After a crazy January is almost over (Yes crazy, I'm sure someone told me January was the "quiet month", but you guys don't seem to have stopped wanting Lucy & Yaks which is freaking amazing) and we are now well into 2018. We wanted to spend some time to share with you a little behind the scenes at Lucy & Yak..... Not the boring parts, more about the people that make them.... I'm sure most of you have noticed that those dungarees you are dying for are out of stock, or those amazing stripy trousers you want so bad are not available in your size! I understand how frustrating this must be for you and, trust me, I want you all to have exactly what you want, there's really nothing I want more in the world! But the reality of it is, is its just not so easy to keep up with the demand! I wanted to write this blog to let you know how hard it can be to give everyone what they want.... I'm sure most of you know now that we only began Lucy & Yak in July 2017, me and Chris have never done anything like this before (I mean literally nothing even close). We are learning as we go and everyday throws something new at us! Just when you think "yeah I got this now" You get a delivery on Monday morning of 500 dungarees with the wrong size labels in or those Raspberry dungarees that everyone is waiting for turn up lilac! And we stress for a moment and then laugh, and then figure out what the hell we are going to do, but we always fix it in the end.
Both Raspberry Luna! Can you spot the difference? Haha
Now as I'm sure you've heard Ismail and our team in India are amazing, they work hard, and spend a lot of time perfecting those gorgeous dungarees you're wearing. The truth of it is when we met Ismail he had just 2 of his friends working for him, in a very small factory In Northern India, they were highly skilled in what they do, but these amazing 3 guys had no idea what was about to hit them.... they too have had to grow and adapt at lightening speed to keep up with the demand for their craftsmanship. Ismail now has a team of 20 tailors producing 100's of pieces everyday for you lovely people! They work very hard and they appreciate seeing the photos of people in the UK and around the world wearing something they created... But they can only make so many pieces each week and Ismail only has the space for the 20 tailors he has. So at the moment we can't go any faster, also in India they have a lot of holidays! We think we have a good amount of bank holidays and festivals, but trust me, in India they know how to do festivals..... We are going out to India again in the next few weeks as we are working on building a bigger factory, we should be able to double what we make at the moment in the coming months and give a well paid job to another 20 people in a country where work is hard to find, but for now unfortunately we have make do with what we have, and that means that some of our products will sometimes be out stock for a few weeks and some products we prioritise over others, because the demand is higher. Working with our friends in India has its amazing ups and also its downs, a flight attendant summed up India perfectly to us the last time we boarded a plane in London, we were mega late and the thought the plane was about to leave and so rushed to the gate and said to the lovely lady on the desk "Are we really late?" She replied "You would be if it was any other flight, but for a flight to Delhi, not so much". Nothing is rushed in India haha... Shanti, Shanti.
Basically what I am trying to explain to you is, we never mean to be out of stock in the item you want so badly. We try our best to keep everything coming. However, sometimes we promise you that an item will be back in stock soon, then when it arrives, something has gone wrong with the order and we can't put them on our website (as anyone that follows us on Depop will tell you, we are forever uploading things that have some defect or imperfection) this happens much more than we would like. But one thing I do know is we have the choice. We could go to a big factory that is already very professional and can produce 1,000's of dungarees per week for us. You could all have those dungarees straight away. But as much as we want you all to be happy, we want our work to feel like it makes a difference! We want people that need and deserve the work to get it! Ismail and his team are learning with us and we want to share this journey with them. We could easily move our manufacturing to one of those big nasty factories in China, which would be easier, faster and cheaper. But what I'm trying to say is we don't want to! We want to know our team. We want to be able to go out to India and spend time with the guys out there; laugh with them, eat with them and hear about their families. This is why we did this, not so we can make a quick buck, trust me that would be a whole lot easier! We want to enjoy every minute of it and to be able to say to you guys, honestly, that we know who made your dungarees.... Every pair, every time!
A lot of work goes into getting that single pair of dungarees delivered to your door... We love that we know everyone involved, even if sometimes the dresses we designed turn up a little smaller than we had designed or the dungarees have a Lucy and Yak badge sewn on upside down (one girl who bought these off of our Depop for less than cost price will laugh when reading this I'm sure, she, after all has the most unique pair there is). We keep going and laugh about it, because we know it was made by a real person that was maybe day dreaming about lunch or about their wife and kids and got distracted, we all do it and thats what makes your Lucy & Yak's special!
A Unique Lucy & Yak Original
We thank all of you for being super stars, your patience is amazing and you always say the nicest things to us, it makes it so much easier for us in those times when things don't always (never it seems) go to plan.
Love
Lucy & Chris