A sneak peek at the next issue of Her Magazine....

In this issue:

- Julia Hartley Moore reveals what the life of a private investigator involves
- We speak to 8 successful women spanning through generations about how time has changed the face of business.
- And we find out what drives women in some of New Zealand's riskiest jobs

But wait there's more... subscribe to Her Magazine in the months of February or March and go into the draw to win a Sony Reader Wifi Touch as well as a 12 month subscription to Her Magazine Digital.

Her Magazine is sold in all good supermarkets and bookstores and the Digital Version is avaialble for purchase here for the very special price of $20 for a year!

A New Land

Well the Auckland Anniversary Weekend is drawing to a close. We made it to Hahei in the Coromandel, but only after security in our local New World asked to search my bag… yep a random bag search at 7.30pm on a Friday night at a supermarket that I have been going to for 10 years. And I possibly don't think that I look like your regular shoplifter… has management gone mad!!!!
What about some EQ guidelines re. who the security team should make this request to… I can’t see my customers hanging around too long if I was to instigate this in our retail environment.
Our weekend break was only for two days given the new Howick store is in the middle of its fit out. We did however get to catch up with a couple of friends. My suggestion was to take them to one of our foodie discoveries over the Xmas/New Year break and sadly, I have to report that the platter and wine bar we found in Cooks Beach is seriously lacking (below left). I have created my own platter photo to compare (below right) This is how it should look!.

We ended up here as the cafe that I do love in Whitianga, Mill St Cafe and Bar, wasn't open for Sunday lunch... hard to believe given that the town was heaving with holiday makers. Surely we can’t have been the only one wanting to wile away a long hot Sunday!!

The boy hasn't text from India so, you guessed it, I am starting to wonder and I have also been reflecting on how he will be getting on with his food choices. As you can imagine everyone that had ever travelled there had lots of advice for him before he departed and given he has such a varied palette, he's not averse to eating vegetarian. He's also taken up the free range crusade (not easy when you’re a student) so let’s just hope that the places he visits have the livestock wandering. I did manage to find this very sought after shot on his Facebook page... Edward's the one to the far right.

And this week I’m looking ahead at a week 3 day week, as I fly to Hobart on Friday for a retail site reeky in Hobart, Canberra and Adelaide. I have finally decided that 2012 is the year that I will establish a strong presence in the Aussie continent. With a population of nearly 24 million people there’s got to be thousands of women that will love my frocks!!
Australian retail is not new for us. In May last year we opened in Paddington in Brisbane and Noosa. Both of these stores have been hard work but the upside is that I now know why.
Plan to fail… isn't that what they always say and I sure as hell know that I learn my best and my fastest lessons from failure, Yet so many businesses see failure as a personal indictment on their ability to run a strong operation. Business is about taking risks; calculated risks. A person’s willingness to fail is actually their key to success. Whoever learnt to ski without falling over? And do you think Sir Edmund Hillary climbed Everest the first time? It is this failure that makes a business robust and strong. Sure you may lose some money along the way but this is simply the price of the valuable lessons that you need to ensure your subsequent success.
So the focus for me in Aussie is one that is a little off the beaten track; emulating the very successful formula we have here in NZ, therefore the destination of my pending trip this week.
The latest Her Magazine hits the book shelves next Thursday. I’m loving the new look and look forward to some feedback from our readers. The digital version of the mag has had a strong uptake and has been an exciting new direction with some big learnings for the whole team. We have known from the start the publishing of a mag in these difficult times. Even one that owns its own airspace as Her does takes ingoing innovation and perseverance and we are certainly intending to be there for the long haul!

Designer Confidential - Kiri Nathan Sketch Book

With the upcoming launch of the Annah Stretton Kiri Nathan collaboration collection, planned for 8 March, here's a teaser from Kiri's sketch book. 

The new evening gowns are divine, floor skimming numbers and every one takes around 4 days to hand sew.... ... 

There is steam coming off the floor of the design studio right now as they race to complete the collection in time. 

We are so looking forward to bringing you more soon…

Incubating Success

For the last three days I have felt like a foolish woman in love… constantly checking the phone for the very first text from Edward to say we have arrived in India and we are safe. Finally it arrived at exactly 8pm last night… a text from New Deli. Yep and they are not without causality… it seems a soft drink has been split on his laptop so that may hinder communication but they still have the iPhone so I am hoping for some great images for the blog before they return. And what did they do on their first night in New Delhi? No wonder we mothers worry… Quote “Got drunk in the city centre last night pretty unreal!!!” Really, no wonder he is never far from my thoughts at the moment. It took me 21 years to get him to this space and at times he seems to have such a careless disregard for life and all in the name of having fun. And possibly to make matters worse he's 21 on the 31st of this month! God only knows how they will celebrate. I will keep you updated…
Still on the topic of nurture – a trait that is intrinsic to all women, I have been looking at how I apply this trait in a business sense, after years of intermittent mentoring, which can be incredibly time consuming and very unrewarding, I have decided to take another tact… an in-house nurture program. This is where I incubate new or existing talent with the intention of getting them to a level that they can then go on and run their business sustainably. The first of these projects is my collaboration with Kiri Nathan, an established Auckland designer that has created some fabulous evening wear pieces. The goal is to look at how we get these to market to create a sustainable platform of trade without bastardizing her handwriting. To effect this, we established a time of frame of six months and collaborated on 10 designs that will be made and retailed exclusively by and for us with Kiri taking a % of the sale.
The benefits of the arrangement have been on both sides. For Kiri the incubation in our system has taught her about pattern designing and marketing for a commercial platform without encumbering her with the costs. So there is the luxury of test and trial.
Working with a our established and experienced design and sampling team will and has taught Kiri so much about how to run a successful fashion business and all the while, I have remained in the sidelines guiding her around the business model. We also will have the benefit of introducing her stunning gowns into our retail environment. Working through the logistics of cutting and making these almost bespoke pieces hasn't been without its challenges, so some great lessons for us!
We are now heading towards completion and the inaugural launch which will be in Wellington at Homewood the residence of the British High Commissioner, Vicki Treadell on National Women's Day March 8^th. The whole process has been incredibly rewarding from my end; far in excess of what I was gaining from the mentor process and I can give Kiri her business wings. I just might have made real difference out there…

Love Yourself

Well it is the start of the new week. I woke up at exactly 12.50am last night, uncanny as it would have been, approximately the time Edward was boarding his flight for New Deli. I wonder if the mothering instinct ever really dissipates as I know the next five weeks will leave me with a small knot in my stomach just knowing that he is so far away and likely to encounter so many new situations. At least the weekend offered up another set of opportunities.

A day in Auckland saw me make some great appointments re. our new Howick store as well as some decisions re. visuals for the fit out. We have so much that is planned for this year yet I still see so many of my retail colleagues suffering and they still they make such incredibly bad decisions when recruiting people. Great people are the life blood of business; not just people, great people and recruitment for us is an ongoing process.

I am always looking... if someone turns up on my company doorstep and I don't have an advertised opportunity, I am likely to create one. For me, it is always about looking at the outcomes that they can generate; not what they will cost me!!! I am surrounded by the most amazing women everyday. Women that feel physically sick if their store turnover drops, women that are so passionate about my brand that they continually advocate for it in and out of work, women who push themselves to higher and higher heights everyday (what they did last year will never be good enough) and lastly they are likable (yep, that is the key attribute that I look for when recruiting).

Likable people make for great company cultures and provide extreme levels of service when in roles that they love and offer the right opportunities to them. Likable people have an inner peace, they are comfortable in their own skins so have nothing to prove, therefore they are not disruptive; they simply get on and do the job. They self-assess and have no need to seek approval from others.Goal for 2012: we all need to become more likable.

And just so you don't think that my weekend was all about work, I managed to get in a bit of shopping. I am now the proud owner of a new Nespresso (coffee machine) as well as some new underwear. Yep, I decided to take the advice of our senior stylists and invest in myself. How often do so many of us overlook what we can't see... ill-fitting bras and shattered undies. Sunday was time out at a well-know brands lingerie store which showed no service, in fact quite the opposite. A very disdainful look from the assistant manager (I know this as she had a name tag on). She didn't like the pile of intimates that I had on the floor (I guess hanging it would have been okay). Little did she know that the floor pile were my keepers (never second guess people)... we all know that. It was everything she could do to say thank you at the end of what I would suggest was a large sale for them on a Sunday. Really... how hard would it have been for this lady to have been more likable at point of sale... and just think how much better I would have felt! I certainly wouldn't be reflecting on it in a very public format!

A New Journey

I am very excited about the prospect of composing a regular blog. I seem to have so much that happens in my life that I am sure a lot of it will be of benefit to so many. The challenge being just where to start and what is the most relevant content. So what is my focus today... I suppose insanely enough it is not the frantic pace that surrounds me at work and makes me wonder if I will ever emerge from the end of each day with my sanity intact. Arghhhhhhh... the daily dramas of employing 150 women would have to make the best content ever for a book.

My focus at the moment is with my son, Edward who is about to embark on a 5 week trip to India and the surrounding countries for some absurdly cheap fare of $600 on AirAsia.com. He flies out of Christchurch this Monday at 1am, with five of his closest male mates to be met in New Deli by two male friends that have been over there for the summer teaching english in the orphanages. He is fully vacinated, thank God. Yep, we went for the rabies shot even though the chances are so slim (the shots cost more than the flights ) and has butterflies in his stomach at the moment. The ones you get when you really start to push yourself into journeys unknown. I love these and possibly don't get them enough these days. That feeling of being right on the cliff's edge and not knowing wether you will slip and fall or simply waiver.


It's not like he hasn't travelled as he was in Monaco with his girlfriend last year and was fortunate to do a gap year after his seventh form year at Camp America. This time it is a little more intrepid and I'm a little bit more apprehensive. He's also away for his 21st but what better way to spend it than in a country like India. In fact, I'm really very envious. I would have loved to have done this but am so nervous at the prospect. Maybe I can convince Vicki Treadell, our British High Commissioner  and a colleague of mine to take the NZ women's delegation that she has often talked about to Mumbai as that would truly be a wonderful way to see this country or there may even be someone out there that thinks my skills around growing small businesses would translate well into this country. I will just wait as so much happens in my life, even in a day, that I never know what tomorrow will bring.

Annah's Life and Style Blog

Looky looky

I'm thrilled to bring you the launch of the new Annah Stretton and Annah.S 2012 Winter Collection Digital Lookbooks. Click on the below links to check them out

Annah Stretton Lookbook

Annah.S Lookbook