My top 10 dresses for 2016

Diablo and I are OBSESSED with dresses, so we're always online scouring the pages of vintage repro sites for something new and unique. My personal style is retro boss lady with a rockabilly twist, I have to have sleeves (preferably three quarter length) and I love a flattering pin up silhouette...so I thought I'd share my favourite dresses currently out there, from my favourite online shops from around the world, for those of you who share my style loves. I think these are perfect for adding variety to your work wardrobe too!

1. Missy Candyfloss Jeanette Dress - Exclusive to Top Vintage (based in the Netherlands, they ship worldwide) - £74.97.

  

2. Bubble Skirt and Top from Unique Vintage, based in California they ship worldwide. I'm partial to a skater dress and this skirt is too adorable for a '60s look. Skirt - $62


 

3. Diva Skirt and Top from Pin Up Girl Clothing. This is a power suit if I ever I saw one! Skirt $51.20 / Jacket £54.40 (both on sale, but unfortunately limited sizes)

 
4. Catarina Sherwood Check Pencil Dress from Collectif.
I love tarten and plaid, and this dress is very comfortable for dressing up and down.



 4. Joan Black Mad Men Dress by Glamour Bunny. My favourite LBD (Little Black Dress) - £80
 

5. Vickie Black by Tatyana (previously Bettie Page Clothing). Ok, so I like black dresses - but with the high neck line and thicker fabric this one is so professional and warm in winter. $126.

 

6. Doreen Dress by Heartbreaker at Atom Retro. I'd wear this with a cute cardi! £64.99.

 

7. Dolly Dagger Jackie Chevron Dress in Navy - on sale at £49! This is more of a statement dress, but I love the pattern and collar.

 

8. Laura Mocha Fleck Dress from Vivien of Holloway - £85. I'm in love with this dress, can't wait to wear it with a pussy bow blouse underneath!

 

9. Maybelle Twin Set from Lindy Bop - just £55 for the dress and jacket. This is so Jackie Onassis, I love it!

 

10. And finally, for spring I'm in love with the Veronique dress from Bernie Dexter. It looks like a painting! $156.

 

And I have to end with all the accessories I've had the MOST fun sourcing for my new retail website Le Keux Girl...

     

Dita Glasses                                         Unicorn Tee                    Pink Telephone Clutch Bag

 

Chiffon Head Scarfs  

Happy shopping dolls!

Lynsey x

Pastel Paradise!

Recently, Creative Director Diablo Rose and I got together to create a photo shoot which had been a dream of ours for some time, the theme was 'Pastel Pin-up Perfection'. We excitedly got in touch with the winner of our Face of Le Keux 2015, Danielle, as well as some of the competition's runners up and some of our previous customers to model for us. Thanks to the help of our Creative Manager, Amy and Senior Stylist Aleigh, shooting in our Birmingham Salon, Diner and Shoot Studio we created the following, I hope you enjoy looking through them!

  

The signature shot from our shoot! This picture says everything I want to say about our brand... beautiful uplifting smiling whimsical and dreamy!

Face of Le Keux 2015 winner Danielle poses in our original vintage hood dryers. Doesn't she look perfection...?!

Amber and Bethany pose in our Pink Cadillac seat in our milkshake and sundae's diner which is situated in our vintage salon and party premises in Birmingham (at The Custard Factory). I love these yellow dresses, perfect for Spring!

  

All the girls posing again in our Birmingham diner over some scrumptious afternoon tea which we offer as part of our hen and birthday party packages (in all our locations!).

 

Our Creative Manager Amy and Creative Director, Diablo Rose teaching a cocktail masterclass to our lovely pin-ups, sporting styling but us of course! The back drop is our new 1950s kitchen set which we use for our pin up shoot packages, officially my favourite set now!

The girls get dancing, learning some Lindy Hop, Jive and Swing!

 

Enjoying a peanut butter and banana milkshake (we call it the Elvis!)

One of my favourite shots! Our multi-coloured pastel hair angels posing in our pastel hood dryers!

Bethany's a vision of Summer with her milkshake.

Adore this hair creation, with bow by Amy and roll by me!

Strike a pose, showing off their 'dos!

See more of our hair styles, make up, photo shoots and parties on Facebook!

If you'd like to get in touch with me about any of our services please email info@lekeuxevents.co.uk.

Thank you,

Lynsey x

Starting a Business... What To Do First?

So you want to start a business? Good on you! Now where do we start? A business plan perhaps, a name, a website? These are all essentials to get your business going but before you commit yourself to any of these, I would recommend your first step is to fully conceptualise your business. Essentially, wind your way around every aspect of what your business will offer, stand for, how it will operate and why, first and the rest will write itself.

Basically...You need to have a mind dump!

This may not be the most glamorous way of putting it, but you get the picture. You want to get everything you're thinking about down on paper. Me... I prefer spreadsheets; information all aligned in categories and colour coded. You may prefer a mind map, simply write down a 'category' (area of questioning), for example 'purchase process' and draw a circle around it, draw a line from the circle and write your first question, for example 'how can customers pay', branch out from this with the answers, one might be 'online payment'. From each answer branch out with a practical solution, this may result in 'set up a Paypal account'. 

Essentially you need to consider all aspects of the business and work out the answers to everything, how will it work, what will I do, when will it be offered, how, why etc etc. Play devils advocate with yourself, think about challenges and how you'll face them.

Here's some starter questions for yourself:

Category - pricing:

• What will I charge?
• How much do my customers pay elsewhere?
• How will I be better/more accessible/cheaper/more unique that others?
• How will they pay?

Category - Promotion

• How will customers find out about my business?
• How will I get their attention over competitors?

You can see now how mind dumping and mapping can start to write out your start up plans. It will help you to think of everything, getting you ready. If you can work out the answer to everything a customer may ask you, or wonder when visiting your website or checking you out on social media before you put yourself out there, I promise you, you will start out looking professional, consistent and viable from the get go. Take a moment, do a mind dump, then start your planning.

Best wishes,

Lynsey Le Keux

New Plans and Getting Motivated!

I don't know about you, but I love this time of year. Right after Christmas I get this overwhelming feeling of 'all things possible and new'. I'm think I'm a change-addict. I love doing and experiencing new things and there's nothing like a new year to get me all motivated. 

I'm very lucky that after a four year journey of working all hours, climbing those steep learning curves and realising stress was impacting my health... I've finally gotten to a great place with my work/life balance. I have a wonderful team who look after our premises and customers, leaving me to focus on expansion, strategy and of course... all things NEW!

2015 will be all about my make up range for me. My sister and partner, Diablo Rose and I have been working hard on new product formulas, packaging and broadening our range, we hope to bring all of it to market in the Spring. Here's an exclusive sneak peak of one of the new products I'm very excited about!

One aspect I love about our cosmetics range is that we exclusively use images of customers and staff in our packaging and advertising (with the odd competition winner too!). I love the idea that anyone walking into our salons for a make over could end up adorning our products and walls, and they don't even know it yet!

I'm hoping 2015 will bring the beginnings of new salon location too, we're looking around the South and London for the perfect spot to offer all our services. It's a dream of mine to bring Le Keux to every part of the UK, and the expand to Europe and the US. 

Lastly, I'm starting a new business! Well more of a service. This has been another long-standing ambition of mine. I love all things business and entrepreneurial, besides my family and friends, it's my raison d'etre. Before I took the leap into self employment I had a career in consultancy, project management and process re-engineering/efficiency. I really enjoyed so many aspects of my jobs and aside from every cell in my body screaming to be my own boss (no exaggeration), I did love going into teams, working with people and creating improvements, helping make them more efficient, creating better processes and helping them manage that change. So I am starting up as a Business Coach in the hope that I can support other hopeful or existing entrepreneurs realise their business dreams. If you'd like to take a look at my credentials, and find out about what I'm offering, please visit: www.facebook.com/LeKeuxBusinessCoach.

Wishing you all a motivated 2015. Absolutely anything you want to do with your life is possible, go do it, take a leap, be the 'you' you've always wanted to be this coming year.

Best wishes,

Lynsey Le Keux

My Cosmetics Range

I've not written about this before so I thought I'd share a little about the range my sister Diablo Rose and myself starting developing some four years ago now. I decided to produce my own line, Le Keux Cosmetics because when I went to purchase products to sell in my salon I just couldn't find a beautifully packaged vintage inspired make up range that was affordable and which performed the way I wanted (to create a vintage look). 

I was totally new to the process of creating my own products, I'd studied manufacturing and supply chains at uni, but it's no real preparation; it was a steep learning curve. I knew I had some core values for the range which I was determined to stick to... that the formulas were developed in the UK and that they would be our own, new formulas exactly to our specifications. I wanted the packaging to have an authentic vintage feeling, but also to be fresh and usable. The products must create an authentic vintage look, so for me that was little or no shimmer and glitter which is in most products nowadays. And finally I wanted to be in love with the products I created, I wanted to use them everyday and be proud of what we'd done.

The first challenge I found was the jargon barrier, it was all pantone colour references, codes for types of plastics, nets and more. It was difficult to appear legitimate and experienced when I wasn't familiar with industry language. Secondly timing was essential (see my post of project planning for some insight into tackling the 'critical path' of tasks!) and we really tested that to the last possible parameter with our products arriving the morning of our launch. 

All in all though it's been one of the most rewarding processes I've been through. I think I stuck to my values well, and with determination, some negotiating skills and the incredible creative input I had from Diablo who designed the packaging and helped develop the formulas with our awesome chemist, we got there. We're now in the process of developing more products including more lipstick colours, powder, face cream (which is going to be incredible!) and eye shadow and brow powders. We've also been working on our existing formulas to make them even bolder in colour and longer lasting and I'm adoring the results. Even now, it has still been challenging (not compromising on your vision can make these processes a lot longer) but I'm excited about the new formulas we have, and giving our customers more choice.

So here's our products, I'd love to hear your feedback!

Our complete range, including 5 gorgeous, super soft, non-animal fibre make up brushes, all are dual end, precise and professional quality!

Black Cadillac Eye Liner Paint, designed to be applied as a bold eye liner flick or smudged for a smokey, femme fatale look.

This is Peachy Keen our soft pastel lip paint, the perfect alternative to red for vintage loving girls. This tone suits all skin colours and is fresh. Our lip paints are all infused with cherry scent for truly kissable lips!

Here you can see our pots, designed to look like authentic glass dressing table sets!

The last of our make up products - Whistle Bait Red Lip Paint. This is a bright pillarbox red that can be worn as a gloss, matte or voluptuous Hollywood style.

Instructions on how to use our Black Cadillac Eye Liner Paint.

Beautiful advert designed by Diablo Rose.

The first face of our make up range, the gorgeous August Allure, pin up model. Here she wears Peachy Keen and Black Cadillac.

Wearing Whistle Bait Lip Paint in Hollywood style.

Wearing Black Cadillac Eye Liner Paint and Whistle Bait in matte style.

Our Christmas advertising campaign featuring international burlesque star Anna Fur Laxis.

Winner of our 2013 'Face of Le Keux Cosmetics' competition Eve, modelling a bridal look for a marketing campaign.

We often use our customers in marketing campaigns (they are all so beautiful!), here we have our Valentines advert. In fact our new brush packaging and lipstick boxes will be featuring some more lucky customers from our salons!

And here's our packaging...