Hello my lovelies,
It’s been a while! But all good things come to those who wait…
Let me start by wishing you a very beautiful year 2020 full of beautiful things and happiness.
My New Year’s resolution is to to follow the rhythm a bit more than in 2019: I’ll try to post on my blog at least once a month. Some months, depending on how events unfold, maybe there will be several publications. I don’t know yet, but I’ll do my best :))
This month, I have an interview for you. That’s what I prefer!
As always, the woman I am presenting to you today isstrong, brilliant, touching and humble. This incredible woman, is Charlotte Husson.
Trained as a stylist, she created her engaged clothing brand in 2015 which is called Mister K following winning her battleagainst ovarian cancer. She has also written a book about her fight entitled “The impossible is my hope”.
She very kindly granted me this interview so that I could introduce her to you.
I’ll leave you to enjoy her story.
Big hug,
Kat.
K: In 2013, you were diagnosed with ovarian cancer and two years of treatment later you are in remission. You went back to work where you worked before. Over time, the idea of starting a blog emerges in your mind. What was your main goal in creating this blog?
Charlotte : It’s very paradoxal, but after such an ordeal, when you learn that you’re in remission, you don’t jump for joy the same way you do when you read “Received with Honours” on a sheet of paper at the end of your degree. However, we want everything, here and now, too quickly. It is a bit like wanting to demand the immediate repayment of a life-long debt. Having said that, getting out of the rubble of an earthquake is not easy. You have to accept patience, slow reinsertion, self-denial and all those things that build resilience. For all these reasons, the creation of my blog was both very instinctive and spontaneous and at the same time centered arounda search for meaning. It is impossible to imagine coming out of the ordeal like a flower, I had to help, testify, transmit and recreate the link whilstrebuilding myself.
K: Your blog is quickly becoming a great success and you receive, every day, testimonies from sick women and requests for beauty and well-being advice. One thing leading to another, you imagined boxes with a balm, a varnish, a cream to benefitthese women during their fight. Appeals to the brands that helped you during your fight and a crowdfunding strategy later, the boxes are launched. How did you come up with the idea ofthe boxes?
Charlotte : During treatment and on a hospital bed, all the nursing staff may be kind, competent and full of humanity as in my case, but it remains a terrible physical and moral ordeal, with its routines, medical smells and disgusting meal trays. So, when the girlfriends came to see me with a lunch box from a good caterer or a small bag full of books and magazines or a small gift of nothing at all, it was a day of celebration. Opening a mystery box, rummaging through a bag, is something more palpable and exciting than opening an app or smashing the virtual Candy Crush candy, like I used to do the rest of the time. I remembered that after the event, a Box is a box that you wait for, that you can see and touch, useful and futile, full of life! To fill it up? Easy, all I had to do was make a list of products or things from grandmothers who did me good by safeguarding my beauty regime and my dignity. All the magnificent partners who collaborated with me on my project spontaneously joined in.
K: After a while, you started your “Mister K” clothing line whilst keeping the boxes. Then, little by little, you left the boxes to concentrate fully on Mister K. Would you consider relaunching the boxes in a few years from now? What are the reasons for that?
Charlotte : I didn’t give up the boxes, I transformed them into something else.
My illness was a brutally open parenthesis in my life. The Fighting Kits were that parenthesis, opened without having wanted it. Any parenthesis must be closed in the middle of a chapter, otherwise the story would be lame. I wanted life to win the game so much that I didn’t have the strength to rethink the test each new day that was offered to me. But there was no question of forgetting or ingratitude. I donated all my boxing activity and stock of products to the Clinique Saint Jean de Dieu and today we donate 5% of our sales to the Institut Gustave Roussy.
So take the mantra of my brand: “do beautiful, do good, do it well”. It encapsulates all my convictions, first with the Boxes, then with my clothing collections from now on. An uninterrupted trace, after all.
K: Now let’s talk about Mister K. You’re a designer by training. Was it obvious for you to create your own clothing brand? Was it a childhood dream?
Charlotte : Yes, a child’s dream, nurtured by a non-conformist grandmother who lived alone in the centre of France. She wore colourful blouses and wide legged trousers. At home, her holiday duties were drawing and sewing, almost every day. Later, when I entered Studio Berçot, the beehive of a whole generation of designers and creators, I fell in admiration of Madame Marie Rucki, its charismatic director. She reminded me of my somewhat whimsical grandmother. My path had been mapped out a long time ago. I wanted to create a singular brand of clothing, not just another brand of girly clothes, but a committed brand.
K: Mister K is a committed and supportive brand. Was it important to you that the brand you were going to create was committed?
Charlotte : I didn’t calculate anything. I’ve made up my mind that I can’t just sit back and let a problem or an injustice happen to me. I can’t stand the culture of permanent lamenting about “it was better before” or “everything is going badly” or “it’s the others’ fault”… there is so much to do to transform reality, to transform mediocrity into micro happinesses and so many reasons to see the glass half full and above all full of meaning.
Our brand is only the reflection of who I am and who we are with Astrid, my associate, and the whole team. We see Fashion Week as a flamboyant theatre and its commercial stakes are considerable, but our commitment lies elsewhere. Our ambition is to make the aesthetic emotion and the useful and civic effect vibrate in unison in each of our actions, from the drawing board to the production of our collections. Zero waste, respect for the human factor at every link in the production and management chain, transparency and sincerity. Nothing virtuous after all, since I believe that we would not know how to do otherwise!
And our performance indicator is crystal clear – 5% of our sales go to research against disease – the more we “score”, the more we pay out.
K: Mister K started with a bracelet with your “Never give up” mantra written on it. Gradually, it became a committed dressing room. What made you decide to expand Mister K to a clothing line in addition to bracelets?
Charlotte : Mister K and my first collection were in their infancyand my drawing books were already full, when I distributed in parallel my first bracelets engraved with the mantra “Never give up” . I started by giving them away, as a symbolic gift, to those who had contributed to my crowdfunding campaign, which had worked so well. The very next day, I was very moved to see posts on Insta of unknown wrists wearing my bracelet. I saw this as a sign of destiny. Irrationality and superstition are never far away in my decision-making! In short, the idea of launching Mister K, intimately linked to symbolic and unifying mantras, had just been born. However, a little like the story of the chicken and the egg, we get lost wondering which of the chicken or the egg had to start to generate the other one…
K: You recently opened your showroom in Paris. How do you feel when customers who follow you on social networks make appointments to try out your pieces?
Charlotte : A lot of pride and happiness.
Specialists and financiers classify us in the flattering category of DNVB (“Digital Native Vertical Brands”), in other words, new brands whose potential for traction and development comes from online sales. Let’s not deny our satisfaction, 70% of our turnover is generated by Instagram and FB. Yet we are a little frustrated not to see the reaction of our customers when they open their packages. So, the show room we just opened is precisely intended to multiply these moments of complicity with our clients. This is essential. Besides, more than a show room, the place becomes a tea-room, a boudoir, a place of life and recreation – I almost said re-creation, it’s the same thing, everything is linked.
K: What qualities do you need to have in order to be able to develop a clothing collection each season?
Charlotte : If determination is a quality, then yes, we have at least that one. You know, there’s probably a little bit of the Sisyphus Myth that lies dormant in every entrepreneur. At regular intervals we know that we’re going to have to push our rock to the top, again and again… and I think we like that.
But your question also evokes something much more mysterious: inspiration.
I don’t know if they are qualities, but surely, they are character traits that open the doors to inspiration. Listening, sense of the other, sensitivity, curiosity, availability, willingness to take risks, adrenaline, daring … this is the fuel that fills the inspiration tank. Sometimes the tank is not always full, that’s life, but not a good enough reason to give up – Never give up! – In any case, the most powerful fuel is the recognition of our customers and their friendly looks.
K: You have also published a book entitled “The impossible is my hope” in which you tell the story of your journey. Did a passage through writing seem necessary to you after your victory? What prompted you to write it?
Charlotte : Ooh là là! What victory? One should never claim victory after such an ordeal. One must remain lucid, on guard, and keep moving forward.
Frankly, writing a book wasn’t part of the journey. There is a gulf between keeping a blog alive and writing a personal story. Too shameless and above all time-consuming . I resisted quite a bit before giving in to my editors at Marabout, who were more enthusiastic than I was. And then I took up the game as if to take up a new challenge. We agreed on the angle of writing that I wanted above all: no pathos, no “vivisection” of the disease, but only rebound and energy … it was a great experience. Today it is a marker that I am proud of on my way to my company and the development of my brand.
K: You define yourself as a tarte tatin. The fruit of a mistake that turned into a stroke of luck. Could you briefly explain to my readers what it means to be a tarte tatin?
Charlotte : History is full of innovations and great discoveries that are the result of an accident or a happy coincidence . For example, Christopher Columbus thought he was going to the Indies but, due to a navigational error, he discovered America. The Japanese consider that the pearl is never a disease of the oyster! Another example, less pleasant but more culinary, the Tarte Tatin. At first it was a failure – the baked apples without the dough – transformed into a pastry miracle as soon as the Tatin sisters improvised by topping the already caramelized apples with dough. Thus was born a delicious dessert with no top and bottom.
The process of transforming, as we say today, a poorly executed action into a miraculous innovation, has a specific name. The phenomenon is called serendipity.
I myself experienced an intense moment of serendipity. After the illness I could have let myself float, but I refused it with all my strength. Instead, the illness boosted the creation of my business. Without the disease I probably would have created my brand, but in a methodical and thoughtful way, without vital urgency or singularity … like a simple conventional apple piet! I had no choice but to make a Tarte Tatin.
K: You recently posted on Instagram an idea to create your podcast. You listen to a lot of them yourself. Why the urge to create your own?
Charlotte : My few modest TV appearances have always left me with a taste of unfinished business. I’ve made some great encounters there, but generally speaking I’m not comfortable with the idea that my convictions are at the mercy of a superficial image or a cookie-cutter impression. On the other hand, an intimate conversation between two voices, expressing themselves slowly, without any search for effect or theatrical posture, pleases me and suits me better. I am convinced that podcasting is a beautiful way to touch the hearts of those who follow us, in a deeper way.
K: What advice would you give to someone who wants to start a start-up?
Charlotte : Be daring and surround yourself well. No flash of lightning, no great idea has a chance of becoming a business without first being analyzed and tested by a core group of experts in finance, marketing and legal, in particular. The rest of the story will be written thanks to determination, vigilance and trust.
K: Do you have any dreams you would like to realize in 2020? If so, what are they?
Charlotte : I dream that Mister K will grow and become profitable, for the whole team and for me; I dream that this team will grow stronger with more and more beautiful people; I dream that our convictions will reach more and more people; I dream that inspiration will guide me towards collections that I like; I dream that my podcast will be a success and that my book will sell even more.
In my book, I quote Paul Valéry “the best way to realize your dreams is to wake up” … in 2020, I will sleep enough and wake up a lot.
K: What are the three words that best describe you?
1) Loyal – because I am transparent, I cannot lie – the reverse works just as well: transparent and therefore loyal.
2) Dreamy – because I am endowed with a peculiarity: I am HSP (Highly Sensitive Person), endowed with a disabling shyness, messy, creative, guided by instinct and obsessed with justice.
3) Determined – to the point of stubbornness sometimes, but I have made some progress in flexibility! –
Thank you very much Charlotte !
My lovelies, if you liked this interview, you can share it with your entourage on social networks. You can also send me a short message or leave me a comment on Instagram (@from.katrina).
You can also follow Charlotte on Instagram (@charlotte_husson) and Mister K (@misterk).
I also suggest you to go and have a look at her committed dressing room (https://misterk.fr/collection/). I remind you that 5% is donated all year long to the research against all cancers at the Gustave Roussy hospital. You can also make an appointment and go to Paris at 5 Rue de Charonne in the 11th arrondissement to try the pieces before buying them.
Kisses and I’ll see you soon,
–Kat.
-ITW February 1st 2020