Oh, I hate this. I really, really hate this. Basically, as many of you may have noticed, the Mimi hasn’t arrived in stock, and it flipping well should have.
I’m very, very sorry about this, but we have been having persistent issues with the factory and they kept insisting they would make, so we’ve continued to sell it, but as it had all got a bit tomorrow, tomorrow, over Christmas and New Year someone went out to China to investigate in more depth, and its become apparent than it will be impossible for them to complete it before Chinese New Year. Which is seriously depressing in a number of ways.
Why has this happened? Well, as you may know, China has a highly competitive labour market, with more jobs than there are workers and complex political issues due to an antiquated internal passport system. When factories run into problems (which we suspect was initiated by lots of complicated financial factors including changes in taxation and the collapse of the Chinese property market, which factories had actually been buying into in order to leverage for expanding their businesses), they can end up in a situation where they lose workers, leading to more problems, in a vicious cycle. Added to this, though most of the year the populace does indeed have the work ethic they are famed for, around Chinese New Year they take a month or more off, often using this time to move employers.
Essentially, this means the position our factory is in is that of needing a recruitment drive, which they won’t be able to do until post Chinese New Year. It’s clear that they have been attempting meet their manufacturing commitments even if they couldn’t make any profit, but just couldn’t do it. They are still sampling our AW12 and SS13 styles along with many other UK high street brands who use the same unit, so they are evidently intending on continuing to make – sampling is a hugely expensive process that would be an absolute drain if they weren’t planning on staying open!
But this means that we will have to run the Mimi into our SS12 Multiway Vargas and Amelie set production (what’s the Amelie? Ah well, that would be telling!). They are committing to mid March delivery; they may manage it a little earlier than this, but its unlikely to be significantly earlier. They did actually ask us to cancel (the etch-a-sketch end of the world solution) but I love this set, I know lots of you love this set, and basically, no. If I have to go over there and slap people about this set is GETTING MADE.
However; this does mean some of you have been patiently waiting for some time, and I feel really bad about this. Plus, you may not feel as bullish about us definitely getting it made as I do, or you may have a special date for this and not be the kind of person who swans around events in the middle of Summer showing off their black lacey décolletage. So, if you ordered it, then you’ll get an email shortly offering you various things and stuff.
I cannot emphasize enough how much I appreciate your patience!
