This Podcast is: 30:23
This Week on Creative Living with Jamie:
Laura-Jean Bernhardson, founder of Fresh Collective
About Laura-Jean…
Laura-Jean Bernhardson founded Fresh Collective in 2003. Her background is in neither fashion nor business – she simply followed her heart and did what she loved.
Looking back however, it all makes sense. She was entrepreneurial even as a child, coming up with schemes to make money including a comic book library run out of her neighbour’s shed. (It went out of business in a few weeks when to avoid fines, kids didn’t return the comics.)
A more successful business venture involved making jewellery in high school. She sold to friends and through a local hair salon. Her first sales rep was her best friend Kim who got free jewellery in exchange for taking orders from the servers at her restaurant job.
A self-taught seamstress, Laura-Jean made clothes and sold them to her friends in high school. However growing up in Saskatoon, a career in fashion design didn’t seem a practical choice. She ended up going to Concordia University for a Bachelor of Fine Arts program with a major in Photography, graduating in 1992.
Arriving in Toronto shortly after graduation, she started working on a career path returning to what she loved and what came naturally – making things and selling them.
In 1994, her fashion design business specializing in sweaters, Fresh Baked Goods, was born and registered as a business. Laura-Jean was dubbed Toronto’s Knitting Queen, from there she decided she was a fashion entrepreneur and started down the road of learning about business by trial and error!
With the Fresh Baked Goods line now retired, Laura-Jean has her focus set on creating Fresh Collective as a scalable business model that can grow globally. By creating a solid and innovative retail framework for connecting local designers with customers, Laura-Jean and her team see themselves revolutionizing the fashion industry; creating an easier entry point for independent designers and the support they need to succeed and grow, while providing customers with awesome products and a connected and fun shopping experience.
Laura-Jean also runs another business that is out to change the world – Rowanwood Daycare. She joined its founder, Annie Chan as a business partner in 2009 after her son was one of the first kids at the daycare. Laura-Jean fell in love with Annie’s vision of childcare; one with an emphasis on curiosity, creativity, fostering a love of learning and imagination. Together, they are also working on a scalable business to bring The Rowanwood Way to as many families as share their ideals.
Laura-Jean is a dreamer and a doer. She is a passionate and emotional entrepreneur, approaching her businesses and life as an art, a cause and a movement bigger than herself.
Discover More About Laura-Jean & Fresh Collective
Special Offer for Listeners of Creative Living with Jamie: Download $10 in Fresh Bucks to use at Fresh Collective – in-person or online! (valid until June 30, 2016)
Show Notes
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