Have you heard of the phrase “wintering?” It’s a concept by author Katherine May. My husband and I discussed wintering a lot when we brought our then newborn home last fall. The difficulty of the newborn phase and all the changes that came with our new life brought us into a state of turning in during a time of, quite honestly, deep difficulty. Thus the phrase “wintering.” Wintering is an intentional break taken during times of darkness. I feel as though a wintering is upon me.
As you might know, I’ve been operating Eli & Barry as a made-to-order clothing brand for quite some time. This has worked fairly well for me as a young business. I’ve been able to keep costs lower by having a customer purchase an item before producing it. It’s also been wonderful market research for me to see what items customers are interested in.
One of the pitfalls of this model for me is that when I lose an employee, who is often my sole employee or one of two employees, the wheels fall off the bus, so to speak. My business comes to a screeching halt. When I need to find someone new to fill a position, it is an intense experience to find and train that person. We offer so many styles that it’s a huge undertaking to get a new hire comfortable with all of our offerings. And recently both of my beloved employees, Audrey and Bri, have notified me that they need to phase out of Eli & Barry. So here I am. Wheels off the bus. Screeching halt.
It has me thinking about how I run my business and, frankly, how so many things in my life feel like they have to happen at light speed. What I mean by this is that when I lose an employee, I have to find them ASAP, train them ASAP, and try not to interrupt our production schedule too much. All of that is hard enough, but we also happen to be in a global pandemic which has also caused a significant labor shortage. The task of finding suitable replacements for my all star team seems a bit insurmountable…at least in terms of a fast solution. Did I mention that I also have a 1 year old at home?
So, here’s my next move: we’re taking a break from the made-to-order shop starting Tuesday 10/19/21. My plan is to finish out the pending list of orders and then to take a pause. Then I’ll take the rest of fall and part of winter to just be in my studio space alone to work, create and figure out my next move.
My plan also is to offer you, my beloved customer, some unconventional-for-us options during this wintering season. I have a beautiful cold-weather fabric coming in (in very limited quantity) so I will be able to take a few orders in that fabric that I will likely sew myself. I’m hoping during this period that I’ll have more time to work on some new styles, to finish some projects that seem to linger on my to-do list, to write and to overall just to be very intentional with the next phase of my brand. All of this honors my well-being and mental health. All of this sounds really, really good.
So, like I said above, please get your orders in before Tuesday 10/19/21 if there’s something you absolutely need before the New Year! If you have a pending exchange happening, I will fulfill your replacement order for you outside of this deadline! As always, feel free to email me with questions.
Happy wintering!