Burlesque Class Hen Party: Behind the scenes!

Le Keux Vintage Hen Parties: Your beauty is our duty!

Planning a hen party is one of the best parts of being a hen, but it can be daunting; especially when you’re organising an activity you wouldn’t normally take part in for so many ladies, some of whom you’ve never met before!

At Le Keux Parties, we cater every party to the ladies taking part, offering a variety of activity options from hair & make up to fascinator workshops to full pin up photo shoots. We have activities for every budget and can offer week days, Saturday and even Sunday bookings! You even have the option of using our dedicated premises, Le Keux Vintage Salon at the Custard Factory in Birmingham (styled like a 50s diner!) or holding your party at any venue across the country.

Aside vintage style hair and make-up (using our personal brand Le Keux Cosmetics), one of our most popular activities is the burlesque class. It’s something lots of ladies secretly would love to do, but it’s also a daring activity that more reserved hens might not go for, so to ease the nerves, we thought we’d show you what happens at a typical burlesque class at a Le Keux Party!

It really is all about fun; our professional choreographer takes you through a short warm up, then teaches you some basic moves, which are all put together to make a short routine. There’s no pressure to get it right first time and by the end of it you’ll be feeling great, giggly and maybe even a little bit sexier... Feather boas are optional (but do add to the fun!).

The ladies arrive and discuss their hair and make up options over tea in china cups

We provide Look Books for lots of styling inspiration

Hens are more than welcome to use our full salon set up to capture some moments to remember!

Our stylists can create vintage looks from all hair lengths and styles

Taster Make Up includes eyes, lips and brows

Adding false eyelashes to the look with help from our Head Stylist Amy

We're more than happy to work with your Bride's party props!

Now hair and make up is taken care of, it's time to learn some burlesque moves!

Warming up for the class, stretching out before shaking their thang!

The moves are all gentle and designed for all abilities

Our choreographer teaches the ladies the routine, feather boas add to the glamour!

The final routine performance, all in the (relative) privacy of Le Keux Vintage Salon

Sugabillys - Pin Up Academy with Anna Fur Laxis at Le Keux Vintage Salon

Hi Keuxettes!! Kate here - I'm the Business Development & PR Manager for Le Keux and I was delighted to be in the salon for our latest free Pin Up Academy for the Sugabillys Pin Up Models and Promotional Staff this week, with the world renowned model & burlesque artist Anna Fur Laxis.


Sugabillys manager Diablo Rose with Anna Fur Laxis at Le Keux Vintage Salon

Anna's workshop was a masterclass in pin up posing, including tips on posing & movement, what to do with your hands & face, and using props & clothing. I was so impressed with Anna's approachable, honest and friendly delivery and she charmed the Sugabillys as well as teaching them. The girls picked up some really helpful tips (like how not to accidently amputate your own arm in a shot!) and even from a 'non-model' point of view, the session was really interesting and gave me a real insight in to the world of the pin up!

All the models and promotional staff signed to Sugabillys receive free training from the UK's top pin up models, including Diablo Rose who also manages them. Diablo was at the session to take photos for the girl's free portfolios, help them pick what to wear from our pin up shoot wardrobe and take some shots for the repro clothing company Heyday! She also gave some hair and make-up tutorials to the girls who hadn't made themselves up before they arrived, alongside our Senior Stylist, Amy.

If you think you've got what it takes to be a Sugabilly and want to enjoy the perks of the (dream) job, contact diablo.rose@lekeuxevents.co.uk, or want to get a taste of pin up life you can book in for one of our £99 Pin Up Model Photoshoots, which include hair & makeup, costume changes and one digital image, and lots of fun in the salon!!

My business week...

It was a particularly busy week last week, in particular it stands out because it was crammed full of all the different types of responsibilities and challenges I face running a business. I thought I'd sum up my week for you as it seemed a good way of contextualising these points...

Monday 
I met with my accountant on Monday, we had a lot to go through because I'm currently investing a lot in a new project which is due to launch in November. We've been fortunate enough to be able re-invest accumulated capital, with only 20% of the total investment borrowed from private lenders. This has certainly meant that the risk element of investing in a new venture is less stressful, because I don't have the pressure of paying back bank loans and growing interest. My account, Paul is a wealth of knowledge and incredibly good at what he does. He gave me some great advice on the financial planning side of the new venture, and we spent some time looking over my figures from 2011/12 and how they compare to the first and second quarter of 2012/13. It's really reassuring to see the business has grown since last year. I have learnt a great deal over the past few years regarding the fluctuations in income over the year, and how to manage cash flow during our busiest into quietest times. I'll do a more detailed post about this another time as I think I would have really appreciated the perspective of someone with a few years experience in this after making some mistakes in my first year of real income coming into the business.

We also discussed VAT registration for the business this financial year, which may impact our prices. This is certainly a concern for me, because I believe our price points are a great competitive element for us, however with 20% of income soon going to the government in VAT, we unfortunately have to balance this off in our pricing strategy. It's something that will require careful thought.

Tuesday
This was an at home office day. I really enjoy the fact that being self employed allows me to have days were I can get work done on my own schedule. I usually start early, get my emails done, watch some TV and relax, walk our dogs and go back and do some more paperwork. The main bulk of our processes and logistics is managed by Julia, my Event Manager, so my office work tends to be more around the promotion, marketing and strategy of the business, with a good proportion of my time spent on our new venture at the moment. I also still manage all the direct contact with customers for our pop up salon and any ticketed events, which tends to generate quite a bit of email and phone activity. I make a conscious effort to stay connected with the customer facing part of our business, it's important to me that I never lose sight of how things are running in our salon, at our hen parties and with our staff. I'm certainly a great deal better at letting go of control over everything than I was 18 months ago, largely down to having so much trust in Julia and her abilities (I'm sure she will vouch for the fact that it was a 'journey' in letting things go since she started with us in June 2011!) I find I rarely have a true 'day off' in the sense that I'll always do something, even it's a few emails or social media stuff, you never actually turn off from the business, which has in the past been quite draining and means I have to make a conscious effort to plan in time for my husband and social life so I get some balance. This is again a post in itself, which I'm sure I will expand on soon!

I also spent the afternoon and evening with my dad who is helping me put together some new pop up salon and point of sale displays. I spent quite a lot of time researching suppliers to do this for me, but in the end it just made so much more sense to do it ourselves! I like the fact that we still do some things ourselves, just because you have the facility to spend on certain things, I don't think it means you should. I'm incredibly tight with business expenditure and I'll always choose the option to do as much as possible myself and with help from friends and family. I think my 'I'll do a better job myself' attitude to business is a blessing and a hindrance; it means I always take on too much and burn myself out but it also means I'm always teaching myself new skills, that's how The Vintage Salon started after all. I would think a lot of entrepreneurial people are like that, there's an element of over-confidence in your abilities and a willingness to give anything a go, combined with not believing anyone else will deliver your vision as well as you can!

Wednesday
Today we had a photographer's workshop in the salon. The concept behind this came from a photographer I've had the pleasure of working with a few times before, Theresa Furey. She ran a similar day a while back in Malvern, involving our Sugabilly models, my hair and make-up and a group of photographers who took it in turns shooting the models in Vivien of Holloway clothing in different indoor and outdoor sets. The aim is for them to increase their experience and portfolios, and for us to increase our exposure and networking.

Theresa very kindly let me nick the idea from her (of course she'll be coming along to one of the days on the house as a thank you). We had four absolutely lovely photographers join us, shooting our four classicly styled models in and around our salon at the  Custard Factory in Birmingham. We've already has some amazing photos come back from the day....

Photo by LKPhotography 

Model: Kia L'Amour

Photo by Mel Cowell Photography

Model: Renee Rouge

 Photo by Rocket Doll Photography

Model: Fionnoulla Rose 

Photo by LK Photography

Model: Betty Valentine

The challenge I faced today was not related to this event but was in the fact that I woke up to finding out from my daily business banking text from Lloyds that a large sum of money had been fraudulantly taken from my bank account. I managed to trace how this had happened in the morning whilst setting up the salon and styling the models before our photographers arrived, then finished off some calls at the end of the day to sort it out further. It was of course on my mind all day but my priority had to be with ensuring our paying customers, in this case our photographers experienced the service they had signed up for, I had to put the issues aside and focus on them for the day.  Luckily Paypal, who were the source of the fraudulant activity (my account had been hacked through my using the same user name and password for this and other sites I'd signed up to) were absolutely spot on with their customer service and resolution. The money was traced and is now back in my account, thankfully. I urge everyone reading to go right now and change any passwords that are the same!

Thursday
I usually always cover our Birmingham salon on Thursdays and today was no different. Kia, our Salon Manager looks after it the rest of the time. We had our new Nail Technician Rosie start at the salon, she has quite a busy first day and fit right in, it was lovely having someone else there to chat to and another service to offer our customers. The challenge we face in operating the salon during weekdays is that our core services are very 'special occassion' based... we don't cut or colour hair in the salon, so customers tend to only need to get their vintage hair do's etc on Fridays and Saturdays. We therefore have to start offering more walk in services such as nails and brows to fill the week day slots. This is diversification from our previous business offering. It's essential that these services are still related to our vintage branding though, and Rosie has created kitsch, rockabilly and traditional vintage designs in response to this and our brow shaping is modelled on the iconic brow shapes of stars such as Marilyn Monroe and Audrey Hepburn. 

I can't rely on a regular 'salon' business model, we don't have the same service offering, we're more an 'experience' company, so our challenge is enticing customers into those experiences outside of the weekends. We're getting there!

Friday
This was a really exciting day at the salon, we were hired out for a professional photo shoot for which I've signed a confidentially agreement about. I'll say no more and share the results when the time is right! I met some fascinating people and it's going to hopefully be a really positive outcome for us. 

Saturday and Sunday
I took our (newly-designed-and-made-by-my-brilliant-dad) pop up salon to the Designer Vintage Bridal Show at Hagley Hall for the whole weekend. Having not had time to set up on Friday due to the shoot finishing late I had to set off early and put it all up before the show started at 10am. I was really pleased with how the weekend went. 

I honestly get quite emotional when customers get excited when they see my business. I welled up a couple of times after brides loved their complimentary bridal trials, one said it had made her day and I just thought 'that's worth getting up early on a Sunday for'; it's the buzz that keeps you going even when you're knackered and your brain is like mush! I have to take it back to my business philosophy again, if you find what you love, it's not really work. My aim ever since I was young was to blur the lines between work and pleasure, I'm not great with routine, in fact it positively petrifies me. Although I sometimes can't plan my weekends ahead or give myself mouth sores from being so tired, I wouldn't give it up for anything.

Till next time...

Ms Le Keux x

Thanks to Diablo Rose for my make-over!

You may have noticed I've had a make-over on the blog, all thanks to Diablo Rose, she's my Graphic Designer, Hair & Make-up Artist, Pin up Model and general creative genius behind all the aesthetics of my business. I'll be interviewing Diablo this week so will share her advice and tips on Graphic Design for businesses shortly.

In the meantime here's some of the work she's done for us previously...

Image touch-ups and backgrounds...

 

Logo design

 Event posters

Flyers

Following on from my blog post on Monday, Graphic Design is a key element of your branding, we tend to use florals mixed with diner/movie drive in signs and about 5 key fonts and pastel colours to link all the businesses we trade as together. When you start putting your graphics together think about what aesthetics will appeal to your customer base, for example pastels may put men off, but identify you in a split second as a female orientated business. More to come on this later this week!

Ms Le Keux x

Naming Your Business Vs. Branding

The names of my various business streams are something I'm pondering a lot about at the moment.  Had I started my business in it's current state, all at once I would have branded everything LeKeux. But when I started each business stream, I didn't yet know that LeKeux would be the part of the brand that is most associated with everything we do. I often find credit for styling by The Vintage Salon given to LeKeux Events - it's the web address after all, and my emails come from a LeKeux Events address. 

I think I've made the mistake of potentially confusing customers. Do they all know that The Vintage Salon or Sugabilly's is the LeKeux brand? I'm not sure. My solution is to transition 'LeKeux' into the salon brand, turning it into LeKeux's Vintage Salon, it's also started to appear on the Sugabilly logo. Every new venture (of which the next is due for launch in November) will be branded LeKeux in some way or another too. It's not ideal and is something I'm doing as a result of learning along the way. 

Some people may think that 'vintage' is something I should be transitioning into each each trading name, rather than LeKeux, but I would disagree. My experience tells me that the two following objectives are key when naming your business:

1. Choose a unique name - do your research and ensure no-one, even those in different industries operate under the same name, not only will this ensure you stand out but you'll avoid the risk of an existing company asking you to stop trading under their name at a later date. It's also not wise to attempt to trade off the back of other businesses' hard work, so equally don't choose a similar name in the hope of customers mistaking you for them. Copyright infringement is serious business and the people you're copying will have more resources and business experience than you should they choose to challenge you.


2. Don't pigeon-hole yourself - calling your business something very kitsch and descriptive may be fun now, but when you want to expand or diversify later you'll limit yourself. Naming your business directly after a current trend is short-term thinking. Trends change and your business may run the risk of being seen as dated or old hat. Focus more on associating a brand with a name that allows you to respond to demand and re-direct your business, should the need arise. I'm offering so many things under the LeKeux Events brand now, and the name doesn't prevent me from doing this.


Naming your business should be fun, so take the time to innovate and create a unique name. My best example is 'Sugabilly', I first penned this term after a shoot I put together in  2009. I put one of the models in a rockabilly dress with a pastel pink underskirt and I just thought 'Sugabilly!', she looked good enough to eat. At first I used the term to describe a particular bridal style (when I briefly attempted to be a vintage wedding planner....and failed!). I then used the name for rockabilly club nights I ran, these weren't a great success either (financially at least), then when I came to set up the pin up agency the name just fit perfectly. The girls we recruit are edgy with sweet personalities, it seemed to work.

 

Photo by Siren Photographic

My first 'Sugabilly' brand at a shoot in early 2010

 Photo by Siren Photographic

My 'Sugabilly' bridal styling

Graphic Design by www.diablorose.blogspot.com

My 'Sugabilly' nights branding

And finally...

Logo and Graphic Design by www.diablorose.blogspot.com

So what is the difference between the name of your business and the brand? Here's some examples:

Name: Virgin (clearly this is nothing to do with trains, planes and broadband etc).
The brand: Premium customer service, innovation.

Name: Boots (this is not a shoe store).
Brand: Beauty for everyone.

Neither of these business names describe what the company does, yet they are synonymous with their products and services. This is what branding is all about; cleverly associating your values and objectives with a name through advertising, networking and visual branding.

So my advice for start ups would be to choose a business name that allows flexibility later on. Make sure no-one else is using it, or anything very similar and don't rely on the name to ensure any form of success, naming your business is easy, building a brand that customers will part with their hard earned money is whole other ballgame.

And my last thought for you today...


Be the brand... 

For me styling myself vintage came first, the business grew from an interest. None the less when I enter into an environment where I may be meeting potential clientele, I will make a conscious decision to style myself to highlight my brand. This only works if you truly are the brand, don't underestimate those with an eye on you, faux efforts will be detected. For you, it may not involve such overt presentation, it may be more about how you conduct yourself, or how you make people feel. A Life Coach wouldn't turn up to an event flustered and late, that wouldn't represent their brand well, for example.

If you'd like me to write more on any of the topics I've touched on above, please let me know!

Ms Le Keux x

The Vintage Salon This Month

For those of you new to LeKeux, here's a peak at some of the work we do in my vintage salon in Birmingham, UK...

Ms Le Keux x

Jumping On The Blogwagon

Every time my Event Manager Julia and I meet we always say 'when are we going to start a blog?!'. 

I've been reluctant, partly because I'm quite a private person and don't use my persona in relation to my business (other than of course working at events and meeting customers), I'm perhaps not cut out for the judgement putting yourself out there can attract. Another reason for not doing this sooner was because I wanted to make sure I found an angle for my blog, something I would be passionate about and want to write about.

Then it dawned on me, I should write about what I know and what I live for.... the thrill, trials, stresses and fulfilment of being in business. So my blog is going to be about my perspective of business management, working in creative industries and round ups and links to the businesses I've created (and some vintage beauty, events and photo shoot blogs in between, because I couldn't give so much to my business without the inspiration and excitement I get over vintage beauty and lifestyle).

I hope I qualify to write about business. Perhaps I should justify this by telling you a little about my path to my current role. I first fell in love with business at age 16 when I entered the Young Enterprise Company programme at school, I remember thinking to myself, if I'm not voted MD of the group I'll quit. I knew unless I could lead it, it wouldn't be worth it for me. Before that I remember 'playing shop' from a very young age. I made jewellery and sold it at school fairs... and it wasn't the making I was in it for, it was the thrill of turning the £10 I'd spend on beads and wire into £40. I remember thinking 'why doesn't everyone do this, it's so obvious?!' I wrote to Richard Branson at the age of 12, he wrote back and I was ecstatic, I devoured entrepreneur auto-biographies, I genuinely found the idea of business fascinating. One phrase that has always stuck with me and that I think about often is something my mum said to me once.. "if you find something you love, you'll never work a day in your life". I think if you really strive to live by that, you'll find true fulfilment.

So I did business A-level, then a Business and Management Degree and although I think this gave me a strong academic knowledge of business as a concept, I think it actually gave me 'the fear'. I think it taught me more about how to get a career than pushing me to start a business.  I went straight from finishing Uni on the Friday to starting a job as a Business Analyst for Warwickshire County Council on the Monday. I became an expert in making processes efficient, managing projects and business improvement through a sequence of corporate jobs; Business Consultant, Programme Manager, Business Process Reengineering and Project Manager. I was never happy though, no matter how quickly I worked my way up the ladder, or how much I earned. The niggling urge for business was always there, so I set up LeKeux Events on the side. I'll go more into how the business grew in another post, in summary though I was lucky enough to be able to leave mainstream employment two years ago. I still have my ups and downs, but I've never felt more like 'me' since doing it.

I hope my blog will interest some people, and that it will be a tool for sharing a little of the knowledge and experience I've built up over the years. I look forward to reading your comments and feedback.

Ms Le Keux x