COLUMN
In Atlanta, 2016
In Atlanta, 2014
It was the summer of 2014. I had made a digital flyer beforehand and had already sent it out to all the people I knew in Atlanta. Mom also made a huge promotion effort. Slowly one-by-one, the sign-ups were coming in before I had even left Beijing! So with all the bits and pieces in place, I packed for my summer in Atlanta – even all the boxes. The kids and I had to sacrifice some major suitcase space for the workshop materials and we simply took very little clothes with us. Good thing you don’t need much; it ain’t called ‘Hotlanta’ for nothing.
The Americans loved it! It was a great success. I had mothers and daughters, grandmothers, aunts, sisters, a brother and a dad. People told me they had never done it before and thought it would be something new and fun to experience. One lady told me she absolutely loved being creative, but just didn’t make the time for it at home. With this new workshop-capability confidence, I started an aggressive marketing campaign by reaching out to all my press contacts as soon as I was back in Beijing and school had started for the kids.
The workshops took off from my studio at Jinxiuyuan Gongyu (complex), on Xingfucun Zhonglu (street) just north of the Workers’ Stadium. Some we did were with Mumm champagne (I made a deal with Pernod Ricard, who sponsored a few of my events before); some with the regular Twinings English Breakfast tea, and cakes and macaroons from the exclusive French-owned bakery
58 | the hat magazine #92
Comptoirs de France; some, like the ladies from the Chabad in Beijing, brought their own kosher treats. The occasions varied: goodbye parties, hen nights, colleagues’ outings, birthdays, book clubs, groups of friends meeting, or just for fun. It seemed to be a very therapeutic activity; I heard ladies pour their hearts out to their friends and gossip about cheating husbands; there were tears, problems in relationships, sometimes really TMI (too much information)!
But so far, I was only targeting the expat community and although that was great, I wanted my Chinese clients to have a go as well. Soon that also started to snowball and I needed my assistant at that time, XiaoPei, to translate for me. Before I knew it, I was asked to go to the Grand Hyatt where a plastic surgery clinic had rented a private room for 48 of their VVIP (Very Very Important Person) clients to have a hat making workshop with me. To become a VVIP at this particular clinic, you need to have spent there in the last year over
十万 (100,000 CNY = £11,500 GBP = €13,500 EUR). I was quietly expecting
48 Chinese Barbie dolls to walk in, but nothing could be further from the truth!
It is, to this date, the largest workshop I have ever given. No one spoke English. I had a wireless head-microphone fitted, as did XiaoPei. I laid all the materials out on the tables and explained what everyone needed to do as simply as possible; the choices of what one could do were of course greatly minimised. When everyone had made their hats, and
selfies and group photos were taken, XiaoPei and I handed everyone a hat box. The ladies took the boxes to their workshop spots and, without batting an eyelid, wiped all the leftover, new, unused materials with one arm over the table to let it drop in the box they held below. Now, this was appalling for a number of reasons, but the main one being that I bring loads and loads of extra materials because I don’t know which trimmings or colours people will choose and I want to give them as much choice as possible. Tip: Since then, at every workshop, I have a separate ‘materials table’ prepared, and pass out only what people choose, when they decide. That aside, however, the plastic surgery clinic kindly gave me a special golden voucher for a treatment from a list of options, such as botox or hair removal in various areas. I never used the voucher.
Stay tuned for Part 2 to learn more about how China embraced the hat making workshop with examples from my workshops for De Beers’ diamond- dripping VVIPs and Porsche’s Family Day.
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