Part 3: First Days of Nimuë Fairy Hand
It is no longer possible to turn back… continuation of Becoming an Embroidery Designer.
The week of official creation of my company, my banker gets sick and disappears into the nimbes. My business is created and no more banker, so no more loan to start. It sounds crazy said like that but that’s exactly what happened. No one could answer for him, it was the agency manager and no one else knew about it. Two months of procrastination to get to this ???
I had been told about a great woman in another bank. I call him. She receives me quickly. In one hour the loan was recorded. Two months spent in endless commissions in a bank with crazy conditions and an hour in another without conditions. How to say… I escaped beautifully.
This woman there, in this bank, at that time, she was a little gem. Thank you Thank you Thank you.
Then came the moment of truth.
Twenty years ago we created products, launched them on the market and waited to see what happened. Today it’s very different. We test the products before creating its structure.
It’s wiser and significantly less risky.
Then came the moment of truth.
In mid-May, on a Thursday, I post six hundred catalogs to shops (addresses that I had recovered in a cross-stitch magazine).
On Saturday, a first order arrives, then 5, then 10, etc.
The first order comes from… Philomena.
The fifth comes from the Bonheur des Dames, Sylvie Vessière,who has always supported me also from the beginning and still today.
Then you have to work work, work, create, create, create.
Now that I accompany women who create their businesses I am forced to analyze what brought me there.
In a way I lived my fairy tale.
So how do we know we have the right idea?
Does it happen that way for everyone? No.
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What is common is frustration. Something missing.
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A life cycle that ends and calls for another.
In my case I dived into embroidery passionately but did not find the subjects that suited me. That was my frustration.
Even if I had around me on a daily basis the images of the artists who made me want, I needed the click. I would even say a feminine click. I rubbed shoulders with JB Monge and Erlé Ferronnière, I loved their world, but I had to be in the presence of female works to understand what my contribution could be.
In a way I lived my fairy tale.
Some inspirations are decisive.
The Name: Nimuë with the slogan Fairy Hand. Only one name in my head, one obvious.
The Logo: it is to a woman illustrator and painter of renown to whom I asked a logo and a model for the cover of the products. Sandrine Gestin. This choice had an extraordinary impact. Sandrine (Clef, Queen of the Fairies, Victoria…) gave me the choice between three designs for the logo and I chose the right one I think (x) because it really brought me luck on many occasions.
If you have the ambition to create your activity whatever it is, artisanal, artistic or not, but you are lost in the middle of the possible, that no idea arises more than another, take a look in your childhood and see what brought you joy.
I did not study embroidery, or even textile creation. So what could have led me there?
I look back and here’s what I see from my childhood:
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I didn’t play doll but I created clothes for them.
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I drew characters in costume
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I was canvassing
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I painted portraits of women
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I had a passion for colored pencils and I was trying to create color harmonies
And what do we see here? I embroider with colors and textile materials to represent portraits of women in costume…
And then the studies of Lactic Arts taught me to analyze images, books expanded my imagination, my job of cultural engineering brought me where I had to grow professionally, to discover my organizational skills, to meet the right people and good partners before the revelation.
Be careful, I also confess that I worked a lot almost day and night. I didn’t have much social life for a few years!
A good idea is not enough. It is necessary to commit body and soul because the road is long and arduous. I stressed for ten years every time I chose a color for fear of making a mistake.
I wanted to do so well.
I wanted to achieve excellence and it does not come quickly because every time you climb one level you see another.
It’s a long road where you fight with yourself.
Note that I don’t even broach the subject of selling! Selling your creation or anything for that matter is for the majority of us to be violent.
A good idea is not enough.
Where did I find my courage, the courage to get started?
Throughout this Adventure I assimilated myself to a Wandering Knight.
You’re going to tell me why not a fairy?
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After ten years of bathing in the Arthurian myth and following in its literature the epics of the Knights, I saw all the similarities. A self-employed worker, and therefore an embroidery designer, goes on the Adventure of what she perceives as a possible.
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I accepted the Adventure of this life of artist / craftsman, rewarding in terms of recognition but not always materially.
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I gave myself the right to fail but not before trying everything.
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I accepted the idea that I didn’t know and that you would have to learn, always learn, learn again in order to grow.
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I have set myself the goal of bringing the Wonderful into my life,
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that embroidery would be a beautiful pretext to transmit, to embellish other lives,
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and for me, to build an interesting and surprising existence.
Today I sometimes make interventions around this theme of the Entrepreneur / Knight with groups of entrepreneurs or student managers of Business School. Isn’t that surprising?
I didn’t achieve everything far from there but I did my best with my family heritage and what I had in my hands.
By relying on mythical figures I transferred my fear and it became a kind of game but in real life.
I hope this testimony will help you if you are wondering about a possible future as an independent.
What we must remember, it seems to me, is that the universe brings to us all kinds of ingredients since childhood that seem disparate but that one day reveal themselves as the obvious bricks of our personal palate.
We must then welcome who we are and not be afraid of it.
It was Becoming an Embroidery Designer
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