friend, strike two!!! How could I have missed this guy??? Hmmm...well maybe due to the fact that I'm so immersed in my work I don't have time for any eye candy?? Errrr mate I don't think so!!! So I poke this dude... Couple days later poked back. (A poke is disgusting if you really think bout the true meaning behind it, lol). Thank God, FB chat just became available too!! So he's online and I'm online, I say 'hi', he says 'hi'. I say 'are you a model?' He says 'no', I say 'well you look like you are', he says 'thanks'. Hmmm...well at least man is responding!! So we start making chit chat BUT - I can't tell this guy I'm on his ting, no way!!! So what do I say??? I say 'I'm a designer and I want to make you a blazer'. Yup made work for myself I did not need!!! Like I don't have enough to do, ahhh mate and I don't like saying something and not do it; don't you just hate shitchatters? Lol
So when we meet up on FB, we chat and get to know eachother, its fun but yea I find out he a young ting, hmmm...put me right off but he still wants the blazer!! So I design, I email him and later we arrange to meet up for me to measure him up! Yea people I get to meet him and touch him, MATE, I'm on cloud 3 right now! Lol.

Saturday 17.01.09
We meet for dinner and get the ball rolling and we end up in the ladies loo for me to take his measurements and I'm thinking (whilst I have him in a cubicle) I could just pounce on him but don't want to scare little man off to go tell his friends that this so called older business woman is a crazy nutcase! So I chill! Anyways gotta get this blazer made asap so I can see him again!

Sunday 22.02.09
I meet Mr P to get some help and advice on how to get this done. Not done menswear before so I'm dabbling in new waters. He breaks down costings etc and we get things moving.

Thursday 26.02.09
Pattern gets made within a day, I buy materials however I've not gone for the classic black as I've seen this guys pics and he likes colour. So I've chosen a colour I think is not too bright but will look amazing on his skin.

Wednesday 04.03.09
I go to the factory, start cutting the parts and placing the flowers where they need to be on the blazer. I leave work to go to my other work, what a long day, EVERYDAY!!

While I'm at the factory, working hard, working late, I'm hungry and all I can think of is next time Lee, shut your mouth and you won't create work for yourself!! Mate, if he don't give up then I'm doublely Peed!!! Lmao (wish me luck girls, you know how it is).

Anyways blazer is looking good so far and if people like it may just be in demand, hmmm??

SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER (21.02.09)

L

21.02.09

At home on a Saturday night and nothing to do, I’m really tired but yep, I want to go out, just because I’ve just got my hair cut and want to show it off (can’t let a FrSH new style go to waste!! LOL). So, my girl Nay comes to pick me up (no I don’t drive any more, couldn’t afford to run a 1series with the costs of business alongside so I’m on TFL baby – no road tax , no petrol – although they may be hidden costs within my monthly travel card – but hey its cheaper than a car). So we drive up to Holborn where Reggie Yates holds a monthly event called Trading Places. The venue is plush, queue is long and phat but we get in. It’s very different from the raves I go to, the music is more commercial and the people are varied – everyone there is making a fashion statement whether it is glam or casual, with big hairdos, bold make up and bright colours!! I love it. Well, I dressed in between as you can see and the hairdo isn’t BIG but it’s good enough for me. So towards the end of the night, after dancing our feet off and screaming lyrics til our lungs are exhausted we resort to taking pics, woohoooo FB time!! As you do, you find a spot - we found the elevator by the toilets (hehe). Talk about girls gone wild, we were posing like jokers but I'm sure the security guy was counting his lucky stars just watching!! LOL

DARE TO BE DIFFERENT...(18.02.09)

Wednesday - Thursday 19.02.09
Since we started JeweL Clothing we've always sold our dresses directly interested ladies who have found out about us via MySpace, Facebook, various fashions and word of mouth. All of our clients are very lovely and beautiful young women, each one coming to us looking for a unique outfit, something different that they or anyone else can't get elsewhere, but some are more daring than others.
One of our clients is a gorgeous girl who loves life and everything about it, but for someone with such a colourful personality, she has this mad love affair with black and she loves wearing it (you know who you are...LOL)! She came to us needing a dress for her boyfriends birthday party and we decided, that's it black is out, time to be different, time to switch things up. I met her Wednesday afternoon with the dress in tow, feeling a bit anxious about her not liking the dress, but thankfully she loved it, apart from it being a little too big she was very excited and loved the colour choice (which was gold by the way).
We met again on Thursday, the dress was finished and she LOVED it (so did her mum, who was lovely by the way)!!! She was so pleased with the way it turned out especially the colour and she promised to trust our opinion on certain colour choices, because we would never steer her wrong.
Being different can sometimes be very scary, especially when it's so far removed from anything you would normally do, but we all need to step outside our comfort zones sometimes to get a different result, a different reaction from those we know and those who never saw us coming. Being different, involves change however big or small, change is one thing we can't avoid; it's an inevitable part of life. DARE TO BE DIFFERENT...stand out, be unique and embrace change.

IF YOU FAIL TO PLAN, YOU PLAN TO FAIL (16.02.09)

J:

Well, you know how people talk about Monday morning blues, Monday for us felt more like Monday morning nightmare, because everything just seemed to be going wrong. I don't even know where to start...
That morning I woke up feeling great, out of bed early but I didn't mind because today was a big day for JeweL. We had a very important meeting with a very important buyer and retailer, so we were hyped. Spoke to L as I left my house (a lot of excited motivational talk was going on). I was on my way to our manufacturers warehouse, when L said to me "J you better call him before you go any further"- so that's what I did and when I spoke to him I was not impressed (p****d really). Man said our samples weren't ready and he wasn't sure at that moment when they would be. I felt like going down there and knocking him out, he knew about the meeting we had that day and just how important it was to us, KMT!!!!!! Please people, you need to know that all this happened before 9AM, like I said earlier, Monday morning nightmare. After that I went to L's house, she was at home because her boiler was playing up and the nightmare just kept getting worse..L tell 'em what happened at your house..

L:
My boiler broke down!!! p*****. No heating, no hot water. Praise the Lord it didn't happen last week, when it was snowing and bitterly cold (brrrrrrrr). Anyways a plumber came over on Monday morning and couldn't repair it so he told me it would cost up to 1k to get and install a new one!! I'm not prepared for this right now, I'm thinking about paying manufacturers and pattern makers - NOT buying a friggin boiler. J was almost in tears when she heard what plumber said. WOW, 1k I did not budget for. As much as we can not plan what will happen in future we can definitely start preparing for downfalls. This lesson has taught me whether for home or for business you need to SAVE & budget for the unknown factors that creep up when you least expect!! You never know when something like this will occur and you need Ps (for those who don't know that means paper, money, cash etc LOL) to help you sort it!! Luckily for me, I had some money aside and even luckier for me is I had other contacts so a plumber that I knew from my previous job came to take a look at the boiler. Thank God and bless this man that he found the problem and fixed it costing me a mere 60quid£££. Do you know how many 60quids there are in 1k???? Yea mate, it's a frigging lot, LOL!!! That's why it's always good to get a second and sometimes third opinion!!
If we learnt anything that day, we learnt an invaluable lesson about business and life in general and that is the importance of our reliance on others, because nobody is an island. On Monday we were completely at the mercy of our manufacturer and that thieving plumber, we had no control over any of those situations, which is a horrible feeling. In life and in business you have to plan and take into account the shortcomings and misgivings of others, so you're not in a place where your plans and ambitions are put on hold because of others. People can slow you down and hold you back, but only you can cripple yourself; IF YOU FAIL TO PLAN, YOU PLAN TO FAIL!

ROSES ARE RED??? (14.02.09)

L:

As single ladies we are very aware of V day. Walking past Clintons the day before there was a MASSIVE queue of men (who annoyingly leave things to the last minute) getting that, MUST HAVE card. Lol
Well, we are fans of love and couples, family etc but when you don't have all that yourself it can lead to being envious (or just straight hating) of people celebrating this day. We can honestly say we do not hate on the next girl whose man is buying her a card, some flowers, cooking her a meal, taking her on a romantic holiday for the weekend or even proposing to her!!! (I can't do this anymore, the jealousy-arrrgggghhhhhhh, LMAO). Anyways, Saturday's as usual we are busy working so half of the day flies past quick (thank God it did). Another single girlfriend of ours arranged a get together at her place for single ladies ONLY, to eat, drink and chat crap bout guys - well we were not about to go and drown our sorrows as that would've been even worse than sleeping. Why would you do that?? Why do you have to highlight the fact that you are single?? Being single isn't always bad, at the moment we're having fun dating and flirting (with guys we know it's not going anywhere with) but when you start getting bored you phone or text people who thank God you have finally got in contact (hehe). V day is not only for BFs and GFs but for anyone you love, so I decided to take my little bro for dinner.but I had a surprise visit, (yep, I was being admired from a far). I was given a card, chocolates, and tiny bottles of rum AND was taken to dinner. So what did I wear??? I wasn't expecting any date so I was casual; I wore black leggings, which showed off my cute bottom so when I walked around he'd want me even more and a striped peach and white shirt with sexy thigh high boots. Dinner was good but unfortunately I'm not interested boohoo, however the element of surprise and being wooed made me happy.

J:

You're lucky L, dinner and a card.. My day however, was pretty boring and straightforward: work, home and bed (ALONE)!!!. The only highlight of the day was coming home to see my mummy, because I hadn't seen her for 2 days, my one and only valentine.

WELCOME!!!

Heeeeyyyyyyyy people! For those who don't know us, we are two ladies called Julia and Lyande, but together we are...JeweL Clothing (cue superhero music..LOL, you'll find out that we like to joke and mess around a lot).

WOW!!!!! We can't believe it's been almost two years since we started designing and doing something we've always loved. We all know how people are, always talking the 'ardest (LOL..big up Giggs) about all the dreams and plans they have, but never put it into action.well that's exactly how we were until our mothers got fed up and told us to do something about it. We have very pushy mothers, who apart from wanting us to find husbands, ones that are financially stable that is, (most likely to take care of 'their' needs, LOL) actually want us to succeed in abundance.

Well, all that nagging seems to have paid off because now we are living our dream. We may not be Versace or Chanel just yet, but we WILL get there with all the hard work we are putting in. Over the past few months we've realised and truly understood that if YOU don't act, nothing will get done because the only person that can change your situation is YOU.

This blog will give those of you that have no idea who we are, insight into us as young entrepreneurial women and our endeavors with our baby (JeweL) and for those who are more familiar with JeweL Clothing, we are inviting you to get to know just who Julia and Lyande are; the J & L behind JeweL, our struggles and successes in life, love and most importantly; JEWEL.

We really would like you to get involved in our discussions and be a part of our blog so please feel free to contact us at any time via our blog, website http://www.jewelclothing.co.uk/,
mobile 07711070507 or 07984272281 or email imailto:info@jewelclothing.co.uk for any advice, queries or feedback.

Speak to you soon, MWAH!!!!!!!