Small Business: Brand partnerships - BLAKCHAOS

Rebecca Anderson, founder of Chaos & Harmony (left) and Teresa Hodges, founder of BLAK (right).

Small business editor Caitlin Sykes this week interviews a handful of small business owners about how they use brand partnerships.

Teresa Hodges is the founder of clothing brand BLAK, and Rebecca Anderson is the founder of footwear brand Chaos & Harmony.

Can you talk me through the main ways that you bring together your brands - BLAK and Chaos & Harmony?

Teresa: We have two collaborative boutiques branded BLAKCHAOS, which are in Mount Maunganui and Ponsonby. The stores incorporate the full collections of our brands, showcasing each in separate areas and they're also merchandised together creating stories for the customer. Each brand works separately in the background within our own BLAK and Chaos & Harmony companies, then come together within the stores.

Rebecca: The focus for the BLAK and Chaos & Harmony collaboration was purely around a retail concept, so it's creating an intimate experience for customers where they're able to walk away with a complete style or look.

What benefits have you seen from combining forces?

Rebecca: We didn't want this partnership to take over or take away from our individual businesses - the aim was to complement each other - so we operate each brand as its own entity but then combine forces on the retail front.

Teresa: We really wanted a way we could work smarter, and bringing our brands together in this way has allowed us to split the workload and overheads as well as provide what I think is a better overall experience for the customer. Doubling up brings more ideas, and more strength with our combined knowledge and what we can provide to our customers.

Brand partnerships are often temporary, with firms coming together to collaborate on short term projects, but your partnership has been more long term. What have been the keys to making this situation work over a longer period?

Rebecca: We're clear that the partnership comes second to our respective responsibilities to BLAK and Chaos & Harmony as individual brands and businesses. We also meet regularly to talk about upcoming events and projects and direction for the stores, so it's generally about keeping communication flowing. We're both really busy with our businesses and as mums so making sure we're working efficiently with our teams and keeping distractions to a minimum can sometimes be a challenge.

Teresa: I think having a common direction and good communication are key to making it work, along with our amazing staff that back us all the way and make it happen. At BLAK we do a lot of short term collaborative partnerships with artists to produce our exclusive prints each season, which are always really fun and it's amazing to see the end results. But the BLAKCHAOS venture is different in that it's really treated as its own business and identified as its own brand.

What's next in terms of your brands working together?

Teresa: The current focus for us is a new online BLAKCHAOS store launching in September, particularly as a way to connect with out-of-town customers and to bring the retail concept we've created in store online.