I have no bloody clue what I'm doing. That was a daily mantra for me in the first five years of building what would become one of the largest online stores for ethical and sustainable fashion.
I had two, max three, kind-of-competitors at the time and we were all doing something that went against the grain. Sustainable fashion might seem common now, but back then, I had to explain what I did to 95% of the people I met.
And there were no veterans in my niche I could inbox on LinkedIn and ask if I could pick their brain. There was no manual or course or download for what I was doing.
When I launched The Fashion Advocate over a decade ago in 2014, it started as a blog, turned into a print magazine, then an online store, it grew an events, marketing and PR arm, and then there was the in-house Australian made brand. It was so many things, and I was fumbling around in the dark with it all.
Most days, I had no bloody clue what I was doing. But I was filled with passion and purpose and the drive to make it work, so I figured it out along the way. I threw a lot of stuff at a lot of walls to see what would stick.
And you know what? I loved it. The adhoc build, the 'let's just give this thing a crack' approach, the testing and the failing and the growing, the messiness of it, that was the best part. Yes, I burnt out at the five year mark, but not because of my business, because of me. But I still really loved the journey, the challenge, the learning. It was so much bloody fun.
But if I'd followed a step-by-step manual, or only tried what Google told me to try, I wouldn't have tested my own strengths. I wouldn't have realised my own creativity. I wouldn't have worked out what I was good at, and what I was not so good at. I wouldn't have grown.
And sitting back now, over a decade later, I still do the same thing, I'm still the wildly creative crazy one in the room that says almost every day, 'Hey, I just came up with an amazing idea.' I just know a little more, I feel a little more confident about it, and I'm a lot more ok with failure.
So I might talk about having a plan, and I might share content that encourages you to have a strategy, and I might know what works and what doesn't when it comes to building a slow fashion business, but there will never be a replacement for creativity and trying and testing and intuition when you're building a business.
If you've landed here because you're struggling to grow, I don't have all the answers for you. I have some. I have systems that have worked for hundreds of brands. I have the system that worked for me to grow one of the largest online stores for ethical and sustainable without ads and without AI. But you and only you will ever know and feel the way forward for your ethical and sustainable fashion business and sometimes, you just have to wing it.
Use my strategies, rely on my support, and try my growth methods, but work on yourself and be yourself and pair it all with an attitude of 'I have no bloody clue what I'm doing' and know that that's a good thing.
Because if you know everything, there's no joy in the process. If you know everything, there's nothing left to learn and the whole thing becomes boring.
The joy of building a slow fashion brand isn't about making it successful. It's in the journey. The hard parts. The late nights. The occasional (or often) melt downs. All the 'no's' you get that make you think of a different way to get your next 'yes'.
Because sometimes the worst weeks lead to the best breakthroughs. And you don't get the opportunity to experience all that if it's easy, or if you're only following someone else's instructions.
There is no right way. Only what feels right. And I can guide you, but only you can figure out what your right way is when you're on the journey.
Claire x
