With a new lifestyle label up and running, I've finally bitten the bullet and set up an office. It sounds easy, but it isn't. So many people are increasingly taking the decision to work from home, but it is not without its challenges.
The office needs to be somewhere separate from the day to day patterns of life and a space in which you can operate in a professional way, without being distracted by ringing telephones, blaring radios, barking dogs and children. At the same time, it also has to feel warm, inviting and somewhere you actually want to spend time.
The heralding of spring seemed the perfect time to push forward with my plans. When everything is so green and full of promise, it's easy to get motivated and capitalise on potential. I'm lucky that my rural idyll in Wales really comes alive at this time of year and I've been looking to the landscape for ideas about exactly what how my office should look and feel.
Creating such a space for my new label has been tough, but the results are exciting. I've opted for a less traditional approach to an in-house office and looked to the old cowshed at the end of my lane for inspiration. From humble beginnings - and I do mean humble- the space has been transformed into my new fashion and lifestyle HQ.
It may be absolutely tiny and surrounded by the obligatory bat boxes as per local planning regulations, but it is a space of my very own. It currently resembles Vogue's fashion department: crammed full of boxes, materials and beautiful dresses hanging on rails, a far cry from the manured days of old. It's a good bit smaller than originally planned, as Powys County Council decided we needed to put three layers of lime wash on the old cowshed walls for added insulation, but it feels quirky and interesting- two traits that feature strongly in my label. With so many of my fashion items being bespoke, or one-offs, I'm happy that my office has captured that sense of uniqueness and attention to detail.
The space has helped me to forge and stick to a routine, which as all home workers know is of critical importance. Having the office just out of the house helps to distinguish the professional realm from the domestic and social one and has encouraged me to stay focused. It means that when I get the chance to take a coffee break (a rare luxury), it feels like a real break, rather than just relocating to another room in the same building.
I now intend to base my new company from Wales and do all my mail outs from the post office in Hay on Wye. My fashion lookbook and a mad little fashion film were photographed and made in the office before conversion so the clothing feels bound up in the space and I feel strangely at home. It's been the perfect way to welcome a new chapter in my career.
You can look at my website and more Welsh photographs at Clientlondon.com