It finally began at the kitchen table of an old house in James Bay, Victoria. With a stack of sketches, a sewing machine and some material, and from a deep well of inspiration, Laura Bemister launched Victoria’s Muse Clothing Company. Seven years later, powered by hard work and inspiration, her company continues to grow.

Laura Bemister is a petite, energetic, self-assured woman in her early 30s with a sparkly enthusiasm, a great big smile, and a ready laugh. Optimistic, cheerful and driven, she epitomises the enthusiastic self-starter.

Her interest in fashion can be traced back to when she was five years old. One day her mother asked if she liked her new dress and Laura replied that she liked the colour, but not the design. By seven, Laura was creating detailed drawings of gowns of her own. “Honey, you are a dress designer,” her mother told her then. Later, she studied acting for film and television at the Vancouver Film School, and worked in the hospitality industry.

Laura’s resolve gelled and her vision for her company came into focus when she was working in Victoria’s design district at the Union Pacific Coffee Shop. One day, a customer asked her what it was she wanted to do with her life. He told her that whatever it was she had all the ingredients to be successful at it. Laura recalls that when he posed the question, “What is the trunk of your tree?” she knew she could not wait any longer.

Getting Started
Laura purchased a workbook entitled, Creating Your Business: Success By Design from the Women’s Enterprise Centre in Victoria. She worked through all the exercises in this book, and she learned what she could about the clothing design industry, and about the local market.

Funding her start-up was another challenge. Material needed to be sourced and purchased, a pattern maker hired to help her ready her designs for manufacturing, and then there were the ongoing manufacturing and marketing costs, including the hiring of photographers and models. Laura started putting all her available time and her tips as a server into the business. She is also quick to acknowledge the help and support of family and friends. Her father and his partner, and a few family friends, invested in her company, her friends modelled for her in the initial stages of the business, and her father continues to do her website for her. She has also found the Victoria business community to be friendly, and eager to support the development of local products. The hard work continues, and Laura still puts in some hours as a server, but she is proud of the fact that she is now out of debt, and owns all her own stock.

The Dresses
Muse dresses are made of a bamboo cotton blend and are manufactured in Vancouver. The bamboo makes the material soft and breathable and the cotton makes it strong. Six years after purchasing them, women are still wearing them, and Laura hasn’t had a single complaint or return.

She characterizes the look of her dresses as “classy”. They feature simple classic lines, with no frills, zippers and “fiddly bits”. She currently has 20 different designs in 16 different colours, and all of her dresses are comfortable and eminently versatile. They can be accessorized for a sophisticated, formal look, or dressed down with sandals for a trip to the market.

Laura’s sense of design is inspired by the natural environment and the West Coast lifestyle she embraces. Similarly, her typical clients are active, self-aware, West Coast women – women who are independent-thinking, value the natural environment, and like to shop locally – women who, like Laura, are interested in building community.

Laura sees her own creative impulse as motivated by “the desire to integrate spirit into life, and to free the self”. To Laura, women’s fashion is about celebrating the self, and about celebrating being female. Ultimately, however, it is about transformation. Laura loves the transformation that occurs when a woman tries on one of her dresses and feels comfortable and confident in it. She is proud that her dresses fit so beautifully and is always inspired when she sees how the simple lines and the gem-tones of one of her dresses bring out the natural beauty of the woman wearing the dress. As she says on her Facebook page, “It fills my heart to see women walk away from me feeling beautiful in their own skin. It’s part of my bliss.” If her company were to have a slogan, Laura says, it would be “Feel beautiful”.

Marketing Strategies
Laura’s approach to marketing began with the concept of drawing on the inspiration of muses – not the nine muses of Greek mythology – but women she knows. Laura’s friends were the inspiration and models for her first designs, and she named the dresses after them. She continues to design dresses with specific women in mind, marketing the dresses by name, so that on her website you peruse her designs to “find your muse”.

Laura began selling her dresses through house party sales, advertising events through word of mouth, and through her Facebook page. Her sales grew steadily, and as her designs and stock increased, she put design aside for a while to focus her energies on marketing, with the intent of expanding into boutiques.

This proved to be a challenge. She met with some success in Victoria, Vancouver and Montreal, but when she hired two sales agents to sell her dresses to boutiques in smaller communities in BC, they returned to say they could not sell them.

At first, Laura was discouraged. This setback, however, led to some difficult soul searching that helped her improve her business. Laura learned that valuing her successes and maintaining perspective are key to weathering the ups and downs of a business where progress sometimes feels like it is two steps forward, one step back.

She had to remind herself that it is a tough economy, and that she has many happy customers and a good product. Further, as a friend pointed out to her, a realistic indication of her progress is the fact that her sales are growing each year.

Ultimately, Laura decided that selling her dresses online, and hand selling to individuals and groups of women is a better way for her to market her dresses and is more in line with her philosophy of personalized service, and the fostering of community.

She continues to refine her group sales approach, which she now calls parlour parties. In typical Laura style, these are fun events. Customers are able to see her dresses in all styles and colours. Laura spends time with the women helping them determine their sizes and offering suggestions on style and colour. Then, in order to ensure there is no feeling of sales pressure, she leaves the women alone for a while. Women interested in purchasing order through her website. Laura has found that customers enjoy the experience, and usually find something they love. Many bring her new customers. As one recent customer told her, “I don’t like shopping, but this is so wonderful. I love this!”

Expansion
Her new strategy is to expand by setting up agents in other communities who will sell her dresses through parlour parties, and promote her website. She now has an agent selling for her in Salmon Arm and Kelowna, and another agent will soon be selling in the Netherlands, where Laura says many women love Canadian designers and are expected to be attracted to the simple, practical elegance of Muse dresses.

Meanwhile, Laura’s business continues to gain exposure. Recently, her designs were featured at Victoria Fashion Splash, and she keeps her customers and friends informed through her company Facebook page. She is now also selling her own scarves, and does not rule out expanding into other fashion items in the future.

Secrets To Success
Laura has learned to trust her business instincts. She compares growing her business to a spider web in which the many inter-dependent strands constitute the strength of the web. Every day she works on some aspect of her business, and she is continually sharpening her skills to improve and grow her company. In the process, Laura has come to believe that the simplest thing is almost always the right thing. She looks at what works and thinks of how she can make it even better, and she keeps the focus on what she can do to meet the needs of her clients. She also believes in hiring people she trusts and then letting them do what they do best to help promote her business. For example, she loves to be part of the artistic collaboration involved in a fashion shoot, where she joins photographers, choreographers and models to produce something creative.

One thing is for certain, Muse Clothing Company will continue to be muse-driven. “I will always do this!” says Laura, who loves the hard work involved in her business, and who draws inspiration, not only from the memory of her first muse, her mother, but from the world around her and from her friends. Laura continues to find muses to inspire her creations, and is clearly becoming one herself.

Check out Laura’s website and Facebook pages to see her dresses and learn more about her company.

Deborah Graham
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