Over the last few months, CEO of Fashions Finest, Deborah St Louis, has been working closely with the ladies at The Branding Initiative. It was a pleasure to finally get to meet her in person when we were both invited to #BeInspired at Bentley Birmingham for an evening of luxury cars and fashion for Female Entrepreneurs.

Bentley Birmingham are leading the way amongst the luxury car industry in realising that the female empowerment movement represents women, globally, not only fighting for places on corporate boards but also in carving their own nichés as entrepreneurial superstars! And let me tell you, at the Bentley Birmingham ladies event, organised by Chameli Chowdhury, we met a fair few female entrepreneurs that are, for want of a better phrase, kicking ass!

Upon arrival, we were greeted with a chilled glass of Ruinart champagne. The scene was set with pop up areas dedicated to fashion, jewels, art and a showcase of NSPCC Childline, Bentley’s choice of sponsored charity. Bentley aim with this event was to “combine inspirational names from the worlds of luxury style and fashion” and they didn’t disappoint!

With only 20 Bentley dealerships across the UK and 4 of them managed by Sytner, Bentley Birmingham is switched on to what it means to use affiliate, attraction and digital marketing to increase exposure to the brand and broaden their client base. Marketing towards women is a smart move. Connecting luxury cars to other luxury items like fashion and jewels is an even smarter move! I mean, what other luxury car brand is so in tune with women in business that they showcase luxury shoes and handbags to match the car?!

Meet “Purple Rain”, the stunning Bentley that comes with bespoke hand made shoes designed and crafted by Kate Spence. Kate designed for and managed the Jimmy Choo brand for seven years before establishing her own luxury couture footwear brand for women in 2012.

Deborah St. Louis was especially keen to listen to the keynote from catwalk designer Alice Temperley of Temperley London, Deborah’s connections to London Fashion Week with Fashions Finest being the second largest off schedule event organiser for LFW.

Throughout the summer Bentley Birmingham are exploring what inspires people and how that inspiration becomes a luxury item and creating something exquisite that perfectly balances form and function. Female entrepreneurs are the perfect target market to add huge value to that. What inspires us? What drives us? We’ll be interested to see what Bentley Birmingham come up with. What we would love to see is a catwalk show, showcasing up and coming designers, mixing new innovation traditional luxury. With more events lined up like that of #BeInspired, we have no doubt that this is going to be an interesting summer for Bentley!

Deborah St Louis and Melanie Jones were delighted to meet Jenny Lee Holt at the event, a huge supporter of The Branding Initiative and fellow female entrepreneur and Director of Spectrum Telecoms. Together we browsed the cars, fashion and diamonds. Luxury bespoke jeweller S.P Green of Birmingham showcased some stunning pieces at the event and we had our beady eyes on a beautiful diamond and sapphire piece – blue and white to match our logo of course! What better way to spend a Friday evening?!

Deborah St Louis and the ladies at The Branding Initiative would like to express huge thanks to Bentley Birmingham for the invitation. We look forward to working with you more over the coming months.

For more information about Bentley cars, please contact Chris Gretton.

For more information on The Branding Initiative, our services or our programs, please contact us here.

Written by KellyAnn Schiavo - Co-founder of The Branding Initiative, Women in Business Ambassador & Blogger