Watch back this recorded session from The Fashion Exchange to hear from Ami who shares how she started her own fashion brand and give her top tips on why you should consider wholesale to build your business. 

The Fashion Exchange: How to work with wholesale for your fashion brand

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 is a retail business mentor and product strategist. She specialises in teaching product entrepreneurs to build retail brands and pitch and sell into retailers. 

Having worked for some of the biggest retailers on the UK high street like M&S, Next and Tesco, Ami left her corporate career six years ago to start her own fashion brand. Watch back this recorded session from The Fashion Exchange to hear from Ami who shares how she started her own fashion brand and give her top tips on why you should consider wholesale to build your business. 

The Fashion Exchange is proudly sponsored by 

Welcome

Hi, I’m Bea and I’m the creative director of the woven textiles brand Beatrice Larkin. The studio specialises in luxury Jacquard woven fabrics for the interiors market, all sharing my signature hand drawn style and manufactured in the UK.
We currently produce two materials, super soft merino wool for throws, cushions and accessories like hot water bottles and scarves and recycled cotton for upholstery and soft furnishings.&nbsp;
We work closely with a mill in Lancashire, a finishers in Yorkshire and makers local to my studio in Margate.
We sell directly online, wholesale to shops and to interior designers selling fabric by the metre. We also collaborate with brands, most recently with the bedding company Piglet in Bed on an exclusive hot water bottle collection.

Textile Designer

Member of the Month: Beatrice Larkin

Congratulations to our Member of the Month for July, textile designer, Beatrice Larkin.

Hello - I am a professional coach (EMCC Master Coach), consultant, trainer and workshop facilitator. I run professional improvement programmes, and management team training focused on the areas of; marketing, innovation, leadership and change. With my private clients, I work mainly with mid-career to senior executives, and with my training, I am mainly running seminars running across EMEA. I hold an MA in Coaching and Mentoring, a post-graduate Diploma in Business (Marketing), a PGCHE (Adult Development) and BA (Hons) Law. I am also Accredited Strengths Profile Coach and Practitioner of Business Model Canvas too, and my work is based on practical management and principles from positive psychology . Prior to all of that, my corporate career covered IP rights licensing, marketing and innovation management working at; Yell.com, TVNZ, Walt Disney and Office Dept. I&apos;ve been a consultant since 2011 (yes, London 2012 was my first gig) - and since then I have delivered programmes to teams and agencies such as; Tata Communications, John Lewis Waitrose, Powwownow, The AA. I have also created marketing and innovation modules for various Universities and business schools, including; Anglia Ruskin London, BIMM (London), Winchester University, Henley Business School, Krems Universitat (Vienna), The Academy of Contemporary Music (Guildford) - and Metropolis Studios. At the moment, I do travel a lot with my training work, but when coaching, I can often to be found in my London haunts, at Century Club (on Shaftesbury Avenue) or The RSA (on The Strand).

Consultant and Coach

M3 / M4 Business Networking Group

Where? You will know it if you are here! From Reading to Southampton, from Woking down to Bristol (and lots of places in between, across Berkshire, Hampshire, Surrey, Thames Valley and Wiltshire).  Share your thoughts, questions, contacts and opportunities here.

Free consultation and advice

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Serial entrepreneur and innovation director across multiple verticals, with a technology and sector agnostic approach to consulting. Currently consulting to various ventures ie Medtech, CPG, FMCG, Fintech, Adtech, HeathTech etc

Having been deeply immersed in the Startup / SME EcoSystem for approximately 25 years, in 2 distinct sectors and countries with various business models. Providing both product / services for b2b and b2b segments has allowed me to gain a solid amount of diverse knowledge and understanding.
This entrepreneurial experience also allowed to gain insights of the innovation value chain and operational requirements of building / scaling ventures, for product market fit. The critical component of fundraising through various mechanisms, is an area that I understand well, having bootstrapped businesses and then raised circa 3m Euros across angel, Venture Capital and the European Development Fund (EDF).
The full spectrum of the fund-raising process was arguably the most challenging aspect of venture building for a multitude of reasons and it was a definite grind to get it done. Learning to dealing with brutal reality was a crucial part of success and helped test / fortify my resilience and growth mindset.
The last venture Zveetz had a regenerative aspect with a mission to make a dent against sugar pollution and its consequences to people and planet. Working cross functionally with a stellar team of individuals including food and behavioural scientists to deliver an impactful value proposition was highly rewarding. The business model was multifaceted with transactional, subscription and asymmetrical revenue streams. We were able to move the needle on sugar reduction and enabled people to be more sugar smart, thereby hitting multiple impact and revenue KPI’s.
Previously to that, I had the privilege of deep diving into the world of AI, machine learning &amp; ontologies to build a recommendation engine SaaS for the e-commerce sector, although there were multiple future use cases for the technology. This immersion and venture was very challenging for multiple reasons but ultimately the outcomes were net positive, so the juice was worth the squeeze.
hankfully, I have been able to transition into the role of an Innovation Director and apply skills / experience to provide consultation across the Oxford Innovation ecosystem to various stakeholders.&nbsp;
<ul>
<li>Performed 96 one to one business support sessions and workshops for students, faculty, startup and SMEs teams.</li>
<li>Consulting with the KTP (Knowledge Transfer Partnerships) department to revamping program offering and positioning to meet desired Research Excellence Framework (REF 29) standards.</li>
<li>Supporting faculty members across the UnIversity’s different schools, on commercialisation of their research and various potential fund-raising strategies.</li>
<li>Working with the AI Research group within the University to develop their strategic roadmap.</li>
<li>Supporting the establishment of “Managementfest”, a student led innovation &amp; entrepreneurship conference and accelerator programme at BNU.</li>
<li>Regularly meeting with the university leadership committee to report all innovation initiatives and results.</li>
<li>Leading Oxford Innovation AI working group with a remit to i) develop a wholistic adoption strategy for competitive advantage. ii) Steering AI integration and operationalisation across the org, towards ISO42001 (trustworthy) compliance.</li>
</ul>

Innovation Director

Vishal Kawatra

Serial entrepreneur and innovation director across multiple verticals, with a technology and sector agnostic approach to consulting. Currently consulting to various ventures ie Medtech, CPG, FMCG, Fintech, Adtech, HeathTech etc

Having been deeply immersed in the Startup / SME EcoSystem for approximately 25 years, in 2 distinct sectors and countries with various business models. Providing both product / services for b2b and b2b segments has allowed me to gain a solid amount of d

The Fashion Exchange: How to work with wholesale for your fashion brand

The Fashion Exchange: How to work with wholesale for your fashion brand

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