one year ago, on a perfectly ordinary monday morning, i sat down in my home studio to start work. looking through my shops orders from the weekend, i noticed an exciting oddity. orders from south korea! and japan! my customers are usually from the uk and the us, with some occasional orders from europe too. i had very rarely had any orders from south east asia. i was curious; how had they found my shop? an influx in orders usually means my work has been shared somewhere online, or featured on a blog. in one lovely email from a customer, ‘bts’ was mentioned. he was really happy to have found my shop, and that i should prepare myself to be really busy... i was very confused.
i embarked on a journey to find out more, and did so in the only (lazy) way i know how. i sent a tweet and put up an instagram story. Call me kate Rowland, PI.
thanks to some lovely followers and bts fans (including my friend sarah aka @willythewimp), i saw the source of my shops surge of popularity that morning - the photos of taehyung wearing my paint palette brooch on twitter. I had to illustrate v’s airport look, to celebrate this amazing moment in my small business history, when the paint palette madness began!
a very familiar sight!
your orders taking over our house
I am so appreciative of the kindness, patience and support that bts fans (army) have shown me as i have sold out, sold out again, struggled to keep up with demand, sold out again, and grown as a small business. i’ve been designing, making and selling jewellery for 8 years, which is both a privilege, and, at times, very hard work. just before ‘paint palette day’ as it is now known, I just wasn’t earning enough, and had been looking for a part time job to work alongside my shop. i couldn’t have planned such an event to boost it’s profile; the fact that v isn’t an ‘influencer’ touting wares on instagram, but that he bought and wore my brooch of his own accord is so much more meaningful.
in the months following i was able to move from our tiny spare room into my very own rented studio space, a dream come true.
It’s really made me consider how celebrities could use their captive audiences to showcase indie businesses rather than the standard brands. Let’s look at some fun statistics to really be able to visualise the power that bts have! V wearing my brooch just a handful of times has meant my shops sales have increased by an astonishing 1,337% year on year. My shop made more revenue in that single day, June 10th, than it did the entire year before it. it was also the tate shop’s best selling item for 2019 (just absolutely bananas!). This sort of exposure is life changing for small businesses. Please continue to support shops, brands and businesses both local to you, and online!
the rollercoaster ride that has been running my shop this past year
a few months ago, with some helpful advice from bts army, i tried to contact taehyung via weverse and by traditional, hand written post, to say thank you for his unknowing role in the events of this year. i don’t know if he ever saw it, but i can hope.
the point of this blog, however, is to say how much i appreciate and acknowledge the support of each and every person who has ordered something from my shop, shared or retweeted my work, or sent me a kind message. bts fans or otherwise, people world wide have been so incredibly supportive, and i want to say thank you to every one of you!
Kate x
… in my new studio space, which a year ago was only a pipe dream!
