This year Emilie Layla Lovaine jacked in her job and went self employed to pursue the things she loves doing the most.
Model, musician, blogger, you’ve travelled a lot of different roads, what are you up to these days Emilie?
I’ve always been too ambitious for my own good – it’s like my soul can’t sit still. This year I took the plunge to go self-employed. It was scary to say goodbye to my monthly salary and rely on my ‘hobbies’ to pay my rent and food bills, but three months in it’s definitely the best decision I’ve made.
Currently I’m working full-time on my Lovaine Store and am in the process of getting ready to launch my Lovaine S/S 15 collection and first swimsuit and clothing range. I’m still find-ing my feet. And I’m not going to lie, getting yourself motivated to manage your time prop-erly when you’re self employed is a work in progress.
What inspired you to set up Lovaine?
It’s funny – I dug out the issue of SurfGirl when you interviewed me around three years ago, and in there you asked me what my dream job would be. I answered: “To have my own store/brand.” It’s nice to look back and think, ‘yes I did it!’
Also, I got a tax rebate last year, so I decided I would buy some materials and make a few pieces of jewellery, and it literally started from there. I never thought it would take off as well as it did. It’s amazing when I see people on instagram tagging @lovaine_store in pic-tures of them wearing my t-shirts and jewellery! There’s even girls like Alana Blanchard, Dimity Stoyle, Rosie Hodge, Laura Enever and Sage Erickson wearing my jewellery. It’s definitely a ‘pinch me’ moment!
Apart from Lovaine ,what else are you up to?
Going self-employed has also allowed me to be able to focus on my blog, and pay it some much-needed attention! Blogging and YouTube have been a big part of my life since 2008 and I use them to showcase my photography and music.
Over the last few years fitness and food has also become a big part of my life, so you can see elements of these popping up over my social media channels. I’m currently studying nutrition part-time, and since I turned vegan I’ve used Instagram and YouTube to docu-ment what I’m up to, with food recipes and workouts. I’ve been lucky enough to be getting involved with Nike and the NTC training classes, so it’s been fun taking my GoPro along to show everyone what we get up to at the secret events.
I am also in the process of launching NectarBoxes, which will be a monthly subscription box of clean/vegan food, recipes and kitchen tools. I’m pretty excited about this!
You sound busy! What are your tips for being successful?
I’m a firm believer that if you put the hard work in, you can achieve anything! If you’re pas-sionate about something, it’s infectious and it inspires other people too. I’m always working on something, and I always set myself goals. I give myself a list of 4-10 major things I want to achieve in a space of time and I work my butt off to make sure they happen!
Follow Emilie on Instagram @Lovaine_
Lovaine is now available at the Beach Boutique
