Love fashion? Then you will love today's featured artisan, Isla Luna. Isla Luna is a recent graduated from fashion college, but has experience working in her mother's fashion company in the past and has interned in fashion companies in New York, NY. Now that she has graduated, her commitment is to bring her brilliant fashion to you! Isla Luna uses three specific fabrics in her designs: Soy, Modal (beech trees) and Cotton. Eco friendly and fabulous!
Isla Luna attests that designing and creating fashion is in her blood. Her Grandfather opened up the first textile company in the Philippines many years ago. Her mother continues to run her own business and sportswear line which was sold major department stores and her parents had a children's wear line that sold in California. Aside from fashion, Isla Luna would love to get into painting. She fondly remembers an easel she had as a child which brings back fond memories of auctioning off her pieces to her parents. Isla Luna states that she has seen a definite evolution in her pieces. She finds that she has fine tuned her sewing and the results make her very proud.
Isla Luna tries to stay as organized as she can. Her worktable faces a wall with hundreds of ideas and pictures to include a list of things she wants to work on next. When it comes to the creative road block, Isla Luna looks at magazines and surfs the Internet. She looks for forms that appeal to her and asks herself what she can do to improve upon it. While she is working, she listens to music in the background, however she doesn't feel the music impacts her work. She feels it plays a part in how she approaches her work. Upbeat music causes her to really have fun with what she's working on at the time whereas slower music makes her focus more.
On the business end of things, Isla Luna currently sells exclusively on Etsy, however, she has plans of selling in craft shows with a partner in the future. she feels that her biggest obstacle in her business is her family. Her parents give her so much support with what she is doing, but at the same time, they want her to return home to help them with their businesses. This poses a problem for Isla Luna as if she succumbs to her parent's wishes, her business will founder while her parents' will grow. Quite a dilemma for a dutiful daughter! On the lighter side, her most memorable accomplishment was her first sale...to someone who was not her family member. This really made her proud! As for advertising, she states she really does not have the time or money to commit at this point. After she pays off some of her fixed costs, she would like to get into advertising, but for right now she posts in the Etsy forums and engages in Twitter as IslaLuna.
I asked Isla Luna for advice for new business owners and this is what she had to say:
"The most important piece of advice I could give a new business owner is think everything through BEFORE you start selling. It's so important to fill out all the paperwork that's associated with starting your own business, even if you're just small beans like me. Think: Authorization to Collect Sales Tax, Business Permit, etc. That way when you're up and running already you don't have to stop your momentum."
