MEET EMILIE IGGIOTTI OF EMILIE PHOTOS
My name is Emilie and I am a portrait photographer based in Edmonton. I have been a photographer for 9 years now…
My name is Emilie and I am a portrait photographer based in Edmonton.
I have been a photographer for 9 years now… wow time flies! I started as a wedding photographer but I am now only doing portraits, and especially women portraiture.
I have created this photo series called “The Truth in You” where I photograph women who want to celebrate themselves, despise what the society tells them to do or be and away from the beauty standards which are too restrictive. The society currently classifies women regarding their role (you are a mother, you are a wife, you are a daughter…) but women should not be defined by those roles only. You should be able to give yourself a photo session just because you want to celebrate YOU, without waiting to get married, become a mom or getting a promotion. Society teaches girls to be quiet, to follow the rules it has decided for them. Women are not allowed to be single, divorced, and with no kids without being judged EVERY DAY. And I don’t even start with the struggles the women of colour have to face, and also the LGBTQIA community. It takes every human to change the standards but we will get there one step at a time.
I started my own business 9 years ago when I quit my job as a corporate lawyer. As much as I loved my studies, I hated the job and could not see myself being a lawyer my entire life. So I had an opportunity to start my own business and I did it. I never looked back!
I must say being my own boss and having my own business has been eye opening for me. I never thought of myself as an entrepreneur (everyone in my family is a teacher) but I learned along the way, and I love being an entrepreneur now. I love meeting new people all the time, I love having a flexible schedule, I love being my own boss and making the decisions about my business. I am totally in charge of how I do my business and it has been life changing.
One of my professional goals is to open my own studio one day.
To have my own space where I could work with other creatives. It’s a big goal for me because I have a very specific idea of what I want (design of the space, the size, the light, etc.) and it’s not something that I can just “rent”. I would need to think of every detail, design the space and maybe even build it myself… well hire someone to build what I want!
Being a small business owner is not always easy though. And I wanted to give up many times! I almost got a 9-5 job a few years ago when I moved to Edmonton and I had to start over here. Long short story about me: I was born and raised in Reunion Island, a French island located in the Indian Ocean nead Madagascar and I moved to Canada in 2011. I lived in Quebec for 5 years before moving to Edmonton in 2016. Nobody knew me in Edmonton and I had t start my photography business from zero. This is when I wanted to give up. But I did not and now my business is doing very well.
One of my mentors, Seth Godin, wrote this and it just sticks with me now: We fail when we give up too soon. Sometimes, well often, the moment we want to give up is actually the moment we need to push forward.
I remember the first time someone in Edmonton came to me at an event and asked me if I was Emilie Iggiotti, and I said yes, and they complimented me on my work and told me they love my work. That’s when I told myself: Okay this is good, people know who you are now, it’s getting there.
Also, because I use Instagram a lot, lots of people “know” me from this platform. Which is very cool! I found that Instagram completely changed the way we interact with each other. I feel like I have a community of people who know me and who I know even if we never really met in real life. And when we meet in real life, we feel like we know each other. It’s the same for my clients. They feel like they know me already and it creates a feeling of trust even before the photo session. And because I work a lot and I spend a lot of time on Instagram, my favourite thing to do when I am not working is going to a coffee shop with a book and just chill. But it’s very hard to do for me. My brain is always working and even when I am supposed to read and chill, I think of a million different ideas for a photo session or for my business. I found that boxing really helps me to disconnect. So I do that a lot!
I love the community of small business owners in Edmonton.
We are all very supportive of each other. I try to attend lots of markets or special events and support local businesses. I try to also shop local as much as I can. I met a lot of amazing inspiring women in Edmonton. The way they conduct their business helps me being a better business person. I am always looking for inspiration from other businesses. So I would say I am just looking for that. And it’s a big thing for me. I don’t think we can have a business and not be inspired. We need inspiration every day… inspiration to keep going, to get better, to evolve, to improve our products, our services. Without inspiration, we are not going anywhere.
So, cheers to being inspired by other YEGBOSSBABES!
Emilie Iggiotti
MAD LOVE MONDAY | MYX Beauty
Introducing to you a brand new beauty salon that just opened up this month called MYX Beauty. The owners…
Introducing to you a brand new beauty salon that just opened up this month called MYX Beauty. The owners Hair By Shakera and Hair By Lauren Kyle are over the moon excited about this new venture they are creating for Hairstylists in YEG.
Hello Ladies! My name is Lauren I am one of the owners of MYX Beauty. I’ve been doing hair for over 7 years. I started out in the Hair Industry at a very young age and got my red seal at the age of 19. I use to work at many high end salons around Edmonton but I learnt quickly that working for another company wasn't my passion. Two years ago I opened up my first one chair salon that was located in a beauty house just off Whyte Ave. Shortly after opening my salon I reconnected with Shakera. We use to work with eachother at a past salon. Shakera and I always got along. Anytime Shakera was doing the extension install and I was doing the colour our clients would tell us we are the “dream team” haha it sounds so silly but it was true! We understood eachother like we were sisters growing up together for years! It always felt so natural. This moment on I knew Shakera and I would be the perfect match to create a successful business. This is when we started MYX Beauty.
Shakera & Lauren
What is your professional goal for your business?
Our goal for MYX Beauty is to create a atmosphere for all stylists to own their own business. We help all our staff understand what it takes to own a business for example how much money you need to save for taxes & GST, What cashing out system / booking system you should use, how to advertise your business and the quickest most effective way to build a successful clientele. Most salons don’t want their staff to own their own business as their goal is for them to stay working under their salon. BUT MYX Beauty is a one of a kind salon. We consider our salon a support group for all independent stylists to have guidance for a successful future! We still have room for more stylist to join in the future so if you’re thinking about making that jump into owning your own business Keep MYX Beauty in your mind!
What Platform do you find most success from?
I feel like every company is different depending on their clientele they are trying to attract. Personally I found more success from Instagram but Shakera found more success from Facebook. I have a younger clientele as I specialize in Long Hair Balayage. Shakera has a older clientele because she specializes in Hair Replacement & Extensions. For some reason that’s just how social media is going these days!
Did you ever have times where you wanted to give up? How did you overcome that feeling?
Shakera and I had lots of moments where we felt that way. What’s amazing about having a business partner is the support. One day I’ll feel so overwhelmed that I just want to quit but then Shakera will bring me back up and give me that confidence that all this work will pay off one day... which eventually it did! If you’re stuck in that moment where you want to give up and don’t have the support like I did from my amazing business partner then that’s when you turn to a community like YEG BOSS BABES. Everyone on this page will give you that motivation to keep going! We are all here to help!
Interested in being featured? email us at yegbossbabes@gmail.com
MAD LOVE MONDAY | Bailey Brown - Below Hair Studio
I would say my passion in hair and make up began at a very young age! I was fortunate enough to be surrounded by hair and make up my entire life!
How did you find out you have a passion for being a Hair Stylist?
I would say my passion in hair and make up began at a very young age! I was fortunate enough to be surrounded by hair and make up my entire life! When I was really young I would attend hair and nail conferences with my mom as she was a nail tech. My mom always let me do whatever I wanted to my hair, and which I totally regret some decisions, my creative juices were always flowing! My sister was also in the beauty industry, she was a make up artist. When I wasn’t being used as her guinea pig for makeup, I was sneaking into her bathroom to steal all the cool make up she owned. Needless to say, my mother didn’t raise tomboys, I was destined to be in the beauty industry!
When did you know that you wanted to become a salon owner instead of just being behind the chair?
Let’s just say I was never someone to take direction easily from others haha. My personality definitely conflicted with what the definition of being a good employee was! I’m loud, I love to crack jokes, I love coming up with new ideas, etc. I needed an outlet that I could just be myself and surround myself with people like me. When the decision was made to enter into the world of self-employment, I remember my dad saying to me, “I knew this day would come, I always knew you needed to be your own boss.”
Why did you decided to expand your salon / how did you know it was the right time to expand?
I started Below Hair Studio in my basement with one of my best friends Danielle. We made it our mission to have the salon atmosphere that we always wanted. A fun, friendly, high end vibe that at the end of the day, just had a good time! All of our clients became more like family to us, and we decided we needed an assistant. I hired someone to help us with day to day duties that we were finding to be too much for us to do on our own. Before we knew it, our social media presence was making an uproar and we weren’t able to keep up with the amount of people that wanted to book with us. After 4 very fast years in the basement, the perfect store front location became available and my curiosity led me to look into it. I had always talked about expanding but never took it too seriously. When I went to look at the space, I had the same feeling im sure that a bride would get when she found the perfect wedding dress. Everything just felt right, nothing was rushed, it was time to expand. We knew we had outgrown the basement salon, we needed more people! We had become one of the most followed salon instagrams in Edmonton and we were in a 500 sqft basement! We made an unbelievably smooth transition to the bigger space and flash forward a year and a half later, we have 8 stylists on our amazing team and rent out a room to an awesome eyelash technician.
What makes you happy about being your own boss babe?
I would like to say that if you’re your own boss you can do whatever you want and take as much time off as you’d like, but it’s quite the contrary. My hours have grown longer, vacations have become fewer, and the hours behind the scenes that no one sees are the hardest. There is not a lot of glamour in being the boss, but the incredible feeling I get watching Below Hair Studio grow into what I always dreamed of is priceless. I’m happy that we’ve created a community of amazing stylists, developed so many new relationships with clients, and have a platform to share our passion the way we want it shared. Those are some of the many things that make me happy about being a boss babe.
If you could go back and tell yourself one thing in your first year of business what would it be?
OMG where do I start?! I would say my biggest piece of advice I would give to myself would be to take the time to understand the actual BUSINESS side! Source deductions, gst remittances, budgeting... I didn’t want to believe there would be actual numbers to crunch in owning a business! Thankfully my mom, Shelley, took care of all of that for me so I could put more focus into growing the business, but not everyone has a Shelley in their back pocket like I did! Learn about your business taxes, hold on to ALL of your receipts, know your inventory...they are a very important part of running a successful business. (But for real thank god for Shelley haha)