Entrepreneurship
Company: Six Bougies
Founders: Rebecca Hughes, Megan Carpenter, Kim Rochette
Six Bougies is a lifestyle brand and blog that fuses West African textiles, colors and patterns with a modern aesthetic. Based in Dakar, Senegal; we partnered with Senegalese artisans to produce home décor products and fashion accessories for sale locally in Senegal, as well as via our Etsy shop.
The name Six Bougies is a tongue-in-cheek reference to a Vlisco fabric (pictured left) that showcases a matriarch surrounded by six spark plugs. The connotation behind the fabric is a woman strong enough to take on six men.
My role originally consisted of designing products and researching local West African textiles, as well as establishing relationships with our tailors and artisans. I organised pop-up markets in Dakar, and participated in local trade fairs. I also set up our Etsy shop, photographing products for the web and our social media pages. I led our marketing campaign, communicating our brand values and products on Instagram with savvy content and posts, which led to international brand collaborations with retailers in US, UK, and Australia.
The Six Bougies model. Key to our model was building relationships with weavers, fabric vendors, as well as our team of talented tailors and artisans who brought our visions to life!
Part of my role at Six Bougies meant curating and managing our social media presence. Through enhanced conistency of posts, we were able to gather a large following and connect with retailers in Australia, Scotland, and USA.
A selection of Six Bougies products that were made as part of our partnership with Open Sesame, a small pop-up shop in Glasgow, Scotland. We worked with Open Sesame founder on a selection of custom-designed tote bags, duffels, and pouches.
