Today we’d like to introduce you to Connie Bourgeois.
Hi Connie, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstories with our readers?
After graduating from fashion design school in the midst of one of the worst recessions since the Great Depression, I found myself with a ton of creative ideas and no professional avenue to realize them.
I decided to keep designing in between bartending shifts and babysitting jobs and I expanded my Senior Collection into a full line. I launched a fashion brand! The problem was, I had no start-up money, no network, and no experience!
I eventually got a design job with a company to help make ends meet. I continued working on my brand on the side for 2 more years but it got to be too much after working full time and dealing with my 70-mile commute (140 miles total in a day!). I decided to put my brand on hold for the foreseeable future.
Fast forward 12+ years, I have worked for various companies in lots of design and product development roles. I decided to go freelance and started my own fashion design and product development firm! Since launching in February 2020, we have increased our staff to over 7 people and continue to increase our client list every month!
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way? Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
The first challenge was the pandemic, of course! We had just launched a month prior and had only 1 client. I had no idea what fashion brands would do.
As many customers stopped shopping, many brands put all spending on hold, which included new development and design. However, I had another client pop up at the same time and they were ready to continue building out their brands and planning for the future, pandemic or not! This helped allow us to keep going!
Many of the struggles I have faced in my business so far are growing pains! Delegating tasks to staff, taking the time to properly train people, setting up processes, it’s all very important in the beginning stages of a business, but it does take time to do! I found if I skipped these steps to try to save time, I just ended up spending more time trying to fix it or catch up later on.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
Conjetta Designs specializes in working with small to mid-size fashion brands that need help with designing and sourcing their products. We take the hassle of development and sourcing off their to-do list so they can focus on building their business, marketing, and sales strategies!
We are best at designing and sourcing women’s ready-to-wear, active, lounge and outerwear. We also love working on resort wear, and accessories!
Another thing we do well is source products sustainably! We work with many sustainable fabric suppliers and ethical manufacturers and we take great pride in being able to reduce the carbon footprint of our clients’ products and also ensure fair wages and treatment to the folks making these products.
I’m so proud of the attention to detail we are able to provide for our clients and the quality of product we are able to present them with at the end of the process!
What matters most to you?
Creating beautiful products that are ethically sourced and of high quality while providing an empowering work environment for my employees is the reason I get up and do this every day!
Contact Info:
- Email: connie@conjettadesigns.com
- Website: www.conjettadesigns.com
- Instagram: @conjetta.designs
- Facebook: @conjettadesigns
