So….. Alice, my wonderful and fabulous PR, and I hosted the first ever Charlotte & Co.  press day this week.

I had to leave Chris and the kids in Majorca and fly back to London for it.  Lucky I got out at all.  UK airspace shut shortly after I landed.

Press days are a funny thing: we get the whole collection together, display everything from nighties and slippers to robes and tracksuits prettily in a hotel suite and then wait for journos, stylists and, these days, bloggers to turn up. 

 

It’s awful for Alice, who’s responsible for organizing it, waiting for the first person to come through the door and wondering if anyone will show. 

It’s even worse for me because I’m secretly convinced that everyone will come and that they will all hate the collection I have created.

In the end of course lots of folks came by and everyone said how much they loved the products.

 

Why are we racked by self doubt when it’s always been ok before?  It’s a girl thing – this slightly desperate self doubt and resulting striving and over-achievement. 

I recognized this ‘girl’s success syndrome’ years ago and have to confess that I have built brilliantly productive teams by deliberately recruiting women who I perceive to display the symptoms.  In my experience they work really hard, always over-deliver and, crucially, when things go wrong they look to themselves long before they blame others.

 

So anyhow, the day was a success and we will do another in the autumn.  The top 5 as cooed over by stylists were:

  1. Linen Shirt Dress
  2. Linen Kaftan (both due into stock in June for the holidays)
  3. Vintage cotton nighties
  4. Cashmere ballet slippers
  5. Silk Pyjamas

 

Amusingly people just couldn’t believe the prices.  Every time I told a fashion editor a price she would say: ‘that’s wholesale price, right?? We need the retail price for the magazine’.  And I would have to assure her that, no really, our prices are that good. People are so used to paying 2 or 3 times as much for the quality of silk and cashmere that we offer.  


See the response to the new collection:

http://www.madamesays.com/archives/2562

http://www.fashionfoiegras.com/2010/04/londons-luxury-lady.html