#SpillingTheTea - with Lizzy Lambie

This week we sat down with Lizzy Lambie, the co-owner of Fashion Meets Music as well as the Chair of the new Croydon Creative Enterprise (the CIC set up to ensure the legacy of the Creative Enterprise Zone programme) to chat about future plans for FMM, get some exclusive news about an exciting new space for Croydon creatives and learn more about an opportunity at a central London pop up shop that locals can get involved with.

For those who haven’t followed the FMM journey, can you give a brief overview?
Sure. The FMM concept was born back in 2007 in Los Angeles. My sister Dennica was living out there and working as a young designer. She was struggling to get her fashion brand seen at catwalk shows as they were so expensive (and had way too many gatekeepers). So, she decided to run her own fashion show event, that emphasised music, inclusivity and collaboration. The concept was that you could buy items straight from the runway, whilst having performances from emerging musicians. It worked really well and over time, that concept in the UK developed into “a retail space with an events state of mind” and we ran pop-up shops that showcased work from emerging designers alongside music performances from up-and-coming talent. After years of running successful pop-up events in London (including Camden High Street and Westfield Stratford) we made a more permanent home in Croydon in 2017. Our store in Centrale & Whitgift continued to showcase work from Black Creatives but, having seen a gap in the market for business training within the creative industry, we expanded our offering to include courses, workshops and work experience opportunities for early-stage entrepreneurs. We had a super busy few years at FMM, delivering training, running events and generally supporting local people on their creative career journey. Then Covid happened. We got through it (in part due to support from the likes of the CEZ) but it’s no secret that retail and the high street (across the UK) is still struggling. We’ve been considering next steps for a while, and various things have happened over the last year which have led to us pivoting the business. Whilst plans won’t be officially confirmed until next week, this #SpillingTheTea interview seems like a good opportunity to share our new vision for the business…

Please do – what have you got planned?!
Well, first off, we’ve just moved out of our Centrale home. It was a big decision – and we almost back-tracked last week when we were trying to pack up the shop but kept having customers and clients drop in and telling us to stay!

We’ve loved helping early career Creatives develop and are really passionate about supporting more people on their creative career paths so we’ve decided to spend more of our time on the training and development aspect of the business. For the last 2 years, I’ve been working here at the co-working space at LSBU (as whilst the shop is a brilliant vibe, it’s not always conducive to getting emails done!) and so we will continue to use this as our base to deliver more training programmes. In addition to teaching business and personal development skills, we will now be putting a stronger emphasis on Sustainability training.

This has been a particularly hot topic in the fashion and creative industries (and it was our core theme for all the activities FMM delivered during Borough of Culture). Thanks to the connections we’ve developed over the years, we’ve been lucky enough to be immersed into the topic and whilst we’ve been impressed by emerging legislation, we’re also conscious of its impact on small businesses. We are working towards a Sustainability accreditation for FMM, and are now able to offer a training programme that offers Sustainability knowledge so we can give Creatives the tools they need to run their businesses sustainably and profitably. 

So, you’re leaving the retail and events world?
Well, not quite! It’s set to be a full circle moment – as we’ll go back to running occasional pop-up spaces in other locations across the UK and internationally. However, these will be longer term pop-ups (3-6 months) and crucially, we will be focused more on the consultation and development of them (rather than the on-the-ground management). And that segues nicely into our other hot-off-the-press (but not quite official yet!) plans. With my new hat on (as Director of the Croydon Creative Enterprise) the first space FMM will be consulting/overseeing will be a new mixed-use space owned by Croydon Creative Enterprise!

Intriguing! Where will this space be and how will it be used?
As I say, it’s not officially signed off yet, so I can’t say exactly. But it is located in Croydon (and before you ask, no it’s not the old FMM space!) It will be a mixed-use space and available to any local creatives who are signed up to the Creative Directory. It will likely have an element of retail to it (probably over the Christmas period) but the rest of the time, it will be used to support the work of Croydon creatives in as many ways as possible. It will be multi-genre focused, so all areas of the Creative industries will be welcome to be involved. We plan to run networking events, exhibitions, showcases, performances – you name it, we’re open to discussion!

Sounds great, what has inspired this idea?
As a Creative Enterprise Zone (between 2018 and 2021) over 30 projects were run to grow and develop the creative industries within the Borough (a reminder of those can be found HERE). Whilst there are a wealth of brilliant spaces and venues within the Borough (eg Fairfield Halls, Stanley Arts, Front Room Space etc), we’re aware we don’t have our own central hub for the creative community. The online Creative Directory acts as a great digital hub for local creatives, but this new venue will provide a physical meet up space. Through our years running FMM, we know first-hand how important such a space is and we’ve seen how other pop-up spaces (like the ‘Cronx Boutique’ in Croydon or ‘London Made Me’ on Carnaby Street) have helped bring together and support the creative community so we want to build on elements of what all these spaces offered.

Tell us more about your experience with London Made Me.
Through our Croydon connections, we heard about the opportunity to apply to take part in a central London pop-up shop called ‘London Made Me’ – an initiative run by Sadiq Khan as part of the wider Creative Enterprise Zone programme. The idea was to bring together 12 creative designers from across the different Creative Enterprise Zones so they could create one large pop-up on Carnaby Street. Our (successful!) proposal demonstrated not just our retail offering but also how we could help bring live events into the space. It opened in 2023 and was an incredible experience. Even after all these years running our own pop ups, we learnt a lot! More importantly, operating in a central London space brought new footfall and awareness and we made some brilliant connections. I would strongly recommend any Croydon creatives who have products to sell, put in an application for this year (deadline is 9 August 2024). More details can be found HERE.  

What would you say to anyone looking to start a creative business?
First and foremost, it’s not for everyone! Not everyone is born to be a creative entrepreneur – and that’s ok. You need to be really honest with yourself about who you are as a person, how you work and what amount of time you can dedicate to pursuing this path (and what money you will live off while you grow). To me, that’s just as important as gaining the business skills you need. When you have a solid understanding of your strengths and weaknesses, you’re in a better position to work out how to leverage those skills and collaborate with others to strengthen those weaknesses. Life is life – and you need to be realistic with your objectives. If you can only dedicate a day a week to your business, don’t be beating yourself up when it’s not a roaring success after a year! That doesn’t mean don’t do it – it just means be real about it. Or else (like I did early on in my career!) you’ll burn out. Unfortunately, due to the current economic climate, we are seeing so many more people burning out trying to stay afloat, so we really focus on well-being as you cannot pour from an empty cup. Literally and physically!

What role has Croydon played in the development of FMM?
A huge one! We’d been running FMM for around ten years before we made our home in Croydon. Since rooting ourselves within this community, we’ve had some incredible opportunities. We’ve run a Sustainable Fashion Show for the London Borough of Culture with Queen Mojo in Centrale, been a delivery partner for WinCreative, a training programme in the borough for those wanting to get into the Creative industries, and also, within our first 2 years in the borough, we had supported over 47 businesses and 69 creative practitioners. The vast majority were led by entrepreneurs from BME communities, and our training programmes had supported 600+ young people.

Establishing ourselves within the Croydon community (especially as part of the CEZ and Borough of Culture) has also helped connect us with wider London opportunities. We’ve been able to run pop ups at places like Boston Manor Arts Market in Hounslow, Stratford Westfield, One New Change at St Pauls, and we’ve been able to access incredible training programmes like Evo Learning (which is run at The Trampery locations in Tottenham and Hackney Wick)

What advice would you give to someone running a creative business in Croydon?
Get involved! Get to know the people and organisations in the local creative community. I think sometimes people assume, the opportunities their local network can provide are too small scale and so they’re initially a little dismissive. But there are so many great opportunities both in the Borough and further afield. Everyone you speak with has wider connections so it’s important to get to know as many people as possible.

How can local creatives benefit from the Croydon Creative Enterprise?
Like any network or group – you get out what you put in. I’d encourage local creatives to create a (free!) profile on the Directory and sign up to the newsletter. If you’ve got products to sell, make sure to add links to your online shop within your profile and if you run events, add those too. The newsletter will keep you updated on the physical new space we’re launching, so do keep an eye out for that, and come join us once it’s open.

Further info:

Croydon Creative Directory
Sign up to the Croydon Creative Directory HERE to receive the latest news and opportunities.

Creative Clinics
If you are a creative entrepreneur (or business) who would like to register for a free one-to-one support session with Marcus, email marcus.harris@croydon.gov.uk  using the word “CLINIC” for the subject.

Croydon Creative Enterprise CIC
To help CCE CIC with their funding efforts, please complete this short survey to help them understanding where to focus their work going forward.