Summer is usually quite quiet at Sew Curvy Towers, and this year we have a couple of changes to tell you about - only temporary ones!

1:  During the month of August we will be sending your corsetry supplies out on Mondays and Thursdays only.  This is to allow me time to spend on electronic pursuits, such as pattern development and book writing!

I have decided it is time to write some new books so I have three planned:

• a book on how to make a corset pattern - I have at least 3 methods to share, along with all sorts of corset patterning and corset fitting tips and tricks - uber curves R us!.
• a book on advanced corset construction including time saving pro-techniques which will up your game and improve your time vs profits exponentially - I may even include a little business section with this.
• a paper update to my now standard reference text 'Corset Making' which I wrote back in summer 2012.  The original e-book is selling more copies than ever before but I would like to make a paper  corset making book to go along side the original e-book,  and for use as 'course notes' for my online corsetry classes which I will be writing along-side all these corsetry books!

Obviously it will take time to write all of these things but it is part of my plan to streamline the supplies business and slowly move online over the next 4-5 years.  If you don't know about my e-book already, you can download it instantly using THIS LINK.

2:  My last holiday was in September 2019!  The pandemic hit in March 2020 and since then my feet have literally not touched the ground,  not least because all the people who thought that one day they might love to make a corset if only they had the time, suddenly had a whole bunch of time on their hands!! We literally sent more corset kits out in 2020/21 than we have sent in the last 10 years!!  On a more personal front,  I moved home which was a bit of an effort during a lock-down!  Anyway, the upshot is that I haven't had a break for 2 years, and desperately need to 'get away' for some much needed down time.

My holiday will therefore run for the week of 13 September.  The shop will still be open but we will not be sending anything out that week and my emails will be off.  If you are likely to need stuff before then, please order by 10am on Thursday 9 September.  I will be trying to find a remote, deserted yet romantic castle like this one ...

click image for source and more info

Information still clear as mud.  However I found this.  It basically says that anything sent via the postal service is charged VAT (and applicable duties) at the border but that the postal service is not permitted to add any extra fees.  This means that there will be no unexpected 'import charges' such as you might expect with couriers.

Regarding courier packages - the aggregate service that I use, has made it possible to pay the VAT in advance with the cost of postage.  So there are two things to take away here.

1.  For the time being, small orders will be sent to the EU using the postal service as usual.  These packages will have VAT added at the border.  As all our items originate in the EU or the UK, then there should be no duties payable.

2. For larger orders over 2kg in weight where we use a courier, the VAT will be paid this end with the postal charge.  I have set our postal options to reflect the extra charge and will refund any excess paid via your payment method.

On behalf of the potato heads in the UK who voted for this utter mess, I apologise. Our country is broken and now we are all trapped here!

So the next phase in our nightmare saga called "Brexit" is "wading through all the info about VAT registration in the EU and finding out after spending several hours reading through several headahces, that it's all optional - at least I think it is".

I asked my accountant about the impending rule that UK businesses will have to register for VAT in one EU country, then apply VAT to EU sales, then pay that VAT to the EU every month.

Nowhere in the 'official' information given out by HMRC - at least for us mere mortals - is there any suggestion that this is infact optional, but this is Brexit Britain where nothing is clear, least of all things that used to be perfectly simple.

Nevertheless, my accountant did some digging and discovered the following.

Option 1: Businesses can register for VAT in one EU country who will administrate the VAT responsibility for the EU VAT.  Most Brits are choosing Ireland because of language.  To do this, the business must appoint a 'specialist' (accountant) who will set up the system for a fee of around £2k, then charge a monthly fee to keep you right.  You also have to register on the online platform IOSS to help you do this.  So that's quite an outlay in addition to the monthly accountants fees and the VAT payments themselves.

Option 2: Businesses can carry on as they are without registering for VAT in an EU country.  Packages sent to the EU will simply be taxed at the border, as they are now.

Source

We can therefore draw a few conclusions:

1. The main reason for a business registering for VAT in the EU is for customer convenience - to save them having to pay customs on their packages before delivery.

2. The set up fees and ongoing monthly fees and additional admin, is not sustainable for small and micro businesses

3. The business turnover for EU sales must be over £10k - more to make it economically viable.

Sew Curvy pays VAT from profits.  This is the case with most businesses in the UK.  Prices 'include' VAT but VAT is not added to the price of the product to start with - (it's complicated!).

Obviously as I have reported before, our sales to the EU have dropped quite considerably since "B-day", and so for the time being, we will not be registering for VAT in the EU.  We will continue to send goods into those countries but these will be subject to customs at the border.

So over the past couple of weeks, you may have noticed that our regular herringbone cotton coutil fabric feels a bit different - a bit softer, a lot softer actually.

First of all PANIC NOT!  This is not a bad thing. The thread count and quality of the fabric is still the same. The sizing has changed - what is 'sizing'? I hear you ask...

Size is the glue product which is put onto the coutil fabric during the finishing process to make the material stiff and therefore suitable for corsetry.  In the past, to be honest, I think the fabric has been oversized which has resulted in a really cardboard like feel to the fabric.  However, this over-sizing did have benefits too  because it meant that you could dye the white herringbone with ease and the fabric would remain firm even after several washing cycles. 

Now, we have a softer product but no less strong and certainly still the best fabric to use for making a corset.

If you do wish to dye the coutil, you can still do so but will need to use starch in order to get a crisp result. 

The new softer herringbone corsetry coutil allows you much more flexibility especially when it comes to fusing other fabrics to it (ie: silk);  before you would end up with a really stiff and bulky cardboard like fabric which would permenantly crease if you weren't careful.  With the softer base, this will not happen.

For tips on fusing, click HERE