Realty Life
Veteran realtor and industry leader Ken McLachlan talks with real people about their passions, their accomplishments and the moments that changed their lives. Realty Life is an inspirational and powerful look at how life turns and the journeys that follow.
Realty Life
Navigating Major Career Shifts
Shawn Hewson was a Bay Street Lawyer but chose a career shift.
A big shift.
He became a fashion designer and cofounded Bustle, a unique and creative fashion company.
In this episode Shawn shares his remarkable journey, the challenges he faced, and the valuable lessons he learned along the way. It was all about leveraging his existing skills, adapting to industry challenges, and maintaining strong client relationships.
Whether you're in real estate or another field, Shawn's story is a testament to the power of creativity, resilience, and strategic thinking in achieving success.
Listen For:
1:44 The Importance of a Strong Professional Network
5:37 Leveraging Existing Skills in New Ventures
12:26 Building and Maintaining Client Relationships
20:05 Balancing Creativity and Business Acumen
Guest: Shawn Hewson
Website | Instagram
Ken can be reached at:
ken@remaxhallmark.com
Ken McLachlan (00:06):
Hi everyone, it's Ken McLachlan and welcome to my podcast Realty Life. This podcast has been put together really to actually get behind the scenes of what happens in life and businesses, primarily real estate. But from time to time we have other guests that are not in the real estate business, but they have stories to tell about their business and their lives, which I think are very influential. And this guy today is someone like that. This guy, his name is Shawn Hewson. He as a friend of mine, he owns a company called Bustle, clothing, creative stuff, really interesting clothing and you can best get him through Instagram and different places like that, but Shawn has been, this journey from being a lawyer to being a fashion designer is incredible. I just love the work he does. He's so interesting and so creative and so out there, and I think you're going to really enjoy this podcast we've done with him and I'm really looking forward to talking to Shawn and Shawn walking the
Shawn Hewson (01:06):
Thanks for having me, Ken. This is great.
Ken McLachlan (01:10):
This is great, man. This is my hear. So you know what is what I know about you. You were a Bay Street lawyer. I never knew you as a Bay Street lawyer and I can't imagine you sitting in their three piece suit going down a Bay street with your little briefcase and your notes and sitting over contracts and doing stock, then order and little bit of chaos. Everything was anti chaos and new existing. What was that life like?
Shawn Hewson (01:44):
Honestly, it wasn't bad. I enjoyed it. I think that's the only real job I've ever had. I didn't mind it at all. I thought it was really cool to be working downtown, hanging out with a bunch of really, really smart, kind of motivated people and a law firm is a funny place to work. I mean, it's very well organized and efficient and I was part of that and it was kind of cool and it was fun.
Ken McLachlan (02:22):
Was that something you aspire to as a young man, to get it to be a, how did you get that lawyer affinity the bug?
Shawn Hewson (02:29):
Well, unlike a lot of smart people, I never really knew what was out there outside of the kind of traditional career paths. So I went to university. I stopped taking science in high school at some point, and I went and did an arts degree at McMaster where my parents work. So I was still in Hamilton. I grew up in Hamilton, went to high school there and I went to McMaster where my parents worked free tuition. I did an arts degree and they're like, okay, well now what? I sort of always knew that that education would have to continue past an undergraduate degree for me to make something of myself. And when I say I knew that, I thought that that's the way I thought when I was that age. I didn't really realize that I didn't maybe have the confidence that some people have to sort of go and pursue other careers or other opportunities or other businesses. I just was sort of following procedure basically.
Ken McLachlan (03:35):
So the procedure of for arts, you have gone in a hundred other things, but why was that law? Was there somebody that influenced you or,
Shawn Hewson (03:42):
Well, I mean, what else is there? I had a degree in political science and philosophy and I was kind of like, get you, what if I going to do, were a philosopher.
Ken McLachlan (03:53):
Well, I know why not? I'm sure you had fun too.
Shawn Hewson (03:55):
Yeah. I don't know. I don't want to say Ill-advised, but I didn't know any better.
Ken McLachlan (04:01):
Yeah, then you did it, which was great.
Shawn Hewson (04:05):
Yeah, I mean nobody was like, why you seem interested in real estate, why don't you pursue that? It was like that was the career path that people did.
Ken McLachlan (04:16):
So you got that degree in arts and then you said, okay, I'm going to do law. And you did your undergraduate work in law and all that stuff and you became a lawyer and what, did you meet your wife and partner Ruth Ell?
Shawn Hewson (04:32):
Yeah, I met Ruth in first year law school. We were in the same class together at U of T law school and it's a pretty small school and I think at the time it's probably similar now, but it was 150 students per year, the three year program. So you kind of knew everyone and there's 450 kids there at a time, and we were in the same year anyway, so we met pretty quickly. She was lots of fun.
Ken McLachlan (05:00):
Well, she's incredible. And Ruth is the, she's still a practicing lawyer. She's very intelligent. She is, yeah, very smart. She's your business partner in Bustle as well. Yeah. So you're a lawyer, you're practicing your partner Ruth is practicing and you're sitting around one night and Oh, what do we get into fashion? I mean, how does this happen? How do you get from being this again Bay Street lawyer to while I make 180 degree shift to be a different part of your brain, different part of the creative thing? Yeah, it's a good question. So how the hell did you do that? I
Shawn Hewson (05:37):
Think what ends up happening is you're getting to this super analytical, I was writing a lot of contracts, which actually does have an element of creativity, but you do start to feel the atrophy on one side of your brain and maybe you want to have some kind of creative outlet like dance drawing. I'm terrible at both of those. Somehow we cut into designing and so we had this T-shirt business that we were selling to various stores in Toronto, and it was going well enough that we thought, I guess we were a little bit ignorant too. We thought, well, we're not going to be doing this for the rest of our lives. Let's just, we know a little bit about business and a little bit about fashion. We could easily launch a clothing label. It was quite a bit harder than we'd anticipated of course, but we sort of had a two year overlap where we were both practicing law and trying to get the business off the ground together.
Ken McLachlan (06:35):
Was there a point that you decided that obviously there was, but what was that catalyst to actually say, okay, now I can jump in full time? What happened?
Shawn Hewson (06:43):
Well, that was actually my law firm that I was working with merged with another law firm and the firm culture had experienced a pretty significant shift, I would say. So that was the push that I needed to just say, okay, well maybe let's try this out full time. Not
Ken McLachlan (07:07):
I have to disclaim, I am wearing your Playboy socks this morning. I put them on specifically. Thank you. Good. You maybe can see them there. It's an audio of a podcast, but listeners, I am wearing these magnificent socks that Shawn created and they're a lot of fun. I've seen a lot of you bustle clothing and I am curious about how this will be interesting for a lot of people listening h that the shift is made from growing a business that is from very scratch. Having the idea that this is my passion, this is what I really want to do, and making it happen. I mean, how did you do it? How did that whole thing,
Shawn Hewson (07:56):
It's a funny thing because our business has developed into something completely different than I would've been aiming for when we developed it. Initially we thought our path was to have a big wholesale business and be a worldwide brand selling in retail stores around the world Department stores boutiques, and to some extent we accomplished that, but it was really difficult and really sort of not a good business from a business point of view. It was it fun and it was cool and it felt successful, but it wasn't particularly financially rewarding, very difficult to deal with department stores as a Yahoo Fashion brand. And it's also difficult to deal with boutiques because you're just always trying to get paid and the balance of power in that business is, it doesn't rest with the new designers can tell you that. So it's a very tough business to survive in. And then it just so happened that we had done enough kind of our method of promoting our brand was largely focused on doing fashion weeks fashion show, big fashion weeks, sort of presenting ourselves as this big brand and it developed into some corporate contracts with designing hotel uniforms that wanted particularly stylish and custom made uniforms done by a fashion designer. And that was a relatively new concept back in the mid 2010 kind of time when we started
(09:38):
Maybe 2005 actually we did the Thompson Hotel when we opened and that was cool. And then other hotels started knocking on the door. They were like, always saw what you did at the Thompson. Would you do our uniform?
Ken McLachlan (09:51):
So was it Thompson the first one? Was it Thompson the first one you did? Well,
Shawn Hewson (09:56):
We did le Germain actually. We did a restaurant with le Germaine, then we did the entire property in Toronto and then we did all of Germaine is properties across Canada. That was sort of our first
Ken McLachlan (10:10):
One. Yeah, great brand.
Shawn Hewson (10:11):
And then, yeah, I dunno, Thompson seemed to have a bit more impact. It was just that it was
Ken McLachlan (10:16):
A difficult hotel. It was very, and also it was a very chic hotel. I mean the boutique hotel downtown was really interesting and you blended a well into that type of thing really, I would think. Anyway, how you do it, and I should say you started this bust of clothing in 2002, correct?
Shawn Hewson (10:32):
Yeah. That was sort of like the T-shirt tag back then. The
Ken McLachlan (10:35):
T-shirt tag a good, we were like,
Shawn Hewson (10:38):
We are going to make it. Yeah.
Ken McLachlan (10:42):
So what's couple of things? What's your day? Tell me about your day, Shawn.
Shawn Hewson (10:49):
Typically, it's always something different. We produce locally, so there's a lot of liaising with the factories here in Toronto going and making sure that production is going the way it should. There's a lot of office stuff, making sure things are going to end up where they are so that there are no kinks in the production process. Sometimes we're pursuing new work, but again, it's this funny thing where this business has developed by, certainly the opportunities are we have to sort of know when to accept them and where to find them, but we don't do a ton of outreach in terms of trying to secure new work, at least in terms of the way the business has developed. We've just sort of allowed it to take us where it's
Ken McLachlan (11:47):
Going. I'm curious because it's worked for you. I mean, I want to walk us through that. So you built this thing in a dream of building I you say, and you started doing the Thompson Hotel and your niche of being, rather than work with retail and small stores, you thought maybe the hotel or whatever, it would be better for you and stuff just kind of happened to come in, but it doesn't happen by itself, I'm sure it doesn't. Automatically the phone rings off the hook and you're fell order. Did you pound the pavement at all? Did you do any of that or
Shawn Hewson (12:26):
A little bit. A little bit. You identified new properties that are coming around and maybe find out who you need to get in touch with and that sort of thing, but we've been kept fairly busy by the phone ringing. I mean,
Ken McLachlan (12:40):
I think that's fantastic, Shawn. It's incredible.
Shawn Hewson (12:43):
Really. Yeah, and we're afraid to grow too quickly. The other thing is we can reach a max capacity pretty quickly. We're capable of handling very, very big projects, but if we have two very big projects, we're not going to grow the business and take on a whole bunch more employees and infrastructure because then if that's not happening next month or next year, it feels like,
Ken McLachlan (13:11):
Yeah, you balance it more so your day is any of us just doing a bit of paperwork, making sure things are flowing the way they should be flowing and taping anything that's in front of you essentially and new ideas come to you by, I mean you talked a bit about, I dunno if it was you or Ruth talked a bit about the inspiration there from vintage self, a lot of old things and that kind of was your first, correct me if I'm wrong, your first understanding about the fashion business, about creating stuff and vintage stuff and ideas and growing it from there. That's kind of what you do, isn't it?
Shawn Hewson (13:54):
It is. And it's funny when people ask where you get your inspiration, it's like I do have this habit of just noticing what everybody's wearing. It doesn't have to be happening on the runways in Paris or New York or anywhere, Milan. I'm like, what's this cool dude in little Portugal wearing? That's how and when you go to Kensington or somewhere you find these great vintage stores, you can see these incredible approaches to garments and fabrics and construction. It's really cool.
Ken McLachlan (14:34):
Yeah. So how much time do you spend just checking shitter, I mean going around to Kensington or the county store in the county just to see stuff and to city
Shawn Hewson (14:44):
Revival. What a
Ken McLachlan (14:45):
Beauty city revival. I mean, how much time do you spend? Is that research time, is that stuff just to keep you,
Shawn Hewson (14:51):
I mean it's not active learning, it's just sort of taking it in. Yeah,
Ken McLachlan (14:56):
Growing
Shawn Hewson (14:57):
With it. Yeah. Yeah. I know I'm not a good study in how to build a successful business because it's always like that's my approach to everything's take it all in and do what you do. I tell people I haven't planned a day in my life and they look at me like I'm crazy.
Ken McLachlan (15:18):
No, I mean I know you well enough to know that this is what I know of you. I know that there's not a chance in hell you're going to fail. I know that. I know that. I know that doesn't matter what you tackle, it doesn't matter what adventure you're on in sports or fashion or work or whatever it is. You are all in. You are all in and everything you do, you're going to organizing a party, you're all in. It's going to be fantastic. That's who Shawn is. So I know that your business way of doing business is, it's all in is the journey of doing it. I can make a guess that you never focus on the, oh, I'm going to make a million dollars here, so I'm going to do that and I'm going to set with through it. It's more about the journey of actually doing the exercise that is interesting for you and having a great life while you're doing it. Am I right about that? I
Shawn Hewson (16:12):
Think you're right, and part of that is when you see an opportunity or when an opportunity comes your way, making the most of it and doing your best at exploring that opportunity and making it successful for everyone.
Ken McLachlan (16:29):
You said something, I read that you said something, Shawn, about the difference between the legal world and the world you're in now. Is that the legal world, the word is the word or the contract. They contract the whatever and the world that you're in now, people might say things to you that they don't really meet and the adjustment was maybe it's just a creative thing that the creative world you're in and we as a lot of my listeners are realtors. What people sometimes tell us isn't actually what they mean to tell us. So there was an adjustment for you to go from the contract is a contract is a contract, and as the conversation would happen to the chu glamorous, isn't this fantastic and by Es what a piece of shit or whatever,
Shawn Hewson (17:19):
And not only like a contractor is a contract, but if one lawyer undertakes to do something or says to another lawyer, we will do this. They're bound to do that. Casual conversation counts among lawyers. It's not casual conversation, conversation. It's meaningful. A lot of people in the fashion business love to go on about this, that and the other thing that's going to happen and it never does. I assume in real estate there's some code of conduct that governs the way people speak to each other and when they undertake to do things they have to be done. Is that correct?
Ken McLachlan (17:55):
I think yeah, it is correct. I think there's probably a balance between the legal world and the creative world. You live it. I think there's a combination of both. You certainly have the contracts which are valid in the way we operate. However, there's a lot of conversation about not hurting people's feelings and that's just natural stuff that comes through. But I was curious when you were talking about the difference between distinct difference between legal and creative book and it made a lot of sense to me. That's why I wanted to ask you about it, that it was really a different thing to get your head mapped around and work through it. And I know that, again, I'm putting my impression of what I know of you in here is that when you took on this work of being in the fashion industry and being really, really good at it and getting well known at it, it really was about, as I mentioned a little while ago, it was just about Christ, I want to do this. It's really creative, it's interesting, it's fun. It's a good life to have. It's really going to be fulfilling for me and rather than sit and do contracts and things like this, I can really actually create some stuff and make it happen. So you creative mind got to work and it was more interesting for you and magic happens and that's how you approach life precisely Dave, and knowing you like that is really a pleasure to watch that stuff.
Shawn Hewson (19:23):
I think that we've found the balance of having a creative product but also in a business environment and doing some of these corporate collaborations. I feel like the bigger corporate contracts or collaborations get the more, I don't want to say red tape, but there's more stakeholders involved. You need to not only provide a good creative product, but you have to satisfy all of the stakeholders. You have to give assurances to people that things are going to get delivered on time. You have to, yeah, I
Ken McLachlan (20:05):
Saw quite a business
Shawn Hewson (20:06):
Involved and create a level of comfort when you go into a boardroom with a bunch of people who are like, is this company that's going to be creating and delivering our uniforms for the next however many years? Can they deliver? Do they understand us? There's more to that sort of my training as a corporate lawyer, as a business lawyer and a person who was in scenarios like that does come in handy because it's not intimidating and I do have organizing thoughts that makes people feel okay
Ken McLachlan (20:41):
About it. Well, that's the discipline behind the work you've done to get to that point in the business world of that. If I could ask you, Shawn, I mean if you can interrupt that crystal baller in front of you and think of five years from now, what's that look like? I mean you, is this bustle folding going to be X, y, z? Yeah,
Shawn Hewson (20:59):
I mean I like where it's going, but again, as I told you, and it's not a great business perspective, but we don't necessarily have huge goals in front of us other than to explore and develop the opportunities that come our way. Of course, listen, if you told me what would your dream be to what project in five years would you love to be doing? It would be like the Olympic uniforms for sure. I don't know if you've seen this years
Ken McLachlan (21:25):
I have. You need to do that. I know. It would be amazing.
Shawn Hewson (21:30):
That would be amazing. I mean that's something I would like to slide to accomplish at one point.
Ken McLachlan (21:38):
Look back from the Shawn, the next Olympics are in 28, correct? We're going to look when summer or winter, what do you want?
Shawn Hewson (21:45):
Summer?
Ken McLachlan (21:46):
Okay. No, of course. So 28, that's a big goal. I want that. I want that to happen 28 or 30. Yeah,
Shawn Hewson (21:54):
It's an interesting framework, how that
Ken McLachlan (21:56):
Works. Yeah, it's interesting. We can figure it out. So I mean there's a lot of young people out there that are new in business and I don't care if your business is real estate or fashion or law or whatever it is. We all have the struggles to get things going. We all have the things that we're faced with the discipline of doing it. What would you tell a young person that's just starting out in business to what are the most important things to look for and do and to be? How would you tell them to be?
Shawn Hewson (22:27):
I think it's important to be yourself. Obviously we all move outside of our comfort zone at some point when we're in the business world, but I think it is important to kind of maintain your own personality in the business world. I would say that's important and I think just being open to good opportunities that maybe you didn't think of yourself. Being open to explore those I think is an important asset and having some discipline. You have to do things you don't want to do necessarily all the time, but you have to have discipline in pursuing whatever it is you're pursuing.
Ken McLachlan (23:14):
Yeah, I think discipline's important. I know you have that really big, and I also know that you're highly competitive.
Shawn Hewson (23:23):
Oh, I don't think so.
Ken McLachlan (23:26):
Why? We sell and that's a real plus. That's not a dig, that's a real plus that it drives you to do your best at whatever you endeavor to do. I've seen you in golf and you're a killer golfer and you do it and you have won many, many trophies and it's a lot of fun to play with you and that stuff, and I'm sure you're that way in business. I think that when you're having the disciplines, I think what you're saying is the discipline's important, but it's also being all in. I think at one point in whatever you're doing, make a commitment to actually do it and do the work in and sometimes suffer through it, but actually do it and that's what you do. I know that, and one thing, you and I, I've never mentioned this to you before, what we have in common, one of our worth, work ethics and all that, but we're also both from the hammer.
(24:18):
That's enough, right? There it is. Shawn, this has been exciting for me. Me too. I'm really, Lisa, you took the time to spend the time with us and I'm proud to have you as my friend and as a mentor to help me in business and to watch you do the things, to see you on tv, to see you in these different shows. You're doing the different productions, the work. Do you just spent time at the Calgary Ede doing the second year? I think you've done that for their, and it's really kind of cool stuff. It's really interesting, a worldy living that. My window too is only through you to watch that, so it's really a really cool thing to do. Well,
Shawn Hewson (25:03):
I think you're doing the same, right? I mean, I think you and Deb are obviously legends. Every time we mention your name, people love you. You guys are very inspiring.
Ken McLachlan (25:15):
Well, we have a lot of common friends. We have a lot of fun together and I know that we have, without giving too much away, we both have properties in the county, which is fantastic. And I've been to some of your events and I've been there many, many years and you've been there not so many years and more people in the county and more people know you. I'm thinking, this is amazing. I mean, you're going to run for Prime Minister one day.
Shawn Hewson (25:46):
I don't know who's going to manage my campaign, but they'll have to get the skeletons out. I think
Ken McLachlan (25:52):
Ruth will manage your campaign quite well, and Ruth, Ruth could be a great prime minister chief you. So Shawn, thank you for doing this. This has been fun. The idea of having the discipline for somebody just starting out, the one being all in and doing what you love to do and resonates strong with, they're talking to us about. So how can people get ahold of you and tell us about Bustle? How do we do that?
Shawn Hewson (26:16):
I would say just our Instagram is the best place to reach us and to see what we're up to, which is just at Bustle clothing,
Ken McLachlan (26:25):
And do that. And then you can reach out to 'em. If you want to really have no showing, just send me a direct message. I'll tell you everything about him, which can know everything. Shawn, thank you my friend. All the best. I hope to see you soon.
Shawn Hewson (26:38):
Thank you, Jenny. Always good to see you
Ken McLachlan (26:40):
And thanks for doing this, buddy. Talk to you soon. Thanks for
Shawn Hewson (26:42):
Having me.
Ken McLachlan (26:45):
Thanks very much, Shawn, for being part of our podcast today. It was a real pleasure seeing you. As Shawn said, you can get him or find him through his best through his Instagram account called Bustle Clothing. If you like this podcast, please share it. It tell your friends about it. It's really something that I enjoy doing and I think your comments are always appreciated. So until next time, make a difference. Help somebody out that needs it and be the best you can.
