Apartment Therapy Meetup - Feb 17th 2011

Apartment Therapy has invited me to pitch my line at their next meetup! If you are in the NY tri-state area, it would be an honor if you came!
Details:
When: Thurs Feb 17th, 6:30-8:30
Where: ABC Carpet & Home, Mezzanine
19th & Bway, NYC
Register: www.meetup.com/productdesign-44/events/15726181/

Spring / Summer 2011

First of all - anyone coming to NYIGF next week, please make sure to stop by the alexandra ferguson booth! We are back in #4129 in the studio division. NYIGF runs from Sunday January 30th through Thursday February 3rd.

There was some fantastic press this past fall - House Beautiful was loving on Ooh La La, and Shape Magazine touted Go to the Gym in their December gift guides. Marlo Thomas on aol.com chose Be Nice or Leave and No Whining as two of her top picks for the holiday season.

This helped to propel the holiday season as the best ever! I loved thinking of all the people opening their presents and receiving their alexandra ferguson pillows...

Also super exciting this spring is the re-introduction of the alexandraferguson.com website! Look for the re-design going live by the weekend. Very soon thereafter, the site will be a fully functioning e-commerce site, so you will be able to shop the entire alexandra ferguson collection in one place.

As always, we have some great new designs that we are introducing at NYIGF next week. Here is a sneaky preview of my favorites:

For the superwoman in your life (or your heart)

Celebrate every day - as my best friend says, "to us!"

how many times do you type this symbol everyday? Did you ever appreciate how truly beautiful it is? Herein: my ode to email. (And typography, my love, of course)

NYIGF August 15 - 19 booth #4129

Sunday August 15th is opening day at NYIGF at the Jacob Javits center in New York.

This season I will be in booth #4129 in the Studio division.

Look for perennial best sellers - Be Nice or Leave, No Whining and Call Your Mother, as well as some exciting new introductions.

A couple of my favorites making their debut next week:

Real Big Deal

First major national publication! Monogram pillows featured on page 74 of the June 2010 issue of Real Simple in the Gift Guide section.

I became good at Twitter, now let's try Facebook

Many of you probably follow me on twitter already. I love twitter. Sometimes I post really professional, business related news. Sometimes I rant about traffic (and potholes). Sometimes it's just...

I'm about to have my 1,000th tweet moment. Very soon. I think this is something to be proud of.

But it's time to step up the game a little bit.

alexandra ferguson (that's the company) now has a Facebook page.

I'm still trying to figure out how to link to said facebook page. But I did figure out how to put that nifty button on the side bar to the right of the blog. Click that. 'Like' me. Done. Company collective ego boost: +2 points. Thanks.

Oh, and Happy Earth Day! Earth Day actually marks the 1 year anniversary since Etsy made me their Featured Seller. I still feel so honored to be a member of those ranks, and am blown away that a whole year has gone by already. Lots to celebrate.

Taking it on the road...ATL

Last weekend, my Roving Ambassador (mom) and I took a trip down to Atlanta to meet with the Daniel*Richards showroom at the America's Mart to discuss representing the alexandra ferguson brand. In just a couple of days, there will be 7 reps covering the following cities (and their surrounding areas), pounding the pavement with the sales tools we have been preparing -

*Atlanta
*Chicago
*Dallas
*DC/Maryland
*Miami
*Central Florida
*Minneapolis

If you are a retailer in one of these areas and are interested in setting up an appointment to see the line, email me at af@alexandraferguson.com and I will send you their contact information.

As usual, I don't do anything by halves, and our sales packets took full advantage of my presentation obsessions. Along with a couple of actual samples, reps are getting a beautiful fabric-covered binder with line sheet, color card etc, and a water bottle sample showing the different stages of becoming felt. Thursday night, we realized that the caveat we were missing was a logo-branded tote bag to carry all these things in. In a rush of mad creative fury, we made 8 (ahem first proto sample somehow found its way to my coat closet at home).


I have a feeling you will be seeing sassy canvas totes on the etsy shop very. very. soon. I promise to announce it here when they go live.

Besides a successful and exciting meeting with Daniel and Richard, the sleeper super surprise highlight of our Atlanta getaway? The food!! Here was our gastronomic itinerary:

Fri a.m.: breakfast at Star Provisions
This is such a gorgeous gift boutique in the West Midtown area with delicious goodies to eat. We shared an asparagus quiche, and mom had local all-natural Greek yogurt. If you are in Atlanta, you must must must go here.

Roving Ambassador at Star Provisions - we shopped for 2 hours. Kid in a candy store. No joke.

Fri afternoon: beer and nachos on the rooftop at Tin Lizzy's
The weather was 75 and full sun, and cocktails seemed in order. This hotspot in the Grant Park area was exactly what the doctor ordered. Waitress was concerned I might be sunburning, and that seemed like an awful nice problem to have in March.

Fri dinner: delicious seafood at super trendy Two Urban Licks
Atlanta mega hotspot, black walls with deep red accents, hundreds of flickering candles and garage doors that opened up onto a deck area. Favorite part? These oversized (like 3ft) paper flowers. I tried to find out where to buy one, but it turned out the owner's wife handmade them all just for the restaurant. Took a picture, but the mood lighting made it a moot point.

Saturday dinner: down and dirty Southern BBQ at Fat Matt's Rib Shack!
Total cost of our meal was $25 - Glass of beer, 1/2 chicken, 1/2 rack of ribs, mac and cheese, cole slaw, and collard greens...Soo messy....Soo delicious. The line out the door moves quickly, and gave us a minute to make some friends.

Now that's what I call a business trip!

"If Taylor Swift was an etsy product"

I don't check google analytics as often as I should, but sometimes there are some super fun surprises in there...Like this article in Slate about Taylor Swift. I'm reading it wondering how all those people went to my site from a piece about her Fairytale song, and then I got to the end...Thanks Slate! Love it!