Too Many Tights!

The More You Care, The More You Have To Lose

Hey peeps

Let's do some blog reading!!!

 1. So I was in a public toilet and I thought to myself... "Hey let's take some photos!"

Because hanging around public toilets taking photos is totally my jam.

2. So I decided not to put this into production when I first made it. Apparently, I'm not very good at figuring out what girls want to wear, because them ladies want them dinosaurs on their bodehs.

So if ladies want dinosaurs, it's dinosaurs they will get! I'll make lots, don't worry. ;)

3. So I have addressed this a few times before, but I thought I might talk about it again - the dreaded Black Milk release strategy!

In the old days it was really simple, I would design a little collection, say 20-30 pieces, and then I would release them (with none actually made). Girls would buy a few, I wold do a little happy dance, and then we would go and make the clothes. 

But times have changed. Now we do a release every two weeks, and there's lots of new designs constantly coming out.

Sometimes I get emails from girls who feel sad that we have changed. Some say it's not special any more. Some girls even say things such as "There are so many things to buy that I don't buy anything" (I personally don't understand that one. I recently went to a buffet at some hotel in Dubai where they had enough food to sink a battleship, and I still managed to eat enough to feed a small village).

I have thought long and hard on this one.

Going to the sample sales recently has clarified things for me a little better, so let me share with you my feelings. :)

In Melbourne last week, almost 4000 girls turned up, most of them wearing their favourite Black Milk piece. And it was so great that there was so much variety! There were super old school things that I had made in my garage back in the day, as well as super new school things like the striped playsuit that was released only a few days earlier. In between was a beautiful array of all the crazy things that we have made over the years. 

There were also lots of situations where girls got to see some pieces that they had never seen before - and that was so cool!

I would hate it if every Black Milk girl looked the same. I know that chances are every sharkie has at least one galaxy piece, but on top of that I want girls to be able to get lots of other pieces that they personally fall in love with. 

So I have decided that I'm just going to keep doing what I love doing, which is making cool clothes. Girls keep asking for them, so we are just going to keep creating!

Of course, I know and can appreciate that some people don't like the way we do things now, and if it bugs you want to move on, I understand.

I guess I just love the idea that you can come to the BM Facebook page, or the website and you will always find something new, or something that you haven't seen before.

You see , I think fashion is one big adventure, and isn't that what the best adventures are like - always something new to discover?

4. This girl's bathroom is a million times nicer than mine.

And so is her outfit. :(

5. Guess who is planning on setting up a special booth at Comic-con in San Diego beside the Star Wars spot? Huh? C'mon - guess!

It us. The answer is us.

7. Burned Velvet is awesome...

And Black Milk shoes are awesome....

So Burned Velvet is awesome and Black Milk shoes are awesome... wait a minute...

HEY ARE YOU THINKING WHAT I'M THINKING?!?!?!

8. And the announcement that MANY girls on ze interwebs have been waiting for - at the end of this video:

 

Yes, peeps, we have a deal with Harry Potter. So... Marauder's Map leggings anyone? ;)

Did you know that Harry Potter's parents were named James and Lily?

OMG IT'S A SIGN!

9. Gym leggings update!

I'm sorry this is taking so long, I'm trying to get this stuff done, I really am! I have been looking for a new gym fabric, and getting something I'm really, really happy with has been a challenge. However, the good news is that we have some FANTASTIC new fabric coming in from Italy that I can't wait to use for gym leggings.

I think you guys will fall in love with them. In the mean time, we do have the Yoga Pants coming out. :)

10. Super soft elastic is arriving tomorrow! Comfy tummies for all. :)

11. Love to all the Sharkies. - looking forward to seeing all the girls in Sydney next Saturday!!!

x

jL

Location, Location, Location (in which jL gets his blog hijacked)

Hey guys! AC here!

Guess what? I'm hijacking James' blog. MUAHAHAHAHA. Why? cuz I have something preeettty awesome to tell you about...

You ready? I'm not ready.

I'm not ready.

Ok...I'M READY:

Yesterday afternoon we went out for our first ever location photoshoot! That means we took the model (the impossibly beautiful Joss) out of the studio and into...the wild...

And by wild I mean into the streets of Brisbane, which sounds a lot less exciting at first but actually turned out to be really amazing. We've never done an ~official~ Black Milk Clothing location photoshoot before! I mean, we've grabbed employees and put them in gear and crazy shoes and taken photos of them in the awesomely grungey alley behind the office...buuuuut (and no offense to our stunning employees!) it sure was nice to be able to do this with a) an actual model and b) as an official part of our shoot! 

It meant we had the chance to snag accessories from some amazing people, put together complete looks, and shoot our gear the way we envision it being worn out there in the big wide world. We get that you guys don't live in a perfectly lit, sterile studio, so this was a really exciting chance for us to show you guys some of the potential we see when we make clothes.

We also got to work with different scenery, which makes a nice change from a white backdrop! Brisbane has heaps of gorgeous nooks and crannies, and is full of stunning little surprises...like this gigantic red door:

Very pretty on its own, but vastly improved by the model in tight n' shiny pants right? We found graffiti'd alleyways, tree-lined streets, and a great spot to whip out the skateboard. We shot all kinds of pieces, too: swimsuits, our fav classic pieces, new pieces....

 

...mmmmmmm purdy...

It was a super successful day, heaps of fun for the team and we got some killer shots that we can't wait to share with you!

Today, though, we're back at BMHQ getting ready for tomorrow's release. Bonnie is editing photo after photo of Joss and crying quietly over her unbelievable attractiveness, James is...somewhere...(I heard something about unicorns?), the logistics team are crunching the numbers to get stock quantities up, the packers are in full gear to make sure orders are all caught up ahead of the releases, the customer service mega hotties are flat out answering all your Qs (they do that every day, though)  and Cam is singing Diamonds by Rihanna. We all have our own ways to prepare for the insanity of release day. And I'm talking to you guys! 

And, because I love ya*, here's a finished pic from our location shoot.

A lot of the shots were also fully styled looks, too, so keep an eye out for those on Facebook and here!

Fingers crossed we're going to do more of these locations shoots too, showcasing different looks and different ways to style our gear. Don't fret though, we're not going to stop posting heaps and heaps of pics of our hottie customers LIKE THIIIIIIIS

<3 Love. It.

Right. So...more location shoots from us. But not less sharkie pics, cuz you guys rock. Now, I hear James approaching so I'm going to get off his blog...

Bai!

-AC

*Actually it's because Bonnie loves ya, since she had to edit the photo :P

 

Word To The Wise

Hey peeps!

1. First things first... girls wearing awesome Black Milk clothes!

Yeah, we made the top and the pantyhose - how awesome are they?! (Answer: 11/10 awesome factor)

Second thing... BM girls with awesome fake moustaches!

Sorry M! But serioulsy, you actually look awesome with a mo'.

2. Did you catch out podcast on Friday? Of course you did! Catch it again here. :) Not really a podcast....

Bet you haven't seen this video though:

  

3. Gym wear!

Yeah, it's going pretty well. It's taking us a teensy weensy bit longer to sew them than I first hoped, but Rome wasn't built in a day. In fact, they took at least two weeks and then - BAM! It was all Vespas and Pizza at the Colosseum. And yeah it's pretty much the same at BM Gym. :)

A few girls have expressed concern about the fact that our manufacturing team are working so much overtime to get things out in time. Is this cruel? Will the quality be compromised?

No, precious. :)

Fact about sewing garment manufacturers in Australia: their favourite word = 'overtime'. Seriously, if you meet a sewing machine operator, say that word to them slowly, you'll see their eyes light up like a Christmas tree.

And in terms of quality - our sewing team take a lot of pride in our quality! Yeah, we know that we don't always get it right, but these girls (and one dude) are very passionate about what they do. :) We have quality control meetings regularly and talk about all the things we need to make sure we do so that peeps get the good BM. :)

 

* BTW - if you do have any quality concerns, just email customer service and we'll make sure you get anything faulty replced or refunded. :)

3. Quality Plans!

On the subject of quality control... we have some cool plans that I thought I'd let you know about. 

One thing that a few girls have been unhappy about has been the waistbands we use. Sometimes they have been too tight. It's actually a challenge to get it right because most girls will tell you that tight is better than too loose, so we typically err on the side of tight. We tested our latest waistbands on around 150 girls and got some feedback and so we know what most girls are happy with now. :) Hooray!

And in other GOOD NEWS - we have some new super soft elastic coming next month! Happy tummies, happy girls. :)

3. Thought I might use the blog to chat about some areas lately where there seems to be some confusion. So let's clear up some misconceptions!

Q1. Why do you guys release so often - is it because you are greedy for money?

Wut? No. Seriously... peeps actually think that?

Occassionally, I go to Black Milk meet ups. You know what the number one things girls want to talk to me about? They want me to do a certain kind of leggings, or a type of swimsuit with this cool graphic on it. In other words - MORE STUFF. I - being the nice accomodating person that I am - write down all their requests and by ther end of the night I have literally pages and pages of things girls are really looking forward to. That's not including the hundreds of emails, Facebook messages, tweets, etc. that we get from you girls every week asking for new pieces.

And then I work into the small hours of the night actually making them.  :)

We get asked for new designs constantly! And - because we love you guys - we try to say yes as much as possible, which means we make lots of stuff!

Not only that I LIKE DESIGNING CLOTHES. That's kind of what I do. 

The end result of this is that we make heaps of clothes! We like doing that. It keeps it interesting. And once I've made them, I really want ot let girls buy them. That's the fun part. :)

Now I understand that lots of girls can't actually afford everything we make... but that's to be expected isn't it? Can you imagine what would happen if you turned up to a Chanel fashion show and said to Karl Lagerfeld "SLOW DOWN ON ALL DAT CHANEL I CAN'T AFFORD ALL DEM TWEED COATS!" 

I dare say peeps would look at you funny.

Now here's the thing... I'm more than happy to space stuff out a bit. We could do fortnightly if that worked better. No biggie.

In terms of being greedy for money... ouch!

I make decisions that I think will make girls happy. How successful I am at that... well, you be the judge (jks - we all know I totally suck at it). Making cool clothes and creating a cool, fun, positive community has always been more important to me than the money.

Q2. Why do some of my new clothes fit differently to some of my old clothes?

Because... I actually don't know. But that's a big focus for us in 2013, getting really consistent with our sizing. 

The great thing about that is that it will involve lots of fittings and you guys might be able to get involved as well! So if you like trying on clothes and giving your opinion (I suspect that's a few of you) then watch this space. ;)

Q3. Do you manufacture in Australia because you think that means better quality?

No - we manufacture in Australia because I happen to live here. Really, it's just that simple.

Q.4 I heard that you eat babies, is this true?

Don't believe everything you read on the internet, sweetcheeks. I gave up baby eating years ago.

5. Love love love you guys. Please be excellent to one another... and rock out your hot little self like the star that you are.

Sweeeeeeeet dreams, all. ;)

x

 

jL

 

 

My Humps (My Humps, My Humps, My Humps)

Hey peeps - I'm blogging!

First things first... CUTE GIRL!

Alright, now let's have question and answer time....

QUESTION 1. "What the heck is happening with gym clothes, you freak?!"

Woah, enough with name calling already! Okay, I'm going to give you the skinny...

I have been working on gym clothes for the last six months. I started after spending a lot of time in gyms looking what girls were wearing an seeing a lot of.... convergence. In fact, at the gym I go to, you would have to say that 90% of girls are wearing clothes from one clothing company.

And so... perhaps a little ignorantly/arrogantly, I thought to myself "I think I can do this!"

You see, girls who wear Black Milk tend to not... fit in with everyone else. And gyms seemed to me to be the perfect place to NOT fit in with everyone else.

This was the beginning of Black Milk Gym.

I started with leggings. And they pretty much sucked initially - they fell down, they were too loose, too high, too lame. They didn't breathe either. Just... terrible. However, after six months I think we have got something awesome. How awesome? THIS AWESOME:

"But jL", I hear you say "that's just plain black - I can get that anywhere!"

To which I reply.... yes, but that's just the beginning. Every girl needs plain black, so we start with that. And then, as Michelangelo painted on the blank canvas of the Sistine Chapel, so we paint a masterpiece of awesome style on this simple foundation!

Pew-pew!!!

Ninja style!

And we are working on some awesome names for our leggings styles at the moment.

I decided that I really want to be a little different with how we approach the whole gym thing for women. I'm not a huge fan of that whole "Love yourself, think positive, nourish your body and spirit"

I guess I like my girls to be a bit more like.... ninjas.

In fact, one of our styles will actually be called 'Ninja Pants' (the full length style).

The booty Shorts we have renamed 'SmackDowns'. As in, if you seriously need to lay a smack down on someone - these are the pants to do it in.

In the future I envisage there will be a time when it will be commonplace to hear such phrases as:

"Okay, time for me to go to the gym.. I need my bag, by towel, and my new Galaxy SmackDowns...."

You heard it here first.

(I'm hoping that we will have our first gym leggings and shirts released this Thursday!)

QUESTION 2. "Why should I buy BM gym leggings?"

I could give you thousands of reasons - but I'd just be making most of them up (Reason #642: They give you the ability to understand the speech of animals. Reason #853 They will enable you to reclaim your parents' love....), so instead I'll stick to three (real ones, not made up)...

ONE: They don't go transparent at the back! Our gym leggings are doubled up with fabric at the back so that no matter how far over you bend, and no matter how colourful your undies - no one will be able to see what is going on underneath!

TWO: Awesome phone sized pockets! Each pair of leggings has two pockets on the side, both of which easily fit a decent sized phone.

THREE: Made in Australia. :) 

Most gym companies manufacture in extrememly poor countries, and they believe that you can't realistically run a successful gym wear label manufacturing somewhere like Australia.

I wonder if we will prove them wrong? 

QUESTION 3. "What in the world is up with your release schedule lately - are you mad?!"

Hey - you just watch what you say! My sanity is a personal matter between me and the voices inside my head (which are telling me that aliens are spying on me).

Okay - I'll admit, our release schedule has been a little bit insane lately. Alright, TOTALLY insane.

It was my fault - we designed HEAPS OF STUFF and I was getting worried that we were going to just get swamped with new stuff, so I really wanted to get them out to you girls as soon as possible.

So, if it has been a bit disorganised, confusing, and overwhelming.... my apologies.

Some girls have accused me of doing it out of greed - let me assure you that this is not the case. Quite the opposite - it has mostly been my desire to keep the peeps at BM working! There have been times when it looks like we are running out of work... so we just do another release to stay busy.

I think it''s cool because it means you get to see lots of new things, but I understand that some girls feel like it's overwhelming.

But don't worry peeps! I have a plan....

JL'S AWESOME PLAN

1. Predictable and regular release schedule! Maybe once a week, same day, same time - so you never have to wonder when the next release is!

2. Small number so you don't get lost! Maybe 10-15?

2. Letting you know everything that is coming out a week in advance. :) So you can plan....

3. Regular 'life span' for pieces so there is consistent turnover, but enough time for girls to get what they want. Maybe one month?

(Or maybe we could do one month for a not very popular piece, two months for a quite popular piece, and permanaent for something that is really, really popular!)

We are even thinking about having a countdown on each product! So everything starts with 30 days... if it sells a certain amount, it automatically get's an 'extension', and if it sells HEAPS, it becomes as BM staple. 

Anyway... I'm thinking of testing this method (just testing, nothing too permanent guys...) and seeing if it works! If it sucks, we can just go back to one stupidly massive release every month. :)

QUESTION 4. "So what's the deal with licensing deals?!"

So much cool stuff!

We are doing the last few Star Wars pieces... (Yoda, you little green creep!)

And then we have more Lord of the Rings awesomeness.... :)

So you can get your nerd on.

And then we have something else....

I don't want to give too much away, but if you like times of adventure with Jake the Dog, and Finn the Human, you might want to do a little happy dance.

QUESTION 5. "What are you doing for 500K Noms?!"

I honestly have no idea....  

QUESTION 6. "When will this blog post end?"

Right about ... now.

===========================================

Love to all the sharkies. :)

x

jL

p.s. Here is a pictue of a cute girl with an enormous duck.

 

 

King For a Day, Emperor For a Lifetime

I am sitting in a hotel room in upper Manhattan, New York City. Blogging like a boss, freezing like a popsicle, and plotting to ... y'know.... take over the world and stuff.

==============================

1. I am tempted to start doing a Facebook post every day called "HEY INSTAGRAM - SORRY BUT WHY DID YOU TAG THAT #BLACKMILK?" Seriously... like, who looks at this photo and thinks to themselves "Yep, this is very Black Milk, let me hashtag that sucker on Instagram...

How do you even... I mean... what the...

2. It's been interesting checking out what women wear in NYC. What I'm finding is the same thing I found in Milan, that women tend to dress very... homogenous. So you'll get a nice jacket, black leggings, and nice boots, and that's it. Don't get me wrong - it looks fine, but it just not... hmmmm, how do I phrase this.... much to look at? I mean, you're not going to be turning your head alot. You don't often think to yourself "Wow - check out that girl's outfit, she is rocking it!"

Obviously I am not talking about sharkies, because they just look FAB.

Maybe I'm biased...

3. Gymwear update!!! As you guys know I have been working really hard on my gymwear collection.

The first step for me has been to realise that you are not going to be able to please everyone. SO many times I have told girls that I am going to be doing gymwear and I hear things like this:

• "Great! Make them so they are really high on the waist. I hate it how gymwear sits so low..."
• "Great! Make them so they are really low on the waist. I hate it how gymwear sits so high..."
• "Great! Make the waists really tight. I hate it how gymwear has such loose waists..."
• "Great! Make the waists really loose. I hate it how gymwear has such tight waists..."
• "Great! Make them just below the knee. I hate it how gymwear sits on the calf..."
• "Great! Make them sit on the calf. I hate it how gymwear goes just below the knee..."

Girls tend to have a strong sense of what constitutes good gymwear, and there is very little consistancy to it. And that's fine! It has meant that I am going to have to think a lot more about what I personally want to see, rather than try to match what I am doing to what girls are wanting. 

That may sound a little selfish... but think of it like music. When a musician creates music, he doesn't ask himself what people want to hear, he only cares about what he personally responds to. If it's working for him, he puts it out there and hopes that others feel about his music the same way he does.

I like to imagine myself walking into a situation (could be anything - a party, a bar, a cafe - in this case it would be a gym) and I see a girl and I just go "WOW". That is cool. I want to talk to her...

So what is she wearing?

And then I hope like heck that that is actually what girls want to be wearing in the gym. Otherwise this could be a very expensive excercise in self centredness. :/

I'm planning on maybe 3-4 pieces. One awesome gym singlet, knee length leggings, and full length leggings. So just don't buy any gymwear from any companies beginning with the letter L for the next month - cool?

5. One of the things I really want to focus on this year is fun.

We need to have fun. YOU WILL HAVE FUN THIS YEAR OR ELSE... BLACK MILK FUN REGULATIONS WILL BE STRICTLY ENFORCED.

Jokes...

For me, fun is playing around with design. I'm thinking design compettions, graphic design battles, style battles, collaborations, design challenges... and lots of special little pieces for different groups.

Of course, we have actually already begun - in fact this litle bad boy was a little treat for the discussion page girls. :)

 

Lots more to come. :)

5. Fragarances...

Would you like to smell like the feel of tight strechy pants?!

I mean, that the awesomeness of the scent would be on the same level as having awesome tight Black Milk leggings on your bum.

Okay, forget that, just watch out for the new Black Milk fragrances that I have been working on for a while. We have two that I think are really cool - and they are called....

• Black Milk White (strong peach and vanilla notes)
• Black Milk Black (strong rose and sugar notes)

So excited for this stuff...  

6. LOTR!!!

One more day to go... see you there. :)

http://blackmilkclothing.com

 

 

 

 

An Unexpected Journey

 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

Flair and Clothing in Las Vegas

Hey peeps

I am currently sitting on a plane, staring out over the Nevada desert. I'm still buzzing out, 

My brain is slightly blurred after my second day of no sleep. And no, it's not that I'm this total party guy who goes on 48 hour benders Charlie Sheen style - but hey, YOU try sleeping after getting fangirled by 100 hot little bosses. It's kind of like taking a 10 year old kid to Disneyland, getting him jacked up on 20 cups of coffee (just work with me on this analogy...) and then saying "Okay Junior, time for sleepies before we go meet the big mouse!"

Ain't gonna happen.

It was a fatastic time, and I want to send out a massive special shout out to the following people:

Jennifer Noble Post - for just being plain old fashion amazing. Organising like an absolute boss, while looking like a rock star.

Ivy Drumm - for putting countless hours, doing the hard yards organising all the sharkies. Without her hard work it would not have happened!

EVERYONE who travelled to get there! I know you guys saved really hard to pay for flights and accomodation, and it means a lot to us! A special mention to the international girls who came in from the UK, Australia and Canada. Love you guys. :)

And also a special thank you to ... me - because I can.

 

2. So we are already plotting and planning about what is going to happen in the future. One thing I know for sure, we are going to have a big international meet up every year. SHARKCON!

Or Milktoberfest.

Or Milkapalooza.

Or something else equally awesome that I can't think of right now.

The point is, every October we are going to make it happen - so save your pennies because it is only going to get bigger and better.

I was talking with a few of the sharkies at one of the clubs and it was pretty cool, but I remember saying that in the future, we're going to be taking over the ENTIRE place with awesome Black Milk girls from all over the world.

Let's make it happen. :) 

3. Super excited about the first Sophia James collection at the end of the month. We have been working on these pieces for ages and I can't wait to show them to you guys. :)

 

Hugs and kisses.

x

jL

 

 

 

Eternal Moonshine of a Twisted Mind

Hey peeps

I just touched down in Melbourne and decided to blog... :)

Strange as it might sound, airports and aeroplanes are where I do most of my designing. There's nothing like being cramped up in a small seat next to a large sweaty man to get those creative juices flowing. Although, I usually get a few funny looks for drawing lots of pictures of long skinny ladies. I wonder if the air hostesses think I'm a creep drawing pictures of them.

1. WHO IS SOPHIA JAMES?

I am. :)  For those of you who don't know, Sophia James is a new label that I have been working on for the last few months. I intended to release the first few pieces in July... but it was around that time that Black Milk went, y'know, totally insane and I decided that the responsible thing to do was get all hands on deck making sure Black Milk was in a good place, and poor Sophia James got shelved. It was a little bit heart breaking - we had put a lot of time and effort into the first collection and I had to tell the guys working on it that we had to stop work on the label and focus on Black Milk.

However, I am happy to report that we are back into it and we have produced over 1000 Sophia James garments so far!

You might not be impressed by 1000 garments, however, these are deisgner garments that are a lot more challenging for us to make, so I'm pretty proud of what we have achieved so far.

I really shouldn't start talking about them yet, but I have to say that I think the first Sophia James leggings are pretty much the most awesome leggings of the year. I can't wait to show you guys!!! They're called Tiered Leggings, and they are inspired by Babylonian Ziggaruts. :)  There is also a Tiered Skirt and a Tiered Dress - which are almost as awesome as the leggings. ;)

Now, a lot of girls are really excited about the Sophia James release and are telling me that they plan on getting ALL THE THINGS!!!! However, the bad news is, that because we classify these as a high end designer product, they're not priced for volume sales... soooooo not cheap. In other words - we can't sell them at a competitive price and look to moving large numbers to make the label profitable. For the simple reason that the pieces are very time consuming and we just can't make them at the same speed as BM pieces.

But I don't think that is a bad thing... my original vision for Sophia James was that it would produce garments that girls would treasure. So you save up, get that dream piece, and ... keep if for the rest of your life (maybe hand it down to your daughters, making them swear the HLB oath before taking the garment).

The big questions now is.... when do we release the new pieces?! Decisions... :)

2. This might be a good opportunity for me to talk about a few things that have been on my heart to those out there who are involved in all the varied Black Milk communities around the world.

The person who is in charge of looking over all the BM Facebook pages is Handsome Cam. I am personally banned form all the pages, it's a self imposed ban, but I suspect most girls prefer it that way. Cam does a great job, however, there are some mornings when he comes in to BMHQ looking like he's just been digested by a crocodile i.e. not very well. And it is at this point we will have a conversation that goes a litte something like this:

Me: Hey Cam, how's it going?

Cam: Yeah.... not so good.

Me: Ooookay, what's up?

Cam: Dramas... so many dramas.

Me: Really? Do tell...

Cam: You don't want to know. I was up till 3am dealing with some stuff...

Me: I do want to know!

Cam: Some of those girls... they just... just....

Me: Cam, you're changing colour - you're actually starting to turn purple. Relax man, have this small glass of gin to steady your nerves.

(Cam grabs the bottle, skulls the entire contents before collapsing on the floor, hugging his legs, sucking his thumb, shaking uncontrollably and repeating "Save me ... the girls....the girls!!!!")

It is at this point I know that something has gone down on one of the BM pages and poor Cam is going to be severely traumatised for the rest of the week.

So you get a quarter of a million red blooded females together... and you get yourself a few dramas. WHO KNEW!!!!???

I LOVE all you guys so much. I really do. It means the world to me that you connect with what I do and that you love what I have worked so hard at for so many years. This community is the BEST THING EVER!!! And we are doing something here that has never been done before. I just feel bad sometimes when I know that so often within our groups there are girls who get hurt feelings, or feel insecure, or just generally have something not cool happen to them. It happens from time to time. Obviously 99% of the time there is nothing but AWESOMENESS ... but sometimes bad things happen too.  :/

So I apologise on behalf of all sharkies everywhere to anyone who has had a less than awesome experience with us. I'm sorry if someone didn't treat you right, or said something insensitive, or just behaved in a not cool manner that bought you down, or made you shed a tear.

Keep smiling little sharkie, keep playing dress ups, keep loving your legs, and please know that even if you have a bad experience along the way... at least one person massively appreciates your involvement with Black Milk.

And that's me. :)

x

jL

 

The Storm Before The Calm

 

1. Well, it's the day before our Spetember collection gets released - Sick Puppies. It's always a bit surreal for me at this time, counting down the hours. I feel like a boxer who is about to go into the ring. It's a pretty good feeling, especially since I won't get brain damage.

Sick Puppies has a lots of different pieces in it, from quirky halloween pieces to old favourites that are returning. I think there's a little bit of everything for everyone.

It is dominated by prints, which is cool because peeps love the prints, but I think that in the future I'll try to get a lot more designer pieces in. :)

2. Speaking of designer pieces.... I have been working on Sophia James lately. As you may recall, Sophia James is a new fashion label that we are launching this year. It will be full of high end designer pieces that we have been working on for quite a while. I feel really excited about it. I have showed quite a few of the pieces to Black Milk girls and they have responded really well (y'know, drooling and stuff). The great news is that a lot of those pieces have been manufactured and are ready for styling little bosses to buy! So look out for our first mini launch of Sophia James soon .... :)

3. A few people have asked me about our current release schedule. Stuff along the lines of "JL Y U RELEASE SO MUCH CLOTHES - WE NO HAS MONIES!!!"

A good question I suppose (despite the spelling and caps lock) so let me see if I can give you a decent answer.

The simple answer is because we have a LOT of people at Black Milk who every day are involved with designing, creating, sampling, cutting, snipping, tagging, manufacturing, selling, and packing our sweet stretchy clothes - and we want to stay busy!

In an ideal world, we would slow down and get into a nice groove - make some clothes, make some money, and chillout with a pina colada and a cigar in the evening at my beach house playing the ukelele around an open fire and drifting off to sleep while staring at the stars.

But... this is fashion, darling, and that's not how it works.

Between June and July Black Milk didn't grow at all, between July and August we grew by 42%! That's challenging to manage! So we just keep on making clothes, hoping that peeps will buy them. And every so often I look at the stock room, FREAK OUT LIKE A SQUIRREL ON CRACK and then decide to release a new collection.

It might sound unprofessional but it works surprisingly well.

2. I'm still working on my gymwear collection, which I'm really excited about. I have been snooping around the gym lately checking out what girls have been wearing, and it's... less than earth shattering. Not that I think you necessarily need to shake up the fashion establishment while sweating and grunting in a room full of other sweaty, grunting women. It's just that ... I rememeber the 80s. In those days you could rock out in a fluoro thong back leotard wihy leg warmers...  and that was just normal.

What happened?

Come back 1985, all is forgiven!

4. I have been working on some studded leggings over the last few days. I tried this ages ago, right about when the studded trend was really in full swing and no self respecting fashion blogger could be seen without their studded shorts/shoes/clutch. But I failed. I used some glue on ones that you were meant to iron on. Needless to say, they fell off within... well, when you put them on.

But, I've had another swing, and I actually think I can make it work. It's difficult to get studs into stretch fabrics. The reason is, of course, that the holes you have to put in the fabric to get the studs in also stretch. And that means they get bigger. And when the hole gets bigger, the stud that fit, doesn't fit any more.

Now, I haven't eliminated the stretch hole problem entirely - but they still look cool, even with the holes visible. They look punk. And if you plan on wearing studded leggings, I'm guessing you're okay with going a little bit punk.

:)

x

jL 

 

 

An Important Announcement!

Okay... I feel like I have to make another comment about this issue because there is a lot of stuff flying around teh interwebz at the moment and a lot of it isn't great.

Yes, let's talk copying (again).

Firstly, can I say that I sympathise with both sides on this one. Yeah, I've been upset about it at times and felt tempted to have a little rage (and yes, I have fallen into that temptation once or twice, not proud of that), and I've also felt really dirty after witnessing mud slinging matches, during which, inevitable, some of the mud ends up hitting me. I understand why people get upset about the issue - often it's not even about us - girls are just disappointed that a particular store they thought was really cool, has done something not cool and they feel angry about it.

So can I ask a favour? Let's just avoid the topic. Because this whole situation sucks, and every time we dredge this issue up, it's discouraging for all involved.

Now, I can't tell anyone what to say or do, and we are all free to respectfully express our opinions, but it's alarming to me that the community seems to be turning on itself over this issue. We all hate the copies, but I'm starting to see situations where sharkies are getting frustrated at other sharkies. This community is something really special and we can't let such a stupid issue create division.

So here are a couple of thought on the matter as we move forward:

Recently Tom Ford was asked about the issue (speaking about Gucci fakes) and this is what he had to say:

"We did some research - and the counterfeit customer is not our customer"

Kind of obvious, right? The girl who buys the latest Gucci clutch is not the same girl doing the rounds in Bali trying to find last season's version for $10.

There are going to be sharkies, who love wearing BM, get lots of stuff on release day, take selfies, chat in the groups, go to meet ups, photoshop my face on to works of art, and rock out like hot little bosses.... and then there are girls who really don't care about any of those things, and just want some cheap printed leggings.

And here's the thing... I'm actually really not interested in selling to those girls! They're not Black Milk customers - and I really don't have a problem with that. I'm interested in YOU girls. Your style, your support, and your attitude... that's what I find exciting. If it's all just about moving stock and turning a buck... that's just not us.

I could easily do that. I get multiple emails every day from chinese manufacturers offering to produce clothes for us at 50 cents a piece. I could do it, but where's the fun in that? We love fashion and that's why we design, make, and sell all our own stuff. We manufacture in Fortitude Valley, Brisbane and Collingwood, Melbourne. We employ over 150 people, and we LOVE fashion and running this little fashion business. If you think that's cool and want to be part of our little fashion adventure ... sweet as! 

So it's like this - haters gonna hate, copyers gonna copy, and sharkies gonna nom.

And as for me.... well, I'm going to keep making cool clothes and hope girls love wearing them as much as I love making them.

We cool?