I had wanted to visit the FIMI children & young persons trade fair ever since I read an article about it in Junior magazine. Part of my ‘big plan’ for cool boys & girls’ is to have a clothing range, a range of classic clothes along the same lines as the shoes.

When chatting with my Spanish suppliers they mentioned that they were preparing for a very important fair & it was FIMI!

When I expressed my desire to attend he very kindly suggested that he apply to get me on the international visitors list which would get me in!

Late November 2010 my supplier emailed me to say that I had a place for the January fair and the organisers would be in touch to inform me of the procedure. Next day I received an email from FIMI asking which days I would like to attend!

Flights to valencia are few and far between at that time of year but I could see that I could  fly from Gatwick on Thursday 19th Jan to attend the fair on the Friday and come home on the Saturday. I informed FIMI of my intentions and then they sent me an email informing me that I had been booked in to the show as an international guest and they had taken care of my hotel and transfers to and from the fair! Guess I’m going then!

Christmas came and was really busy with my sister and family visiting from the States and then my brother and his wife coming to stay from Cheshire picking my dad up from shropshire on the way, we all had a great time, I loved having everyone at mine, it was busy but good busy!

Next thing I knew I’m dropping my sister at the airport and it’s January!!

Max went back to school on the 9th and I then started to think about FIMI.

I told my husband I was off to Spain in a couple of weeks for a trade fair & he was fine, he’s very supportive thank goodness. It’s still up to me to organise Max and the dog though!!

A few days before I left Max started saying he wanted to come and was going to miss me, the 2 mornings before I left he got in to my bed for snuggles whereas usually he races downstairs without a word to sit with Rex and have his breakfast whilst watching TV, he likes to have the run of the house for an hour in the mornings before I even get up!

Rex dropped off at the kennels, max dropped off at school & all sorted so off to Gatwick!

Arrived in Valencia 25 minutes early at 8.15pm. took a taxi to the hotel, had room service & a reasonably early night, ready to board the bus to the fair at 9am on Friday.

I picked up my welcome pack from the guest office and was given tickets to the fashion show at 1pm along with a schedule & map!

There was also a baby trade fair going on at the same time so I had a look round there, it was mainly pushchairs & furniture, some really beautiful things, there seems to be a lot more choice in Spain & Portugal, I remember when I was pregnant and looking to sort out Max’s nursery etc that I found a lack of choice, I really looked around and ended up going for the Simon Horne cot/bed/sofa with matching changing table etc, it’s lovely & I’m very happy with it but I wish I’d had the choice I see here!!!  Don’t get distracted Angela!      ( I’m drifting, thinking how I’d like to make this available to other mums in the uk too!!!!)

Ok, back to the reason I’m here………..

Had a general look around (hardly anyone speaks English which in one way is good because I can look round without having to get in to too much conversation)

The first thing on the schedule is a talk from Agatha Ruiz De La Prada (a pioneer of the style worn during the “Movida.”) about being in the world of fashion for children, I get there early to get a good seat, I found it really interesting just looking at the different people and wondering what they are all  doing there, I love doing that, I think a great way to spend a few hours is sitting outside a coffee shop watching the world go by & trying to figure out people’s stories! The Spanish & Portuguese have a lot more colour in their wardrobes.  Because they have a lot more sun than us there’s a lot more choice available, I wish we dressed with more colour in the UK, it would make the grey days a bit brighter!

Well, Agatha appeared on stage and she definitely brightened up the scene! Hot pink opaque tights, hot pink patent shoes, hot pink jersey polo neck & a hot pink, lime green & yellow dress, finished just below the knee with a large hot pink heart on the front!!!

Oh my, I felt so DULL!  She can carry it off though, she has lovely olive skin, great legs & a mop of brownie gold curly hair. After lots of photos with all sorts of dignitaries & a big intro, she started to talk….. Of course, in Spanish! So my time to exit left!

Anyway, at least I saw her & I think she probably said something along the lines of believe in what you think is right and pursue your dreams, her brand really is different and she pursued it and made it a success today because of it.

Off for another wander then…. I met with my supplier and had a look at the new materials he has, some gorgeous patents with a slight metallic look amongst other things, more choice available for me to add to the range which makes my first order for Cool Girls Shoes even harder!! We have a catch up and then I tell him I’m going to wait until after the fashion show to make my final decision!

I find a supplier for some accessories I want to have on the girls site, I also have a long chat with a supplier of gorgeous classic clothes for girls and boys so I might add some to the range before I have my own range made.

The fashion show is at 1pm so I go a bit early to get a good seat, they start to let people in 30 minutes before which is good so I can get seated and then watch everyone else coming in! The front row on both sides are reserved so I’m on the 2nd row. The place fills up, there are lots of press & media folk all bunched up at the end of the catwalk. I’m sitting wondering how Max would feel if he was backstage waiting to come on and face all these people & cameras, I think he’d hate it! I also think of my girlfriend Henri who would absolutely love being here & seeing this, she has 3 gorgeous, very well dressed children the eldest being a great pal to max and Henri has fabulous taste in children’s clothes & shoes, I often get feedback from her!

The front row on my side was occupied by non other than Agatha amongst other very smart obviously famous Spanish people based on the entourage surrounding them.

The music started and the first children appeared, I was bowled over by the confidence of most of them,  the girls more than the boys, some of the boys were so cute the way they just walked out all trussed up in the outfit chosen for them with a face as long as the day! I can imagine Max taking on a similar look if I were to ask him to do that!

The show was really well done, it all ran smoothly and the clothes ranged from smart grungy (if that makes sense??!) to classic with a bit of fantasy in between.

The colours included a lot of grey, rose, pale teal & beige. Shoes were ballerina’s, Mary janes, chukka boots, slip ons & tassel loafers in chocolate browns, greys, beige, navy & red.

There was a lot of layering going on too with the girls wearing Pom Pom socks with skirts & shorts which is a really nice look!

Fashion show over I’m off for a bite to eat before I place my order for cool girls shoes debut range, I’m almost there now. While in Valencia one ought to have paella as this is where it originated from!

Delicious! Off to order now.

Ok, order placed, some gorgeous patent chocolate brown ballerinas, gorgeous light caramel leather with patent toes, Mary janes in pewter patent, red patent & pale pink leather, loafers in white & pink patent & school shoes, t bar & Mary janes!

I hope my new customers will be happy!

A great day, lots to take home, found some great new suppliers and I’m ready to go back to the hotel, HOWEVER.. as I’m a guest I have to wait for the bus back to the hotel & it’s not due for another 2 hours! Ah well, I’ll find a comfy seat and sit and do a bit of catching up, tweets, calls & emails done I’ll do my ocado order to be delivered tomorrow at 5 ( I love Ocado!!).

I’m writing this on the plane home, looking forward to seeing my boys.. James, Max & Rex! A quiet Sunday and then on to getting the website for cool girls shoes on the go ready for the shoes arriving in 6 weeks!!

Cool Boys Shoes is taking a stand at Gatcombe Horse Trials

Come along and see us, the whole range of shoes including our new range of school shoes, will be there to try on and take away. It’s a fabulous family day out with lots of fun things to see!

Hope to see you there!

It’s very exciting to receive the Cool Boys Shoes newest Product. Proper slippers for boys! No thick rubber soles, no garish colours, no themes, just good quality boys suede moccasin slippers that look as good as they feel and keep the feet cosy and warm.Navy, Chocolate Brown & Grey

So, the shoes start to arrive and I need to photograph them to get them on the site. First the Spanish supplier which included the school shoes and baby shoes. The Portuguese supplier promised he was soon to follow (days) so I booked a photographer and lined up a couple of models as well as my son Max. A week before the Portuguese shoes were supposed to arrive I checked they had been shipped only to find that they hadn’t even started making them! I had been bumped down the pecking order by a much bigger buyer but the supplier promised he could supply one of each style in my sons size so the shoot could go ahead, phew!!
In an ideal world I would love to have had a professional shoot – beautiful location, wardrobe, photographers being directed b

"Keep Still!"

y professionals, models that are used to doing shoots etc etc. This costs and I don’t want to add any costs to the price of the shoes so I do the best with what we have – Max and his friend James, a photographer friend, a friend with a toddler and my own home!
It was an interesting day! 2 inquisitive 6 year olds and a 20 month old and lots of shoes! It was hilarious really, I was bribing the boys with all sorts of things as I was trying to keep control! Their attention levels aren’t great at that age, so we had some great laughs and you can see from the photo’s I am getting a bit stressed! I was glad when it was all over and the shoes were away safely! Once I

got the images of the shoes from the photographer I wasn’t didn’t like them! They were on a white background and I thought they looked false. After all that!!!!!!

Anyway, much to my son’s frustration I asked him to try them all on again!! More bribing and bargaining!! I was much more pleased with the images I took, I thought they were more realistic.

"Can I do this? it's more fun!"

"Yeah! We're all done, can we go now?!"

The other 6 year old in the shoot with Max is his close friend James and the toddler is Sam, the son of a girlfriend that was happy to help out.

I really wanted to get the site up and running before the back to school rush but unfortunately it didn’t happen but the wait was worth it, it meant that the site was secure for credit card payments and ordering was fast and simple. By going live in the November I also missed the bulk of the Boot buying season but that was OK. The site went live at the middle of November, it was so exciting and satisfying to have pulled it all together!

One of the things I found frustrating was the cost of the type of classic, quality shoes available for boys in the UK, so one of my goals was to try to keep the price as low as possible without sacrificing on the quality.
I did look in to getting a shop in Cheltenham but the rents are very high, one very small retail outlet in a good area for shopping that I felt would suit my potential customers was £18,000.00 a year and I would have had to sign up for a minimum of 5 years so I would have had to increase the price of the shoes quite alot to cover that cost plus I would have to employ people to work in the shop and then there are the rates and insurance etc. So I decided to keep it all on line to keep my costs down.
This meant that my web shop needed to be right!
I was conscious of the image I wanted to put across. I had researched a lot of websites selling shoes and the one thing that really frustrated me was that when I landed on the site it wasn’t clear where to click to see what I wanted, it was also very common to find the websites had so much information on them I would click straight off because they looked messy, too many colours, too many lists etc.
I am the type of shopper that when I walk in to a shop I don’t trail through the rails looking at each individual item I scan the shop visually and if nothing pops out in the colour that I like I walk away! I suppose I am a lazy shopper (unusual for a woman maybe, I don’t like shopping unless I need something and don’t see the point of window shopping??!!) I like to get to what I want quite quickly.
I was quite clear in my mind about the type of boy that would want to wear the shoes that Cool Boys would have and so I wanted to put that across in my logo and my website. I was really lucky to come across a fabulous lady in the USA that was a graphic designer but also an illustrator, she is a mother of boys too and totally understood where I was coming from when I gave her my brief. We never met but had a great understanding and she was just as excited about Cool Boys Shoes as I was!
We finally came up with the logo and I feel it puts across what we are all about.
The boy in the logo is inquisitive about life and loves exploring the world, the ensigns behind him actually spell out C B S. The slightly nautical feel is because we love the sea and sailing and I always feel water is a good energy.
In my opinion a cool boy loves exploring new things, he is fun, enjoys school but loves the holidays too, loves sports, generally behaves well but is also a boy and of course gets up to mischief sometimes!

I had business cards, headed paper and compliment slips printed and I felt really proud to hand my card out.

The feedback was really positive from the start which was good to hear.

A girlfriend that doesn’t have children but is very stylish and whose opinion I respect, saw my business card for the first time and said “it makes me think of the famous five” I was pleased with that response.

In the mean time the website and on line shop was being developed and the designer and I came up with the idea of the picture of the boy looking out to sea being expanded to show what he was exploring down that telescope and this is where the first illustration on the website was born, when Ellen (the designer) sent it I was so excited! She had the idea to add a dog (the boys faithful friend) and I got one of those feelings you get when you just know something is really good, she is such a talented lady and so I commisioned a couple more from her to show Max and Bentley (we decided the characters needed a name at this point) in other fun activities that a cool boy would be get up to, fishing, flying a kite etc. In the future I would like to have a series of books telling all about the adventures Max and Bentley get up to!
The website and shop took much longer than I had anticipated but it was worth the wait, I could have bought an ‘off the shelve’ site and just filled in the gaps but that wouldn’t have been anywhere near as good. It was important to make the sight easy to navigate as well as secure and the developers that created it were fantastic and really good at what they do. Ellen helped me a lot by designing the printable shoe gauge to measure the childrens feet before ordering the shoes and the conversion chart to convert the continental sizes in to UK sizes etc.
I looked in to how to measure feet properly and felt I needed to put this information on the site to help mums feel more confident about ordering shoes on line. Although lots of people order on line now and it is increasing all the time some of the feedback I had from the market research I did was that some mums still feel they ought to go in to a shop to get their childrens feet measured and then buy from that shop. After I explained that by the time they had spent money on petrol and parking, dragged the children here and there, moaning and groaning! It was worth taking the time to measure at home, pay for postage and try at home in a more relaxed situation, even if they have to be exchanged it is still cheaper and easier, they were willing to give it a go.
Another important thing I wanted to do was have pictures of the shoes on a foot. So many websites just show the shoe on its own. I enlisted my son Max to be a model for that so I could do most of the boys shoes but not the baby ones, I intend to get that done at some point too.