Greetings from Sheffield. I'm at AW HQ..
And it's so much fun. It's all happening in every department. AW Aromatics have some exciting new products in development. Hop Hare designer Sandra has new products coming online now...
and more beautifully detailed products in the pipeline.
Last week I was telling you about festival time in the UK, and we even kicked off the season with our own mini festival in our AW garden. If you missed it you can catch up here.
That party was supposed to be an after-work event, an appreciation and thank you to our hard-working teams.. but somehow it went on all evening and late into the night. I left relatively early, but the team had a great time into the early hours... Unfortunately, Urzula (our customer service manager) bounced a little high on the bouncy castle.. and suffered a nasty strained leg.. she has been bravely working from home and resting it. We wish her well.
This week I managed to spend some time in our main showroom at Affinity Park. Rodrigo and his team have done a fantastic job adding all the new products and revamping the displays. A years ago when AW was born, I started with gift shops in Derbyshire, so retailing is in my blood. There is nothing better than reorganising a shop and seeing instant results. OK, ours is not a shop and serves a different function but I still get to "play shop".
And the thing is - I have an emotional connection to so many of the products. I'm personally friends with many of the artisans and folk behind making those products. I have been involved in the design process in many cases, helping to inspire people and helping to create new things. Almost everything I touch has a story I could tell you behind it.
Getting organised.Those Bali umbrellas are from a family business in a village along the coast, off a side road down a track by a rice terrace. Literally the middle of nowhere. The thing is to export those things you need special treated wood, the fabric is different and the finish has to be made to last. Compared to the local use ones that get replaced every season, they are a different thing. Same skills to make - see how many details there are... but next-level materials. Not many people make it for export.
Those Magic Candles were designed by the Spanish team, with text and concepts from myself and manufactured in the Soywax candle factory by Coco in China...
Everything - everything has a story behind it.
Do come along if you can... there are lots of surprises and incentives, and we can show you some winning products that might just make a big difference in your business.
So, wishing you an amazing weekend.
Hope to see you soon.