Susie Young is busy when we meet. She’s just wrapped up a VIP dinner for online fashion destination Farfetch and she’s already busy working on props for her next big event. ‘It was amazing,’ she said of the dinner, her hands still firmly working their magic with a glue gun. ‘So many of these editors and VIPs have been to all the big locations and restaurants in London so we really wanted to find somewhere special that they hadn’t seen before.’ That attention to deal goes a long way in explaining why Young has been so successful since turning away from her decade long career in fashion PR to launch her events company Knot & Pop.
Don’t be fooled though, Knot & Pop isn’t just any events and wedding planning company. Young’s team work with you on the narrative of the day, take the pressure away from sourcing locations and suppliers and even design and commission bespoke props for the event too.
After years working in senior roles at high street stalwarts like River Island and ASOS, Young has always been somewhat of a mater when it comes to events but she knew that the only way to work on the type of projects she wanted was doing it exactly her way and on her own terms. So in 2011, she left her lucrative job in fashion and poured everything she had into building the business.
If her switch from PR to events sounds seamless, you’re wrong. Susie is the first to admit that the change wasn’t exactly a smooth one. In the first year she worked part-time as a director at a big London fashion agency, working on Knot & Pop the other days and dedicated every weekend to weddings and events too. ‘I barely saw my friends that year and pushed my relationship to the brink and back and worked every minute,’ she says, but she hasn’t looked back since. ‘Ultimately, I wanted to create something I truly believed in.’ Read on for Young’s take on learning on the job, keeping the long-goal in mind and why if you do what you love, you’ll never work a day again…
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there and more graduates trying to enter the industry, you need to want it and when you have it, you have to grab it. It’s difficult though as I think some universities still don’t prepare students for the reality of the working world and just how tough it is to get that first foot in the door.
I got my first job in PR just after graduating. I sent my CV far and wide and created office survival kits with mini graphic animations of my work. They all contained pens, mini staplers, chocolates and post-it notes and tea bags with my number so they could contact me if they wanted a brew. It was all a bit low-fi and tongue-in-cheek but it got me noticed.
I started off at Kurious PR and then when to Yellow Door, when Mary Portas was at the helm, as I wanted to experience a bigger agency and bigger brands. From there I went to River Island, as I was keen to get under the skin of one-brand guide ideas and strategy. The head of PR at River Island then took me with her to ASOS. It was the most exciting time to be there as we moved it from it’s As Seen on Screen associations to being the credible, leading fashion brand it is now.
There were always new product launches and events as ASOS, so project management became a really core part of my PR role. It was the project and event side that I most enjoyed and that has really formed where I am today and what I’m doing with Knot & Pop – working on something from the seed of an idea to the concept, guiding a team through to the finished event.
After working in PR for ten years, part of the challenge had gone for me so I worked part-time as a consulting account director while establishing my business. The challenge became setting up Knot & Pop while having a 4-day job, so all my evenings and weekend were given to working on Knot & Pop for the best part of a year. I look back at it now and wonder how I did it. I barely saw my friends that year; I pushed my relationship to the brink and back and worked every waking minute.
So many things made me decide to go out on my own. I ultimately wanted to greater work flexibility – not now or in the next five years necessarily but perhaps in the next 10 years. I wanted to create something I truly believed in; to apply all that I’d learned in the world of brands to create my own brand; to do something more creative; to mix private events with branded and have the best of both worlds.
Having, at times, to promote brand’s that I didn’t have any affinity with, I wanted to get back to working on things that I totally believed in. I really enjoy the human touch and emotional engagement that you get working weddings and private events. That said, we’re now building Knot & Pop and have worked with brands like Etsy and Farfetch and love the balance of working on both private and exciting branded projects.
It’s difficult deciding when to leave your job to go full time on your business but fortunately with the long timelines of some of work, like our weddings, it was easier for me to make financial projects and take a leap of faith. I also knew I couldn’t put my husband through another year like it was when I was splitting between full-time work and Knot & Pop and that was one of the main reasons I took the leap. I’ve never looked back.
I don’t have an average day now but I am list obsessed so every day there is a clear list to hit. I’m normally at my desk by 8.30am, using the first 30 minutes to post on the blog, do some social media updates and comb through any emails that have come in over night. I then make sure I divide my day across projects, prioritising by deadlines. It may be that suppliers need to be briefed with mood boards created for them to better interpret the overall event design; or it could be that invitations need to be written, budgets collated or research undertaken for new props that need to be sourced. Today, for example, we’re finalising a fashion event proposal, preparing for event render drawings, prop sourcing, planning venue reccies in the Cotswolds, Suffolk and Norfolk and PRing previous events in the process – no day is the same and that’s what I love.
Now, I make sure that I have at least half a day at the weekend that is work free. My weekends often start around 2pm on a Sunday, but I’m so grateful for that considering that before, my weekends were non-existent. You’ve always got to think about the long game: thinking in the here and now would have you questioning why you’re doing it.
Someone gave me very sound advice to remain open and flexible to where the business takes itself. You may have a fixed idea on what it is when it launches, but it will naturally grow in all manner of ways than what you were expecting. Being the planner that I am, I’m always very clear on my approach and goals so I started with my eyes fixed firmly on the 52-page business plan I put together and the five-year plan. But already, things are moving in unexpected directions, more exciting than anything I could have first imagined.
Having read this I thought it was rather informative. I appreciate you taking the time and energy to put this informative article together. I once again find myself spending way too much time both reading and posting comments. But so what, it was still worthwhile!