Posted on 2nd August 2019 at 18:49
The selling season began on a chilly Valentines Day near Victoria, London. Armfulls of last summer's stock and samples were sold in a beautiful hall to ladies keen to banish all thoughts of winter and eager to buy summer clothes. One rather glamorous lady in a stripy turban scooped up a dozen garments, each one as original and unique as the other. She was returning to Australia and delighted at her trove. Some garments she had determinidely tugged from the hands of others.
The launch of our new Spring collections takes place on line. But it is the shows which follow where the fun really happens. The House and Gardnes Spirit of Summer at Olympia, brings together an excited crowd of ladies with their style and charm in full swing. This year we erected two changing rooms to cope with the queues waiting to try on new clothes. Our customers fall in to two camps. Those who buy clothes before lunch and those who buy afterwards. I have never been a lady who lunches and my imagination leaps towards Truman Capote's Swans, imagining the fun and gossip of trips on gulets and tales of hoped for Tuscan dinners, fizzing across the table.
Four overly busy days at Spirit diminishes, when compared to the following seven days exhibiting at the Hampton Court Palace Festival. We sort-of cope, as we leap and hop over those tubs on wheels packed with foxgloves, alliums (and heavens knows what else,) pulled along by our fabulous country ladies. NoLoGo- chic floral tunic dresses are just the thing for camouflaging oneself amongst the glorious show gardens and many of our customers undecided of which print to buy, end up purchasing a few.
We exhibit at other show throughout the year and these are wholesale shows....now that is another story....