I thought I’d put together a little photo diary of sorts from both days at our latest shoot - just bits and pieces taken on my camera and iPhone, to show you guys the mayhem that really goes on behind these scenes haha!  (Thanks to Daryl Graham for taking some of these pics too!)

We always talk about how crazy it is, but you guys hardly ever get a chance to see it for yourselves...so here it is: 2 Days of Behind The Black Milk Scenes MADNESS!

We start the shoot with a team meeting, where we go over everything we want to get out of the day.

Next up is hair and makeup with the amazing Christian Alexander.

Then, I get to...shoot models! 

Haha duh. This time I also got the chance to shoot something totally new...

Jewellery! Can't wait for these.

I also...take selfies ;)

Sneaky sneaky....!

Can I just stop for a second and go a little crazy over the amazing burned velvet gear we shot?!

Like this, OMG

BV leggings right?

WRONG!

BV sheer spartans!! So pretty!

We have a videographer too, who likes to terrorise me while I'm working!

He shoots models too...

Ummm...sure Tristan! 

For you photonerds out there, this is what I shoot on!

And Tristan uses this pretty thing...

With mysterious videographer accessories...

But I know what you guys really want to know....what's jL like on a shoot?!

He's very professional, helping with things like shoot direction.

Wait no that's not the right pic. Let me try something else..

Errr...well at least he behaves himself in interviews!

!

THANKS, JL.

MOVING ON.

So...What does Captain Cam do on shoots? 

Some of this.

Bit of this.

LOTS of this.

Oh god he found the weapons.

Oooohhh nnooooo

But he calms right down when you give him his helmet. Funny, that.

But James and Cam both do a lot of posing with models!

The models themselves get into the Black Milk spirit and take SELFIES!

Cute!

We also got to shoot on location, which was SUPER fun because we did stuff like this...

Chariot races!! Haha.

I got heaps of really fun shots too.

I can't wait to show you the finished poduct!

Then we finish up with team photos...

All in all, it's 2 very intense days. But everyone is so awesome to work with, it's a blast. Huge shouthout to Maddie and Tegan for styling and making sure the day runs smoothly, and to Daryl for playing the role of my much-needed photography assistant!

xx bonnie

1. Gym update! Good news and bad news. But mostly good news. ;)

I have been holding off making more gym wear for a few weeks now, much to the frustration of several thousands hot little gym junkies who have been telling me to hurry up and get them awesome pants!

(I assume there are a lot of BM gym junkies out there. Although if you want INSTANT MUSCLES, you can do it this way - cheat!)

But far be it from me to stand in the way of a gym sharkie and her awesome pants, that would be like standing between a she-bear and her cubs, or... a hungry person and an unusually tasty cupcake. (Madness, I tell you!)

However, I have held off for one reason - fabric. I have felt like our fabric was good, but maybe not great. And I suppose I never felt 100% comfortable with that. It did the job - but not much else. I wanted a fabric that I could rave about, a fabric that I could - with a clear conscience - say to any girl in any gym, "Seriously, lady, wear this and it will blow yo' mind!"

And the good news is... I found it. :)

I tried a new fabric out of Italy (gotta love the Italians...) and it is really something special. Think of it as the Lamborghini of sportswear fabrics. Smooth, soft, shiny, slimming, and with great technical performance. 

So that's the good news! The BM gym girls are going to be happily sweating it out (and sneakily touching their thighs) in the gym with the absolute BEST gym wear you can get.

The bad news is that this fabric is so new  that it needs to be specially manufactured for us, so there will be a 6 week wait.  :/

Remember darlings, good things come to those who wait.... and this will be a very good thing. ;)

2. Licensing deals!

As you guys know, licensed products have become a big part of our little bizzz...

And if you know that, then you probably also know that HARRY POTTER IS ON THE WAY!!!! Yeah, so awesome.

So I have been working really hard designing lots of awesome HP pieces. Deathly Hallows leggings anyone? "Have you seen this wizard?" Sirius Black poster dress maybe? Quidditch tops?

All of the above, amigas.

Let's do this.

3. Comic Con!!!

We said we were going ... but we looked at the numbers and the risk and figured out that we actually can't. :(

Sorry peeps. Maybe next year? :)

4. Funny how things dovetail together with the things we at Black Milk want to do, and what our girls want to wear:

I found this picture the day I said to the design team "Hey, let's do little printed suspender booty shorts!"

So that settles it.

5. You know the thing I really love about Black Milk girls... they're crazy innovative. They figure out the coolest stuff. Like how to wear a BM swimsuit like THIS.

I know right, mind kaboom.

6. AWESOME HOODIE TOPS! 

Sorry these have taken so long, we're making some next week!

8. Catsuits....

Okay, so I pulled the catsuits off the Black Milk website a little while ago because I wanted to see if I could improve the patterns. Sometimes on the catsuits the centre leg seam could creep around to the front. Most girls didn't care, but some girls found it annoying so I wanted to see if I could fix it!

And the answer is yes, it could be fixed, by adding side seams... which breaks up the artwork. Or adding a front seam, which can give you lady part problems (you ladies know what I'm talking about). 

So I'm thinking... maybe they are cool enough as they were? 

Then I went up to a meet up in Sydney and LOTS of girls were wearing Black Milk catsuits and they all looked amazing.

Sorted.

9. Sometimes I go through some of my old designs... and reminisce. This was such an awesome dress... but I only had like 2m of these fabrics. Which sucks.

10. I like girls.

11. When I was in Sydney we had a meet up in a club which was just myself, Handsome Cam, a few Mega Hotties, and lots of AMAZING sharkies... but then at 11pm they let in a whole bunch of non Black Milk wearing people.

So I thought to myself - what do we call girls who don't wear Black Milk?! And then it came to me.

Muggles.

12. Watch this video... I CAN'T BELIEVE THEY CENSORED ME!!!!

13. Friends don't let friends have boring legs.....

14. My three favourite things. Black Milk, sharkies, and cake.

15. See ya later, sweeties. :)

Mwah!

jL

On Friday morning a bunch of peeps from BMHQ dragged themselves out of bed at sunrise and hopped on a plane bound for...SYDNEY! We were off to two days of sample sales and one massive meetup all rolled into the most epic weekend of the year thus far.

It was huge.

Too huge for words.

Luckily, we got TONNES of pics...

Pics of girls...

Waaiiit...is that...?

Say hello to Emperor jL everybody! This shy, retiring fellow makes all your tight and shiny gear. 

We also snapped pics of clothes...

And girls and clothes!

AND GIRLS JUMPING INTO CLOTHES!!

Seriously, everyone needs to do that at least once in their lives. Remember that feeling when you pulled your first pair of leggings out of their bag and couldn't get over how shiny and soft they are. It's like that BUT ON YOUR ENTIRE BODY. Put it on your bucket list. Seriously.

After jumping in the piles of clothes, girls started emerging....with gear...

Lots of gear...

SO MUCH GEAR THEY COULDN'T CONTAIN IT.

Even jL was getting in on the action, providing the nylon-hungry masses with a walking display stand for their convenience.

Although that expression does look sorta like he's been taken in by all the madness and is about to hurl himself into a pile of shiny clothes, never to emerge again.

...Nah he was just thinking about all the chocolate he was about to feed to the peeps in line.

"Why is this odd man giving candy to strangers?"

 And that was just day 1! On day 2, it was time to do it all again. 

It was a mad, mad two days. Mad and wonderful. And humbling. Because, you know, people are excellent. There were peeps who waited in line in the cold for hours, peeps who shopped for their sisters, friends...and people overseas who they'd never met. A sharkie's boyfriend serenaded the line on his guitar. 

It was just one of those days where every couple of steps you had to stop and go "wow THAT....is amazing." 

So I do have a couple of shout-outs for inspiring examples of excellentness: 

This chick, who showed up both days wearing as many pieces as possible.

And this one, who I feel like I need to kidnap make do my nails every morning because SKILLS.

And these blokes, because jL isn't a little guy.

This crew, for going out partying all night then being first in line on the second day with no sleep.

And to these guys for being adorable:

And finally, to this lovely lady. The one burtied in the  nylon. She spent hours at the sample sale, crossing off items on a list for over 30 people from one of our community groups. People she'd never met, from all over the world. Mad props, beautiful!

What an insane couple of days. And guess what? After the sample sale, we still had the meetup. By that point, I'm not ashamed to admit that I kinda hurt. All over. Especially my left arm. (If you were there, you might remember the really short person hurling discarded pieces back into the piles of clothes from the stage...) But, I was so full of energy drinks SO hyped up from the incredible atmosphere of the day that I slipped on my high heels (still short), charged up the cameras, grabbed a HUGE BAG OF PRIZES and whisked myself off to the party.

 If you've ever wondered why someone would go to a meetup with a bunch of people you'd met on the Internet in a discussion group for clothes...here's why:

1: You get to hang out with amazing, beautiful ladies

...who love each other.

..and wear partyhats while drinking cocktails out of teapots.

They also wear awesome clothes...

Killer shoes...

And twirl like princesses in the middle of crowded rooms.

We only hire the most awesome DJs...

..And sometimes there's adorable cake!

Oh, and you can also win prizes!

Which are are required to model right away, of course.

You also may have your legs touched by BMHQ staff:

Who are always totally professional...

Most of the time...

We had a blast meeting you all!

Especially Cam...

But seriously, it was so cool to meet everyone, put faces to names and hang out in person after all this time chatting on the Facebook page and in groups!

Big hugs and a huge thank you from all of us at BMHQ to all the Sydney ladies, and to all the peeps who travelled in from all over to party with us. 

I think I need about a week to recover, which I guess is how you know you've had an amazing weekend. A special shout out to Ash and Jamie for organising the meetup and to Misty who was definitely there in spirit. We love you!!

See you all next time ;)

-AC

Let's do some blog reading!!!

 1. So I was in a public toilet and I thought to myself... "Hey let's take some photos!"

Because hanging around public toilets taking photos is totally my jam.

2. So I decided not to put this into production when I first made it. Apparently, I'm not very good at figuring out what girls want to wear, because them ladies want them dinosaurs on their bodehs.

So if ladies want dinosaurs, it's dinosaurs they will get! I'll make lots, don't worry. ;)

3. So I have addressed this a few times before, but I thought I might talk about it again - the dreaded Black Milk release strategy!

In the old days it was really simple, I would design a little collection, say 20-30 pieces, and then I would release them (with none actually made). Girls would buy a few, I wold do a little happy dance, and then we would go and make the clothes. 

But times have changed. Now we do a release every two weeks, and there's lots of new designs constantly coming out.

Sometimes I get emails from girls who feel sad that we have changed. Some say it's not special any more. Some girls even say things such as "There are so many things to buy that I don't buy anything" (I personally don't understand that one. I recently went to a buffet at some hotel in Dubai where they had enough food to sink a battleship, and I still managed to eat enough to feed a small village).

I have thought long and hard on this one.

Going to the sample sales recently has clarified things for me a little better, so let me share with you my feelings. :)

In Melbourne last week, almost 4000 girls turned up, most of them wearing their favourite Black Milk piece. And it was so great that there was so much variety! There were super old school things that I had made in my garage back in the day, as well as super new school things like the striped playsuit that was released only a few days earlier. In between was a beautiful array of all the crazy things that we have made over the years. 

There were also lots of situations where girls got to see some pieces that they had never seen before - and that was so cool!

I would hate it if every Black Milk girl looked the same. I know that chances are every sharkie has at least one galaxy piece, but on top of that I want girls to be able to get lots of other pieces that they personally fall in love with. 

So I have decided that I'm just going to keep doing what I love doing, which is making cool clothes. Girls keep asking for them, so we are just going to keep creating!

Of course, I know and can appreciate that some people don't like the way we do things now, and if it bugs you want to move on, I understand.

I guess I just love the idea that you can come to the BM Facebook page, or the website and you will always find something new, or something that you haven't seen before.

You see , I think fashion is one big adventure, and isn't that what the best adventures are like - always something new to discover?

4. This girl's bathroom is a million times nicer than mine.

And so is her outfit. :(

5. Guess who is planning on setting up a special booth at Comic-con in San Diego beside the Star Wars spot? Huh? C'mon - guess!

It us. The answer is us.

7. Burned Velvet is awesome...

And Black Milk shoes are awesome....

So Burned Velvet is awesome and Black Milk shoes are awesome... wait a minute...

HEY ARE YOU THINKING WHAT I'M THINKING?!?!?!

8. And the announcement that MANY girls on ze interwebs have been waiting for - at the end of this video:

Yes, peeps, we have a deal with Harry Potter. So... Marauder's Map leggings anyone? ;)

Did you know that Harry Potter's parents were named James and Lily?

OMG IT'S A SIGN!

9. Gym leggings update!

I'm sorry this is taking so long, I'm trying to get this stuff done, I really am! I have been looking for a new gym fabric, and getting something I'm really, really happy with has been a challenge. However, the good news is that we have some FANTASTIC new fabric coming in from Italy that I can't wait to use for gym leggings.

I think you guys will fall in love with them. In the mean time, we do have the Yoga Pants coming out. :)

10. Super soft elastic is arriving tomorrow! Comfy tummies for all. :)

11. Love to all the Sharkies. - looking forward to seeing all the girls in Sydney next Saturday!!!

x

jL

Guess what? I'm hijacking James' blog. MUAHAHAHAHA. Why? cuz I have something preeettty awesome to tell you about...

You ready? I'm not ready.

I'm not ready.

Ok...I'M READY:

Yesterday afternoon we went out for our first ever location photoshoot! That means we took the model (the impossibly beautiful Joss) out of the studio and into...the wild...

And by wild I mean into the streets of Brisbane, which sounds a lot less exciting at first but actually turned out to be really amazing. We've never done an ~official~ Black Milk Clothing location photoshoot before! I mean, we've grabbed employees and put them in gear and crazy shoes and taken photos of them in the awesomely grungey alley behind the office...buuuuut (and no offense to our stunning employees!) it sure was nice to be able to do this with a) an actual model and b) as an official part of our shoot! 

It meant we had the chance to snag accessories from some amazing people, put together complete looks, and shoot our gear the way we envision it being worn out there in the big wide world. We get that you guys don't live in a perfectly lit, sterile studio, so this was a really exciting chance for us to show you guys some of the potential we see when we make clothes.

We also got to work with different scenery, which makes a nice change from a white backdrop! Brisbane has heaps of gorgeous nooks and crannies, and is full of stunning little surprises...like this gigantic red door:

Very pretty on its own, but vastly improved by the model in tight n' shiny pants right? We found graffiti'd alleyways, tree-lined streets, and a great spot to whip out the skateboard. We shot all kinds of pieces, too: swimsuits, our fav classic pieces, new pieces....

...mmmmmmm purdy...

It was a super successful day, heaps of fun for the team and we got some killer shots that we can't wait to share with you!

Today, though, we're back at BMHQ getting ready for tomorrow's release. Bonnie is editing photo after photo of Joss and crying quietly over her unbelievable attractiveness, James is...somewhere...(I heard something about unicorns?), the logistics team are crunching the numbers to get stock quantities up, the packers are in full gear to make sure orders are all caught up ahead of the releases, the customer service mega hotties are flat out answering all your Qs (they do that every day, though)  and Cam is singing Diamonds by Rihanna. We all have our own ways to prepare for the insanity of release day. And I'm talking to you guys! 

And, because I love ya*, here's a finished pic from our location shoot.

A lot of the shots were also fully styled looks, too, so keep an eye out for those on Facebook and here!

Fingers crossed we're going to do more of these locations shoots too, showcasing different looks and different ways to style our gear. Don't fret though, we're not going to stop posting heaps and heaps of pics of our hottie customers LIKE THIIIIIIIS

<3 Love. It.

Right. So...more location shoots from us. But not less sharkie pics, cuz you guys rock. Now, I hear James approaching so I'm going to get off his blog...

Bai!

-AC

*Actually it's because Bonnie loves ya, since she had to edit the photo :P

1. First things first... girls wearing awesome Black Milk clothes!

Yeah, we made the top and the pantyhose - how awesome are they?! (Answer: 11/10 awesome factor)

Second thing... BM girls with awesome fake moustaches!

Sorry M! But serioulsy, you actually look awesome with a mo'.

2. Did you catch out podcast on Friday? Of course you did! Catch it again here. :) Not really a podcast....

Bet you haven't seen this video though:

3. Gym wear!

Yeah, it's going pretty well. It's taking us a teensy weensy bit longer to sew them than I first hoped, but Rome wasn't built in a day. In fact, they took at least two weeks and then - BAM! It was all Vespas and Pizza at the Colosseum. And yeah it's pretty much the same at BM Gym. :)

A few girls have expressed concern about the fact that our manufacturing team are working so much overtime to get things out in time. Is this cruel? Will the quality be compromised?

No, precious. :)

Fact about sewing garment manufacturers in Australia: their favourite word = 'overtime'. Seriously, if you meet a sewing machine operator, say that word to them slowly, you'll see their eyes light up like a Christmas tree.

And in terms of quality - our sewing team take a lot of pride in our quality! Yeah, we know that we don't always get it right, but these girls (and one dude) are very passionate about what they do. :) We have quality control meetings regularly and talk about all the things we need to make sure we do so that peeps get the good BM. :)

* BTW - if you do have any quality concerns, just email customer service and we'll make sure you get anything faulty replced or refunded. :)

3. Quality Plans!

On the subject of quality control... we have some cool plans that I thought I'd let you know about. 

One thing that a few girls have been unhappy about has been the waistbands we use. Sometimes they have been too tight. It's actually a challenge to get it right because most girls will tell you that tight is better than too loose, so we typically err on the side of tight. We tested our latest waistbands on around 150 girls and got some feedback and so we know what most girls are happy with now. :) Hooray!

And in other GOOD NEWS - we have some new super soft elastic coming next month! Happy tummies, happy girls. :)

3. Thought I might use the blog to chat about some areas lately where there seems to be some confusion. So let's clear up some misconceptions!

Q1. Why do you guys release so often - is it because you are greedy for money?

Wut? No. Seriously... peeps actually think that?

Occassionally, I go to Black Milk meet ups. You know what the number one things girls want to talk to me about? They want me to do a certain kind of leggings, or a type of swimsuit with this cool graphic on it. In other words - MORE STUFF. I - being the nice accomodating person that I am - write down all their requests and by ther end of the night I have literally pages and pages of things girls are really looking forward to. That's not including the hundreds of emails, Facebook messages, tweets, etc. that we get from you girls every week asking for new pieces.

And then I work into the small hours of the night actually making them.  :)

We get asked for new designs constantly! And - because we love you guys - we try to say yes as much as possible, which means we make lots of stuff!

Not only that I LIKE DESIGNING CLOTHES. That's kind of what I do. 

The end result of this is that we make heaps of clothes! We like doing that. It keeps it interesting. And once I've made them, I really want ot let girls buy them. That's the fun part. :)

Now I understand that lots of girls can't actually afford everything we make... but that's to be expected isn't it? Can you imagine what would happen if you turned up to a Chanel fashion show and said to Karl Lagerfeld "SLOW DOWN ON ALL DAT CHANEL I CAN'T AFFORD ALL DEM TWEED COATS!" 

I dare say peeps would look at you funny.

Now here's the thing... I'm more than happy to space stuff out a bit. We could do fortnightly if that worked better. No biggie.

In terms of being greedy for money... ouch!

I make decisions that I think will make girls happy. How successful I am at that... well, you be the judge (jks - we all know I totally suck at it). Making cool clothes and creating a cool, fun, positive community has always been more important to me than the money.

Q2. Why do some of my new clothes fit differently to some of my old clothes?

Because... I actually don't know. But that's a big focus for us in 2013, getting really consistent with our sizing. 

The great thing about that is that it will involve lots of fittings and you guys might be able to get involved as well! So if you like trying on clothes and giving your opinion (I suspect that's a few of you) then watch this space. ;)

Q3. Do you manufacture in Australia because you think that means better quality?

No - we manufacture in Australia because I happen to live here. Really, it's just that simple.

Q.4 I heard that you eat babies, is this true?

Don't believe everything you read on the internet, sweetcheeks. I gave up baby eating years ago.

5. Love love love you guys. Please be excellent to one another... and rock out your hot little self like the star that you are.

Sweeeeeeeet dreams, all. ;)

x

jL

First things first... CUTE GIRL!

Alright, now let's have question and answer time....

QUESTION 1. "What the heck is happening with gym clothes, you freak?!"

Woah, enough with name calling already! Okay, I'm going to give you the skinny...

I have been working on gym clothes for the last six months. I started after spending a lot of time in gyms looking what girls were wearing an seeing a lot of.... convergence. In fact, at the gym I go to, you would have to say that 90% of girls are wearing clothes from one clothing company.

And so... perhaps a little ignorantly/arrogantly, I thought to myself "I think I can do this!"

You see, girls who wear Black Milk tend to not... fit in with everyone else. And gyms seemed to me to be the perfect place to NOT fit in with everyone else.

This was the beginning of Black Milk Gym.

I started with leggings. And they pretty much sucked initially - they fell down, they were too loose, too high, too lame. They didn't breathe either. Just... terrible. However, after six months I think we have got something awesome. How awesome? THIS AWESOME:

"But jL", I hear you say "that's just plain black - I can get that anywhere!"

To which I reply.... yes, but that's just the beginning. Every girl needs plain black, so we start with that. And then, as Michelangelo painted on the blank canvas of the Sistine Chapel, so we paint a masterpiece of awesome style on this simple foundation!

Pew-pew!!!

Ninja style!

And we are working on some awesome names for our leggings styles at the moment.

I decided that I really want to be a little different with how we approach the whole gym thing for women. I'm not a huge fan of that whole "Love yourself, think positive, nourish your body and spirit"

I guess I like my girls to be a bit more like.... ninjas.

In fact, one of our styles will actually be called 'Ninja Pants' (the full length style).

The booty Shorts we have renamed 'SmackDowns'. As in, if you seriously need to lay a smack down on someone - these are the pants to do it in.

In the future I envisage there will be a time when it will be commonplace to hear such phrases as:

"Okay, time for me to go to the gym.. I need my bag, by towel, and my new Galaxy SmackDowns...."

You heard it here first.

(I'm hoping that we will have our first gym leggings and shirts released this Thursday!)

QUESTION 2. "Why should I buy BM gym leggings?"

I could give you thousands of reasons - but I'd just be making most of them up (Reason #642: They give you the ability to understand the speech of animals. Reason #853 They will enable you to reclaim your parents' love....), so instead I'll stick to three (real ones, not made up)...

ONE: They don't go transparent at the back! Our gym leggings are doubled up with fabric at the back so that no matter how far over you bend, and no matter how colourful your undies - no one will be able to see what is going on underneath!

TWO: Awesome phone sized pockets! Each pair of leggings has two pockets on the side, both of which easily fit a decent sized phone.

THREE: Made in Australia. :) 

Most gym companies manufacture in extrememly poor countries, and they believe that you can't realistically run a successful gym wear label manufacturing somewhere like Australia.

I wonder if we will prove them wrong? 

QUESTION 3. "What in the world is up with your release schedule lately - are you mad?!"

Hey - you just watch what you say! My sanity is a personal matter between me and the voices inside my head (which are telling me that aliens are spying on me).

Okay - I'll admit, our release schedule has been a little bit insane lately. Alright, TOTALLY insane.

It was my fault - we designed HEAPS OF STUFF and I was getting worried that we were going to just get swamped with new stuff, so I really wanted to get them out to you girls as soon as possible.

So, if it has been a bit disorganised, confusing, and overwhelming.... my apologies.

Some girls have accused me of doing it out of greed - let me assure you that this is not the case. Quite the opposite - it has mostly been my desire to keep the peeps at BM working! There have been times when it looks like we are running out of work... so we just do another release to stay busy.

I think it''s cool because it means you get to see lots of new things, but I understand that some girls feel like it's overwhelming.

But don't worry peeps! I have a plan....

JL'S AWESOME PLAN

1. Predictable and regular release schedule! Maybe once a week, same day, same time - so you never have to wonder when the next release is!

2. Small number so you don't get lost! Maybe 10-15?

2. Letting you know everything that is coming out a week in advance. :) So you can plan....

3. Regular 'life span' for pieces so there is consistent turnover, but enough time for girls to get what they want. Maybe one month?

(Or maybe we could do one month for a not very popular piece, two months for a quite popular piece, and permanaent for something that is really, really popular!)

We are even thinking about having a countdown on each product! So everything starts with 30 days... if it sells a certain amount, it automatically get's an 'extension', and if it sells HEAPS, it becomes as BM staple. 

Anyway... I'm thinking of testing this method (just testing, nothing too permanent guys...) and seeing if it works! If it sucks, we can just go back to one stupidly massive release every month. :)

QUESTION 4. "So what's the deal with licensing deals?!"

So much cool stuff!

We are doing the last few Star Wars pieces... (Yoda, you little green creep!)

And then we have more Lord of the Rings awesomeness.... :)

So you can get your nerd on.

And then we have something else....

I don't want to give too much away, but if you like times of adventure with Jake the Dog, and Finn the Human, you might want to do a little happy dance.

QUESTION 5. "What are you doing for 500K Noms?!"

I honestly have no idea....  

QUESTION 6. "When will this blog post end?"

Right about ... now.

===========================================

Love to all the sharkies. :)

x

jL

p.s. Here is a pictue of a cute girl with an enormous duck.

==============================

1. I am tempted to start doing a Facebook post every day called "HEY INSTAGRAM - SORRY BUT WHY DID YOU TAG THAT #BLACKMILK?" Seriously... like, who looks at this photo and thinks to themselves "Yep, this is very Black Milk, let me hashtag that sucker on Instagram...

How do you even... I mean... what the...

2. It's been interesting checking out what women wear in NYC. What I'm finding is the same thing I found in Milan, that women tend to dress very... homogenous. So you'll get a nice jacket, black leggings, and nice boots, and that's it. Don't get me wrong - it looks fine, but it just not... hmmmm, how do I phrase this.... much to look at? I mean, you're not going to be turning your head alot. You don't often think to yourself "Wow - check out that girl's outfit, she is rocking it!"

Obviously I am not talking about sharkies, because they just look FAB.

Maybe I'm biased...

3. Gymwear update!!! As you guys know I have been working really hard on my gymwear collection.

The first step for me has been to realise that you are not going to be able to please everyone. SO many times I have told girls that I am going to be doing gymwear and I hear things like this:

• "Great! Make them so they are really high on the waist. I hate it how gymwear sits so low..."
• "Great! Make them so they are really low on the waist. I hate it how gymwear sits so high..."
• "Great! Make the waists really tight. I hate it how gymwear has such loose waists..."
• "Great! Make the waists really loose. I hate it how gymwear has such tight waists..."
• "Great! Make them just below the knee. I hate it how gymwear sits on the calf..."
• "Great! Make them sit on the calf. I hate it how gymwear goes just below the knee..."

Girls tend to have a strong sense of what constitutes good gymwear, and there is very little consistancy to it. And that's fine! It has meant that I am going to have to think a lot more about what I personally want to see, rather than try to match what I am doing to what girls are wanting. 

That may sound a little selfish... but think of it like music. When a musician creates music, he doesn't ask himself what people want to hear, he only cares about what he personally responds to. If it's working for him, he puts it out there and hopes that others feel about his music the same way he does.

I like to imagine myself walking into a situation (could be anything - a party, a bar, a cafe - in this case it would be a gym) and I see a girl and I just go "WOW". That is cool. I want to talk to her...

So what is she wearing?

And then I hope like heck that that is actually what girls want to be wearing in the gym. Otherwise this could be a very expensive excercise in self centredness. :/

I'm planning on maybe 3-4 pieces. One awesome gym singlet, knee length leggings, and full length leggings. So just don't buy any gymwear from any companies beginning with the letter L for the next month - cool?

5. One of the things I really want to focus on this year is fun.

We need to have fun. YOU WILL HAVE FUN THIS YEAR OR ELSE... BLACK MILK FUN REGULATIONS WILL BE STRICTLY ENFORCED.

Jokes...

For me, fun is playing around with design. I'm thinking design compettions, graphic design battles, style battles, collaborations, design challenges... and lots of special little pieces for different groups.

Of course, we have actually already begun - in fact this litle bad boy was a little treat for the discussion page girls. :)

Lots more to come. :)

5. Fragarances...

Would you like to smell like the feel of tight strechy pants?!

I mean, that the awesomeness of the scent would be on the same level as having awesome tight Black Milk leggings on your bum.

Okay, forget that, just watch out for the new Black Milk fragrances that I have been working on for a while. We have two that I think are really cool - and they are called....

• Black Milk White (strong peach and vanilla notes)
• Black Milk Black (strong rose and sugar notes)

So excited for this stuff...  

6. LOTR!!!

One more day to go... see you there. :)

http://blackmilkclothing.com

Can I start off by saying a massive THANK YOU to all the awesome sharkies that have been involved with everything Black Milk this year. It really means a lot to me personally and I appreciate every pair of leggings you have bought, every Facebook comment and like, every Instagram selfie, and every time you guys have rocked out on a Saturday night in your shiny BM goodness. I freely admit that we as a company have no idea what we are doing and I am just making this thing up as I go, so your patience and support are definitely appreciated!

I'm giving you all a group hug over the internet right now. You feel that? I know you do...

My personal highlights:

- Sharkcon 1! That was amazing.... we're definitely going back to Vegas, baby.

- Getting the Star Wars deal. That was massive for us and really gave us a new business model that I hadn't considered before!

- Getting the Lord of the Rings deal. Yeah, that is going to be pretty epic.

- Setting up our own printing operation. As some of you might remember, I went to Italy a while back to check out some machinery. Well, I ended up buying it, and now we do a lot of our own fabric printing! It's beautiful to watch the guys put white fabric pieces into the press and watch it spit out beautiful coloured leggings out the other side! It's my baby. I gave birth to a giant mechanical baby, and that's not weird at all.

- Getting nominated for Australian Fashion Designer of the Year.

- ^Jks, that never happened.

Lowlights:

- Customs fees crisis. It has been really depressing from our end because it hurt a lot of sharkies and we have been powerless to stop it. A lot of sharkies stopped buying from us as a result and that was really sad.  :(  But don't worry, I have a plan!!! (See number 2 below)

 - Internet freak outs. I tend to take stuff to do with Black Milk quite personally... like maybe too personally. To the point where I can freak out about stuff. That's not a good thing. And to make matters worse I am really, really bad at concealing my emotions. So everyone is trying to get work done and I'm raging in the office like Anakin Skywalker just before he goes into the Jedi Temple and kills all those little kid jedis (oops, spoiler alert!).

So it's like I read on the interwebz:

"BM is so overpriced, I got the same thing from [evil leggings company] for way less, and they were so much better! And I don't want to support people like jL because he eats  babies."

And instead of designing clothes, like I'm meant to be doing - I'm busy sending out my ninjas on a mission to track the perp down and SHURIKEN THEM TO THE FACE.

Kind of petty.

I finally visited the US in 2012. Had an awesome time as well - got to meet soooo many awesome sharkies in LA, Vegas and NY. But I wasn't just there to hang out with awesome sharkies and have a sweet time at Sharkcon'12, I had a secret mission! Okay, probably not that much of a secret - I was scoping out the US as a possible site for the next Black Milk manufacturing operation!

"But why?" I hear you ask... (yes, I have the power of internet hearing).

Simple peeps -  I feel bad that innocent US sharkies are getting charged criminal customs charges. And of course we get blamed for it... grrrrr....

"Hey Black Milk - is this some kind of SCAM!!! I bought some leggings and now I'm being forced to pay more money. WHAT IS UP WITH THAT?!"

Yes it is a scam, perpetrated by your government.

So either the US government decides not to tax people on international purchases, or we need to start an operation in the US. Guess which one of those is more realistic?

"But jL" - I hear you say - "Won't that personally cost you lots and lots of money- just to help sharkies getting taxed by their own government?!

Yeah. I'd do that for you. :)

3. Again there has been a lot of talk about copying lately... I get several emails a day, detailing the dirty deeds of the ELCs. We even had one situation where an ELC was tagging their photos with #blackmilk and even setting up hashtag feeds so that BM customer photos would go up on their website! As we have said before - here's the deal peeps, haters gonna hate, copiers gonna copy, and sharkies gonna nom.  :)

Don't worry peeps, I haven't forgotten about them! Imagine 200 cute girls in swimsuits and killer heels, sipping champagne around a pool. We are definitely going to make this happen, and it will probably encourage me to make more designer swimwear as well! Maybe we could even combine a pool party with a swimwear launch...

Woah... that's brilliant.

Thanks again for everything peeps, see you next year!  :)

x

jL

I am currently sitting on a plane, staring out over the Nevada desert. I'm still buzzing out, 

My brain is slightly blurred after my second day of no sleep. And no, it's not that I'm this total party guy who goes on 48 hour benders Charlie Sheen style - but hey, YOU try sleeping after getting fangirled by 100 hot little bosses. It's kind of like taking a 10 year old kid to Disneyland, getting him jacked up on 20 cups of coffee (just work with me on this analogy...) and then saying "Okay Junior, time for sleepies before we go meet the big mouse!"

Ain't gonna happen.

It was a fatastic time, and I want to send out a massive special shout out to the following people:

Jennifer Noble Post - for just being plain old fashion amazing. Organising like an absolute boss, while looking like a rock star.

Ivy Drumm - for putting countless hours, doing the hard yards organising all the sharkies. Without her hard work it would not have happened!

EVERYONE who travelled to get there! I know you guys saved really hard to pay for flights and accomodation, and it means a lot to us! A special mention to the international girls who came in from the UK, Australia and Canada. Love you guys. :)

And also a special thank you to ... me - because I can.

2. So we are already plotting and planning about what is going to happen in the future. One thing I know for sure, we are going to have a big international meet up every year. SHARKCON!

Or Milktoberfest.

Or Milkapalooza.

Or something else equally awesome that I can't think of right now.

The point is, every October we are going to make it happen - so save your pennies because it is only going to get bigger and better.

I was talking with a few of the sharkies at one of the clubs and it was pretty cool, but I remember saying that in the future, we're going to be taking over the ENTIRE place with awesome Black Milk girls from all over the world.

Let's make it happen. :) 

3. Super excited about the first Sophia James collection at the end of the month. We have been working on these pieces for ages and I can't wait to show them to you guys. :)

Hugs and kisses.

x

jL