Gift Focus inc Attire Accessories - July/August 2020

116 PALA EYEWEAR www.palaeyewear.com @palaeyewear by this year’s collection. We are using Italian Bio-acetate which is oil free, meaning a lower environmental impact and polarised lenses (adventure ready!) as standard. For our microfiber soft bags to clean and protect we are using 70% recycled PET for the first time too, so it’s not just the core product but all accessories we focus on too! How often do you launch new lines? As we have moved towards ‘seasonless’ styles we are now going to follow that pattern. So rather than have a specific launch at a time of year we simply drop new lines throughout the year. We will simply update our product books to wholesalers to reflect the ongoing changes as new ones come in and old lines drop off. We feel this is the best way to follow a more sustainable, less pressurised model for all! What trade shows do you attend and why? We aren’t attending any tradeshows in 2020. I decided to trial a year where we went direct to boutiques around the UK and internationally and we’ve had some great success here. I have done tradeshows in the past sure as Pure and 100% Optical, and are looking to have a presence at SEEK in Berlin next year. What are your current best-selling designs? Everyone loves the classic shapes. The Meria has been a popular style this year and the Pendo has been strong too. The Nkiru style has been a great piece, not too oversize, but simply a great fit. The collection has very much evolved as unisex and the Lich and Nyota frames have been great sellers for us too. When was the website launched and how does it support the business? The website was launched in 2016. It’s absolutely fundamental to our success and is something we regularly UX test. For us to grow as a brand we have to increase our audience and conversions, so ensuring we have a great user experience is paramount to that success. It also provides all the backstory to the brand as well as inform where we are heading to in the future. Exciting updates coming soon! What have been the key milestones in the business? You know what, I don’t think I’ve ever given my time to reflect on that. We’ve had lots of mini milestones that we’ve achieved, but we tend to have just moved on and carried onto the next without ever really appreciating where we have travelled so far. It’s an important, but often overlooked, thing to focus on! I do have one goal this year though, which is for Pala to become a BCorp. This would be a significant step in how I feel we will be judged as a brand, particularly in the B2B space. I genuinely think that in five years or so time having the BCorp brandmark will carry a lot of currency for business and consumers alike. How do you view the current market and what trends, both in business and product, do you see emerging over the coming months? It’s certainly a tough time for independent retailers and brands alike. The coronavirus came off the back of Brexit last year and not withstanding supply issues, confidence has been rocked again. When we actually withdraw from Europe at the end of this year, we will be facing tariffs which are likely to impact our imports from Europe too. The high streets are struggling; empty shops or the same shops doing huge discounts. People have lost the sense of value in a product and are driven by lowest price, which is incongruous for a sustainable brand. We need these precious, creative independent stores to provide that alternative to the high turnover, often high waste high street retailers, provide choice, quality and well sourced products and be able to tell the stories and rationalise that higher price. In terms of product, for me the ‘trend’ I see is for all product to be become more environmentally friendly. If fashion can do it’s (large) part in tackling climate change then a good start would be producing products that are lessening their impact on the planet. It’s what we’re trying to do and regardless of whether I had this business or not, I would always feel a responsibility to be as light touch on this planet as possible not just for my own piece of mind, but for those that I leave behind once I pop my clogs. What are your future plans for the business? It sounds boring, but in the short term it’s about becoming brilliant within our niche and consolidating our position in the market here. I believe this will take us to profitability as a business and then we can look at other aspects of where we can grow! We have done a number of collaborations with brands previously and I think there is a huge scope for this going forwards, particularly if we can unite them with a great CSR story. We also hope to launch a new collection of spectacle frames on the website this year, and then who’s to say in a few years we don’t have our own brick and mortar shop (nothing too swanky, just a beach location in the Bahamas). What are your greatest achievements so far? I’d have to say creating the team I have built around me. We are small team here at Pala, but I’ve been incredibly lucky to find people who have that same passion and drive to bring about change and work so flexibly within what is still very much a ‘start-up feel’ business where everyone has to wear multiple hats and be able to furiously juggle far more balls than is possible! I have huge admiration for them all.