Selfish Mother

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She is also ex London and I do think many of these people high tail it out saying they'll never be back and then try to recreate a London life wherever they are and that just doesn't happen, because, erm, it's not London.
Yes, you’re spot on there! The FMLY Store might have been a roaring success in Nappy Valley Clapham, but not Somerset...
 
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I said similar upthread. She’s so flaky. The blog seems to have fallen by the wayside. The “Insta-zine” crashed and burned rapidly. She just can’t seem to stick at anything.

The Bruton shop must have haemorrhaged money. When it opened, I (speaking as someone who knows NOTHING about running a business) I thought it seemed risky to open a bricks and mortar shop in a fairly obscure town in the Westcountry. They gave away free Prosecco and wasted £££ on a massive, self-indulgent mural. When you have a successful online business, it just seemed mad to pour money into opening a physical shop. It was so unnecessary.

But I think, maybe, running an online shop just wasn’t very glamorous, and Molly was bored and isolated and enticed by the idea of this fabulous, buzzy “space” where she could host talks and events and invite Insta-Royalty to come and share their wisdom with similarly white, monied, middle class women. It was never going to be sustainable.

And now I don’t think the online shop is going to see Christmas. The brand/celeb collaborations seem to have dried up (whether that’s because Molly couldn’t drum up any interest or... got bored of doing them, I don’t know). I don’t say that with any glee whatsoever. It was a really successful business and they didn’t seem to plan for the fact that, once someone has one MOTHER jumper, they aren’t going to buy one every season.
I was always baffled by that too, in one story she'd be complaining about how the shop had only taken £40 that whole day and in the next breath the shop was expanding and opening a soft play in the back room & they were doling out free booze every Friday for anyone who visited. I know you have to spend money to make money buuuuuuut... common sense? That unit looked HUGE too for somewhere selling exclusively tshirts & jumpers.
 
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40% off one day sale today. paying for ads on insta. desperate times.... do you reckon they'll have to pull the kids for private school, or would they have ringfenced cash from the move out of town... I hope it's the latter for the kids' sake + some sensibility prevailed..
 
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Selfish Mother Beauty has been launched today. Seems a fairly random move from slogan tops.

 
I think she’s been reading this thread as she’s ramped up her posting recently and they seem to indirectly reference some of the criticism of her on here. The ‘winging it’ motto is all fine and dandy for a tit slogan t shirt, but ultimately she has a responsibility to her paying customers to deliver a decent product. I don’t want to buy premium beauty products off someone who can’t be arsed to even market them properly - smacks of slight contempt for her customers to be perfectly honest. The beauty market is so saturated that it’s clear the only way she’ll make money on this is the short term exploitation of the diehard selfish mother fangirls, and relying on her influencer friends to round them up. I guarantee this will be another flash in the pan project
 
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The beauty market is so saturated that it’s clear the only way she’ll make money on this is the short term exploitation of the diehard selfish mother fangirls, and relying on her influencer friends to round them up. I guarantee this will be another flash in the pan project
I couldn’t agree more. Launching a range of beauty products just seems insane to me. It doesn’t make sense for the brand. And who on earth is going to buy them? Surely no one is so enamoured with the SM brand they’re going to flock to buy hand cream, bath salts and candles from them? I don’t get it.
 
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Can’t be much of a risk though as she’s clearly printed the labels off on her home printer and address labels and stuck them on using a word doc. 😬👍🏼
 
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So long as mum order is £250 this lot will “brand” it for you. So she hasn’t really “created” any of this.
 
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I'm calling it. selfish mother will fold in the next 6 months unless something drastic happens and a brilliant new idea comes up. SM was a fantastic brand but WTF in respect of turn-key beauty range? And now giving away a £100 course with £50 spend. Finally the sample sale in London (rather than online, I suspect to hype it up). Such a shame as #goodtees was a great idea
 
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I'm calling it. selfish mother will fold in the next 6 months unless something drastic happens and a brilliant new idea comes up. SM was a fantastic brand but WTF in respect of turn-key beauty range? And now giving away a £100 course with £50 spend. Finally the sample sale in London (rather than online, I suspect to hype it up). Such a shame as #goodtees was a great idea
It was a great idea! Do you think the days of ‘mamamerch’ are over? I don’t know myself as I find them a little cringy now, but I definitely am not the barometer for what all the mamas want 🤣 I did buy a mere souer ‘mere’ tee and I wear it for bed now 🤭 I too got sucked in by the power of instagram 😂
 
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It was a great idea! Do you think the days of ‘mamamerch’ are over? I don’t know myself as I find them a little cringy now, but I definitely am not the barometer for what all the mamas want 🤣 I did buy a mere souer ‘mere’ tee and I wear it for bed now 🤭 I too got sucked in by the power of instagram 😂
Mama merch will always exist as I think it always has - it's a bit like an MLM marketing scheme where new mothers are sucked in by the ’cool’ existing ones 🤣. I think someone like mere souer has a bit more staying power as she isn't as proflic as SM was. It's actually quite sad to see it struggle - the recent spaceNK colab for mothers day is on sale and it just seems to have died a death in the last 4-5 months. I really hope she can turn it around and do something equally as fantastic. And not join the ranks of them selling courses on how be successful / slay / whatever
 
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Her book professes to be “curated by molly Gunn” so I expect it’ll be a collection of motivational essays lifted from others. A Telford effort, albeit hopefully one with consistent formatting..
 
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It’s also self published like the original Mother book - another vanity project aping the work of others, no doubt
 
I agree its on its last legs and honestly, I’m quite sad that such a successful brands has gone tits up so badly. But I think it’s been badly mismanaged.

As for Mama merch, I don’t think that’s going anywhere, but brands go in and out of fashion so quickly. I remember another brand from a few years ago. It seemed to peak at the same time as SM. Their raison d’etre was slogans on sweatshirts, capital letters in primary colours, gags about being tired and needing gin. What WAS that brand? Anyone remember? I haven’t seen their merch on an Instamum in a long time.

EDIT: Just answered my own question - it was Parent Apparel. It was bugging me so I found them with a bit of Googling. Website seems kind of dead (star models being MOD and FOD 😄)

https://www.parent-apparel.com/

They’re a bit more active on Facebook, selling at reduced prices (I remember the Mother Pukka “tit” sweatshirt from a few years ago, thought it was too sweary then and still do!)

https://m.facebook.com/parentapparelproducts/
 
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