Oh the excitement, I couldn’t even wait to get out of the carpark before getting my head in the box and have a real good rummage at our first box of catalogue stock.

I needed to know if we had bought a bum box.

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On each garment there was a tag informing you of the catalogue retail price, along with the price we had paid.

I would sit and carefully cut our price off but look up the garment in the catalogue from the description, then, cut out the picture and use it to show our customers at the clothes parties.

This was really time consuming but it really made a difference to sales, when the ladies saw the genuine, original catalogue price. 

Everything needed ironing, my mums house used to look like a Chinese laundry.

The walls used to run with steam and the dressing in the stock, used to make my eyes run too. 

What we found was that a lot of the expensive garments, would be returned and end up in these clearance parcels because they looked amazing in the pictures in the catalogue, but looked terrible in person because of creasing in transit.

This was great for us because once it was ironed again (by me ? ) it looked more like the original picture but of course a hell of a lot cheaper ? 

I learnt a lot about fabrics and the power of display and presentation.

Sometimes, at the end of a season, there would be amazing garments left that hadn’t sold, solely because the picture in the catalogue was not flattering.

So, basically nobody had ordered it.

Such a huge difference for retailers today, the power of the internet, instagram, facebook and influencers.

They, can dramatically change the life of a garment with just one new post, its instantly re-invented or re-targeted and born again not sat in that catalogue for a whole Summer or Winter season.

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We needed to get home though as we had a clothes party booked for that very evening. So after a quick root through we really did have to get on our way.

There was a lot of one spotty blouse in there which, I wouldn’t have chosen but in general, I felt confident we could sell what we had and with a nice profit on a few bits.

On cloud nine we set off for home…………. only to brake down at the Granada service station on the M1?

We called the AA who at first sent a little repair van out, he couldn’t make Wilma well so we had to wait for a tow truck.

Matt quickly jumped in the back so that I had to sit in the front with the driver. Crafty little git didn’t want to make polite conversation all the way home!

Matt then proceeded to go straight off to sleep and to my horror our driver was intent on doing the same!

He kept nearly dozing off informing me he was really tired and would I mind talking or singing to him!!!!!!

I was petrified, my dad used to do this in our VW camper van on route to Devon, annually, my mum used to start off singing to him then she would open and close the windows, throw water at him and then last resort she would slap him around the face lol.

Once there was this almighty bump that woke us all up followed by another equally scary bump, then my dad said,” DONT BE ALARMED, its ok, go back to sleep I went ACROSS the round about instead of AROUND it!”

I didn’t want to have to slap this man so I actually sang to him all the way home ? How funny !!!!

I can remember at one point thinking this is beyond surreal, singing my best rendition of Doris Days Just Blew In From The Windy City, at the top of my lungs, whilst checking out the corner of my eye for any signs that this man was nodding off!

We worked our way through all the musicals, we sang all the Grease songs, what was hilarious was that he sang all the boy parts telling me he sings at his local working mans club and lots of regulars preferred him to the paid singers!

I wanted to kill Matt on arriving home he said, “You two kept me awake!”

I remember being so tired but also, so excited to take some of the new stock to the clothes party, I quickly ironed as many bits as I could, stuck on one of the spotty blouses that we had a lot of whilst Matt, loaded my dads car up with stock and dress rails to take to the clothes party.

Not many turned up just five ladies in fact but they all bought a spotty blouse ? and other bits of the new stock so we were really happy.

I wrote in my diary ;

            What a brilliant day, lets worry about finding the money to fix the van               tomorrow!

I think, when your young, you have the ability to prioritise a lot easier what you choose to worry about.

Tomorrow seems miles away but sadly, with age, you know only tooooo well just how quickly tomorrow comes around, so you loose the ability to just be in the moment, enjoying good times.

To be continued……………………… 

THIS WEEKS FAV

This great bias cut Floral Prairie Dress £6.99 !!!!!

size 6 – 18

I love it with my brown cowboy boots and when it gets colder I can layer it up with a fitted brown jumper, cardigan or jacket £6.99 its just a great through the Autumn.I think its a good size but possibly, if you need it around the middle, you might want to go up a size so that it doesn’t cling to your pudding xx

Make sure to leave me any comments below.

Have a great week girls

xxxx Ja n e  H u m e xxxx