Another challenge for women who have had a corporate career to being at home full time post maternity leave is losing your sense of self. I commend the women who are content and find this role is fulfilling. This has not been my experience and I have definitely struggled with a lack of financial independence and level of personal freedom, however due to the cost of childcare in the UK it made no sense for me to go back to work until I/we got the boys to school.
I will say that although it has impacted me the most, it has enabled our family to thrive. My husband travels a lot for work, due to me being at home we don’t have the same debates about who has a more important meeting in the same way we did when there was just one child and were both in full time employment. This means the boys have had consistency.
Also if I hadn’t stayed at home and undertaken an Art & Design foundation I would not have found my true passion in creating, I would not have founded this business and when you create something that aspires to make such great impact in style, sustainability and as a positive mouthpiece for mental health - there is definitely a silver lining.
I am super grateful to come across the #BackHerBusiness campaign as it allows women like myself who have a dream to next level things without putting more strain on the family unit. This NatWest collaboration with Crowdfunder UK aims to close the entrepreneurial gender gap.
‘Back Her Business lets you showcase your business ideas, and gives everyone the chance to back women-led businesses through crowdfunded donations.
But backing isn’t just about funding. It’s about believing in the person behind the idea. So through Back Her Business, we support women [like you] with coaching, mentoring and collaboration to help you succeed.
The #backherbusiness campaign has come with two weeks of support and has been a great learning curve with perfect timing. Having launched at the end of September after my youngest started Reception, I am now more than ever ready to next level this business. To do that I am fully committed to the stretch target of £7,500 as it not only enables me to create employment for others, it allows this business to move into a space which is 100% about the business and not about splitting my attention between home and work.
For all of you who have already backed this business, thank you so much. This breathes life into a project so very close to my heart.
*Please note as a preface, I am basing this on my own relationship which is husband and wife, because that is my experience and I am sure every family relationship no matter what it’s make-up has its own challenges.
**This has been my experience, the feasibility of career breaks for men and even ability to take more than two weeks paternity has changed dramatically since the birth of our eldest. This offers so much reward for both parties as parents and I fully applaud it.
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Over the weekend I watched Aladdin (2019) from Disney with my boys. This may seem like an unusual introduction to a luxury sustainable fashion blog however one of the things that stuck with me was the costumes and just how beautiful they are and it reinforced how I really feel it's been the right decision to source and renew sari/saree's that have had a previous life.
I attended the Hearst Live - Red Smart Women Week a couple of weeks ago and had a chance meeting with a lovely lady called Sam. We got to talking about the beauty of the sari and how it came to being and it really stuck with me.
As a designer and artist what I love about creating garments from sari's is that each one is so unique, the level of thought and detail, and to me that reflects how unique each of us are. Be us tall, short, athletic, shapely or not, choosing a colour and pattern that speaks to you is your right; rather than walking into a store and picking one off a hanger that's one of 3,000 -20,000 across the UK or the globe as the case may be helps us feel a little better in ourselves, a little more beautiful and to mention the ease and grace that's applied to your style because of the natural drape and fall of a sari based garment.
Intrinsic to the #limitededition collections from Ānene is that by buying into our creations, you are buying into a brand that is upcycling as well as creating a new vision for beautiful fabrics. You are also giving back to a great cause as 10% of our profit goes to Place2Be , a charity that supports children, parents and teachers in UK schools with their mental health needs.
If you're interested in hearing more about our journey and receiving a curated email, style tips and occasional exclusive discounts, don't forget to sign up to the newsletter and be the first to know what is coming up.
]]>Ānene is evolving to be part of the change we want to see in the world - supporting #mentalhealthashealth, destigmatising the label of #mentalhealth and is why 10% of our profit goes to Place2Be who support pupils, families and staff in UK schools.
Today is an emotional milestone for me, a touch end of an era as I'm sure it is for a lot of families out there. My youngest has started school and now I can commit fully to this business which has been a seedling of an idea for such a long time (not exaggerating, I registered the business in May 2016).
There have been so many changes since I started this journey and the thing that makes me feel like I'm going in the right direction is people now engage with why I have been touting conscious commerce and why I wanted to launch an ethical and sustainable fashion label, much have the change I believe has come from David Attenborough’s final episode of Blue Planet II at the end of 2017. (Thank you Sir David!) Before that I had to explain why I thought businesses should pay a living wage and take more care of people and planet.
It's been a journey and I have had wobble's about whether I should just chuck it all in and get a 'real job', however I think I couldn't do that without putting my all into this. For so much of my life I lived other peoples dreams, I fell into Marketing which I loved, but it wasn't my passion and it took me until the end of my 30's to rediscover how much I loved the arts but particularly making and designing clothes.
Ānene has come about as a solution to my problem in that I couldn't find clothing that suited my style, after two children and recovering from a back injury I wasn't the same person and I wanted to create something that reflect the person I wanted to reclaim with an edge.
Another influence that transformed my journey was listening to Elvis and Kresse co-owner Kresse Wesling talk at a 'Women of the Future network event' about how she started her business by seeing London's decommissioned fire hoses - aka 'waste' as an opportunity.
This is how I started here, up-cycling saris into new items. I saw it as a way to grow organically and enable me to work with beautifully designed fabrics that have intricate patterns that enables me to create limited edition pieces.
The next step will be to source dead-stock fabrics or better fabrics that have minimal impact on the environment so that I can keep close to the ethics that are so integral to my rather large dreams for this business.
I am buoyed by the potential of new types of fabrics - a lot from waste areas such as pineapple fibres : Pinatex or even coffee grounds which offer excellent natural anti-odor qualities, in addition to UV ray protection and quick drying time.
The future is bright, my dreams are big, so please join me and watch this space!
]]>Ānene is launching with a desire to find balance.
A quote was sent to me recently from my friend Jamie:
"Society is collapsing, and people are starting to recognize that the reason they feel like they're mentally ill is that they're living in a system that's not designed to suit the human spirit."-
Russell Brand
As a conscious company we are thinking not about the bottom line alone, don't get me wrong we will be thinking about that - to be sustainable you need to make sure you have enough money to reinvest in the company and pay your staff, particularly if you, as we are intent on paying a living wage.
We are also setting out to bring balance into the lives of our staff (in all honesty the staff is currently just me, but I've got people in the wings waiting for the next stage). We will be working week days 9.30-2.30pm and be flexible on holidays as much as possible.
Without jumping on the soap box too much, I feel like whilst capitalism has made massive transformations in this world - it has done this at the expense of people and planet. We have become so overwhelmed in convenience that we have stripped people of their rights, and those of the family unit (we've stripped the planet too but that is another story).
As a female entrepreneur and mother of young children I see so many of us walking in a vacuum of life where we're all striving to find the right balance for our career aspirations, to maintain our own identity, the lives we aspire too, and somewhere in the middle provide our partners and children the love and support they need - and this melting pot of needs creates it's own stresses, strains and imbalances.
According to the charity Mind UK - 1 in 4 people in the UK will experience a mental health problem each year and In England, 1 in 6 people report experiencing a common mental health problem (such as anxiety and depression) in any given week.
As a conscious fashion label supporting mental health as health, we will be endeavouring to give back a sense of self to our employees, current and future. As part of that commitment 10% of profit will go to Place2Be a Charity that provides mental health support to children.
Shorter working hours are not exclusive to Ānene, there is an increasing number of studies showing shorter working hours and/or shorter work weeks can contribute to the following benefits:
So it's here where we start, with people at the core of our business in a hope that we can build something that creates balance for our employees, delivering so much more than just the bottom line.
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