Since our Steady Freddie Clay is touring the country side with his childhood buddy, the girls decided to go see Magic Mike in the theaters. It was also a perfect opportunity to welcome the two newest members of our Consuela family, Gina and Tara! What a fun Consuela Culture Club. There was dancing, booty shaking and just a good ‘ole time had by all. Sometimes you just gotta shake what your momma gave you…and we like to do it Consuela style!
We are loving Carly Rae Jepsen’s fun jam, Call Me Maybe. It was one of our theme songs in Dallas, we just couldn’t get it off repeat. Now we’re headed to Atlanta Market, come shake your hair out with us!
There are many reasons why we love the Sarita Satchel…one of them being it can carry a bottle of red wine for that last minute happy hour with friends. Happy Monday!
Sarita Satchel can be ordered here for immediate delivery!
He is the milk to the cookies, the macaroni to the cheese, and the jelly to the peanut butter. (You get the idea.) He is Clay Reed, our VP and CFO, better known to us as the patient and steady strength behind an office of six strong Consuela women. Yikes! We figured it only appropriate to make sure you know the man who makes us laugh and helps keep us truckin’ along every day.
A man of thought, you can often find Clay in a pondering position, much like the infamous French statue by Auguste Rodin, The Thinker.
We’ve even made up a slew of company culture words that allude to his grounded influence on everything. Examples:
Needless to say, you can’t find a more amazing sense of humor than Clay. We tried to grab a candid Q&A moment with the King of Operations over a cup of really strong office coffee.
Q:“What is the most challenging thing about working with six strong women?”
A: “Conni, Maggie, Alyssa, Rianna, Karen, Brittani.”
Q: What is the best part of working with six strong women?”
A: “Conni, Maggie, Alyssa, Rianna, Karen, Brittani.”
And…just as the paparazzi arrived, he was off to make phone calls about complex things we muse over everyday such as production, fulfillment, distribution, planning, and growth.
In all gratitude, Clay has been a rock alongside his beautiful wife and our Founder/Designer, Conni Reed. They are proud parents to their sweet doggies, Kacy and Scout, who have been known to love Consuela blankets! For seven years, Clay has been a steady presence with Conni as Consuela has grown leaps and bounds: cultivating Conni’s dream of Consuela (2005), taking roadtrips for retail shows (2006), moving into our first office in Dripping Springs, TX (2007), producing the goods for our first ever wholesale order (2008), sourcing materials on international trips (2009), growing the product line evermore (2010), expanding Team Consuela (2011), lifting us to what’s next (2012).
Conni’s Picks.
Jump On My Shoulders - AWOLNation
I get addicted to songs and play them over and over and I think this one will always be a favie. It’s good to run to, great in the car just jamming, and has a great message.
Something Kinda Ooooh - Girls Aloud
In the spring, I love light-hearted dance songs that make me want to shake my groove thing! This song makes me visualize neon off-the-shoulder sweatshirts, ice cream cones, and convertibles!
Maggie’s Picks.
Not Over You – Gavin DeGraw
I dig the bluesy rock roots in his voice and the raw and real words about aching for someone.
Windows are Rolled Down - Amos Lee
This song makes me literally roll down my windows and just breathe in Life, Spirit, and Possibility. I can’t get enough of it! Just lifts my entire being.
Alyssa’s Picks.
You are the Best Thing – Ray LaMontagne
I am a newlywed and this is my wedding song. Quite simply, it lifts my heart!
Guns & Horses – Ellie Goulding
I’m loving the whole Lights album; it is the perfect blend of relaxing and upbeat at the same time!
Karen’s Picks.
The Weary Kind – Ryan Bingham
I love his gravelly voice and descriptive songwriting in this beautiful academy award-winning song.
I Don’t Wanna Grow Up – Hayes Carll
Originally written by Tom Waits, Hayes brings humor and an interesting timing and twang to his music.
Rianna’s Picks.
1940 – The Submarines
Sweet voice, sick beat, makes you move!
Country – Empire of the Sun
Slow build, chill bumps, and all around beautiful song like moving through a dream.
Brittani’s Picks.
Hold Tight – Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich
Down in Mexico –The Coasters
While I listen to everything, I love these songs that are used in the movie Deathproof which is one of my favies! It is such a hardcore power chick flick movie. If you haven’t seen it, you should!
Clay’s Picks.
* Due to the fact that the name on the cassette tape in Clay Reed’s truck was rubbed off, we could not ID his favorite picks. We’ll do our best to acquire a walkman device and let you know what the mystery tape is!
Check out the tunes below!
The Consuela blog highlights our core and directing mission and as such, we look forward to groovin’ with you through four unique sections that depict our foundational values:
Let us start by saying that we aren’t going to be the folks who try to contain or define beauty. We don’t want beauty to feel exclusionary. On the contrary,
Consuela rejoices in the inclusion of vast,
wonderful, and unique people.
Being fashionable to us is about having the chance to express your inside on the outer layers of your life. Perhaps one day that is embracing yourself with the remarkable warmth and comfort of an oversized soft knit sweater, or the vulnerability and clean feeling of a face with no makeup. On another day you could find yourself accentuated with liquid eyeliner and multi-colored wedges, or colored skinny jeans, or a flowing floral skirt, or an extra large vintage leather bag and mega-accessories. The variations of expression are endlessly inspired! The fun of this all is that we are real people who don’t live in a “beauty bubble” and we won’t pretend to. We’ll certainly show you how we like to rock style, color, texture and lifestyle in how we show up in the world. And…we hope it goes without saying that we’ll have a blast giving you ways to color your experiences with Consuela products to give serious glow to your lives.
One covenant we have in our Consuela culture is celebration.
You know when you get a deep breath of peace and realize it’s all going to be OK…if even just for a brief moment?
We are committed to creating this for one another. Let’s face it; we all need this as often as possible!
We are accessible and kind and adore a good ol’ sense of humor…and we want you to know us this way. We’ll give you glimpses into our own Consuela Universe—highlighting what we dig about music, art, dining, travel and what the “happs” are around the office (like unpacking 500+ boxes of totes, coffee talk in our living room, etc.). Of course, we’ll highlight how we jazz our own lives up with our slight addiction to Consuela products and all the good stuff (and road bumps) of developing a company culture that covets laughter framing an insatiable love for “Be-ing Consuela.”
We hope you’ll want to participate in growing the Consuela Culture Club with us…our very own “goodness revolution.” What is that, you ask? Pure bliss —an egoless social network for women where you can celebrate the art of YOU. What’s required of you? Participate as you are with a sense of humor. We look forward to providing the framework of many occasions to create spaces and places for mutual lift-off. The opportunities will be both big and small for diverse women to engage in all sorts of activities from small group topic discussions to larger than life parties. Your ticket into the club? Be YOU. We are sure about one thing: when we celebrate life, we lift the world.
Another value that tops our company list:
practice and participate in giving and getting love
that inspires, lifts and heals the world.
Truly, what else matters? We want this for the collective “Us,”… and in our very best form on our best day, we all want this. In this part of our blogosphere, we are committed to giving you our golden nuggets of delight to remember the remarkable person you are. Maybe these musings will catch you on top of your own wave and give you a rad ride throughout your day—or our reflections may lift you from the valley where you are feeling alone. In short, we want you to know that we are all moving through this together—and the fabric of support is both present and large for each of us.
There’s a reason the bag tag on our newest totes declares the following:
We are a spectrum of amazement. We love the Walt Whitman quote: Do I contradict myself? Very well, then I contradict myself, I am large, I contain multitudes. We celebrate our prerogative to change and reinvent all throughout our lives.
We can’t wait to highlight the reflections of our very own Founder and favy designer, Conni Reed. She is our “Consuela,” the comforter, the visionary, the woman who encourages us all to dwell in possibility and support each other in these actions. She too is as multi-talented as we all are: business woman, friend, sister, aunt, fashionista, creative artist, wine lover, life seeker…you’ll get to see it and feel it and we know you’ll find yourself in there.
To our journey together—
Viva Consuela!
On March 5th, we had our first ever Consuela Culture Club event. Many more to follow! Watch Facebook and the blog for future info and invites!
We launched with a warm and conversational evening of wine and food at Botticelli’s in Austin, followed by soulful music at the opening act of Austin women front-led band The Whiskey Sisters performing at the Continental Club. Joy was the theme of the evening and in that spirit, about 20 women came to celebrate the fun.
The other day, one of the Consuela team members shared her reading from A Daily Dose of Sanity by Alan Cohen. In the daily vignette- Cohen, a Hawaii resident, spoke about calling himself the “Magnetic Man of Maui” in one of his keynotes. Afterwards, a young girl came up to him and pressed a coin against his arm. The coin fell to the ground and the little girl exclaimed with surprise and discontent, “I thought you said you were magnetic!”
He goes on to write in this story: “I laughed, but then I realized the child was serious. She really thought I was magnetic. With that came a striking realization: an innocent mind is open to all possibilities!” He goes on to comment that our problem is not that we know too little, sometimes our problem is that we think we know too much about why things will not or should not work. Not to say that knowledge and understanding is a bad thing at all…but to be aware so that we don’t stifle our awareness of how good things can and do work. Imagine—if we can be more magnetic about our desire for good things—they might just stick!
Around the office, we like to Viva Consuela and dwell in possibility. During lunch one day we began chatting about the question “what do you think it would take to make you happy?” The fulfilling career, a big bank account, or the perfect mate? What if it didn’t take anything to make you happy? What if you could experience happiness from the inside out—no matter what’s going on in your life? One of the Consuela ladies shared her experience reading celebrated transformational leader and a #1 New York Times bestselling author, Marci Shimoff’s Happy for No Reason: 7 Steps to Being Happy from the Inside Out.
In her book, Marci Shimoff offers a breakthrough approach to being happy. Having things and circumstances – money, success, relationships, health – brings a certain kind of happiness, but this temporary experience of satisfaction or joy soon fades and we have to hurry up and fulfill the next desire to feel happy again. To experience true and lasting happiness, we can learn to access the deep state of peace and well-being that already exists within us—beyond the reach of external circumstances. Then, no matter what is happening in life, we can be happy for no reason.
While the book discusses the what and HOW of seven steps to being happy from the inside out, we’ll give you just a small sneak peek here:
Step six, one of our favorites – focuses on Living a Life Inspired by Purpose. Shimoff details three awesome happiness habits:
When we do what is empowering to us, we uplift others…and this is the basis for a celebration-based life. What an exciting idea to choose a journey that gladdens your heart and leads you to cultivate happiness for yourself and others in the deepest possible ways.
There is so much more to share, but more than anything…we just wanted to communicate that we are all on this ride together. We don’t have any of this down pat, and we all have many days we don’t live this way…but we are on this journey trying to live a life of happiness. Enjoy with us!
What’s a day at Consuela without an embrace?
Our Consuela Opps. Ringmaster, Maggie, is affectionately known around the office as the “hugger.” She hugs the FedEx guy, the waiter at lunch, the folks meandering in to pick up their orders…and of course, all of US!
Who doesn’t want to be clutched in a blanket of love? It’s kind of become a tradition around here for us to say hello and goodbye with a full swoop of staff hugs. If you try to get out the door and forget, you may get a text on the way to your car that says, “Hug?”
This moving video piece was sent around the office; this is our tribe!
Enjoy and get your FREE HUGS here.
March wouldn’t be complete without the sounds and sensations of the annual SXSW Festival- ten days of pure music, film, and interactive technology. Austinites prep for this excitement every year as we receive the influx of people from all around the world who come to join the biggest festival of our city. On the streets of Austin, you can enjoy the flavor of local folks or cross paths with “stars” like The Counting Crows, Nora Jones, Eminem, Matthew McConaughey, The Cult, Bruce Springsteen, Channing Tatum and others looking to soak in the relaxed vibes of our city. The Consuela office enjoyed a half day of live music hosted by the entrepreneurial co-working community Center 61. Featuring local acts such as the South Austin Moonlighters, we enjoyed a day of sun, philanthropy, and supporting a platform for purpose.
