Last weekend saw many reasons to celebrate - weddings and days-off work were the main ones. But here at Me&Yu we were celebrating a pretty big milestone for a small business - Our 5th Birthday!!!!
Yes can you believe we've had our shop in
Afflecks Palace, Manchester for 5 years. We opened our doors on 29th April 2006 and a lot has changed - we started with a tiny little shop less than a 1/4 of the size of our current store - and we shared it!!
When we first opened Gordon was working part-time as well as studying for his masters degree in Blackpool and I couldn't work every day in Manchester as well as make all the clothes. So we teamed up with Sarah Randle from
Instant Fashion Happiness but Sarah lived in Liverpool and found the commute too hard so she left in August 2006 and Me&Yu as you know it know was born.
Since then we've gone from strength to strength. Gordon joined the business full-time, we extended the shop (3 times) we've lived through Nu-Rave, we loved Robots, seen a vintage revolution take over Manchester and stuck it out in Afflecks through the bad times of 2008 when possible closure was prevented by a change in management.
We've gone from printing at home in the garage to having our own studio space in a Manchester Cotton Mill. We now have more printed garments and fabrics, more dresses, shorts, and trousers. We've introduced our UK handmade, handprinted organic tees and a more diverse range of prints.
We've seen our designs on celebrities such as Noel Fielding and Agyness Deyn, on Big Brother and on the back of musicians on stages all around the world. We've been to The Clothes Show, Berlin Fashion Week, Urbis, Manchester and Margin, London having our work praised by buyers, magazines and press all over the world.
We've had help from heaps of eager and enthustastic work experience students, photographers and promoters. Along the way we've learnt (and taught) all about sewing, printing, business, profit, loss and how to make a small business work.
We Make Clothes, We Photograph, We Sew, We Print, We Make Clothes, We Are Me&Yu
We work hard and love what we do - but without YOU we're nothing!!
To THANK YOU for your continued support throughout the years we're having Five Days of Freebies (and Discounts) starting on 5th May. We'll tell you all about the offers every day, in the meantime here's some more pics to make you all nostalgic.....Me&Yu, then and NOW!
HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO US!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
