Why our clothing collection has totally got your back…

You will (hopefully!) know by now that we’ve launched a new clothing collection – we’re still pinching ourselves at seeing it on sale and are bursting with pride and excitement.

Our sweatshirts and T-shirts look pretty fab but of course there’s more to them than just looking great. This is us, after all, and everything we do is designed to boost self-belief and spread that happiness.

We were inspired to create this collection after chatting to our own teens about what would work as a kind of “secret support”, a feeling that someone always has their back.

The top priority was that it had to be subtle. There’s no-one more self-conscious than a teenager and although it’s so frustrating to watch, we couldn’t be more sympathetic. We know that the judging of everything that’s done, said and worn is very real – the memory of one of our teens having someone in their peer group who divided people in their school year into ‘relevant’ and ‘irrelevant’ has scarred my heart forever.

So we had to avoid anything that would attract the wrong kind of attention. Which is why we commissioned a very talented graphic artist we know, who lives and works in the US, to create beautiful script for our ‘Limitless’ and ‘Unstoppable’ messages with the deliberate intent of it being just that little bit hard to read at first glance.

It’s also why we chose to use our little hummingbird on our sweats and tees. It looks great but it’s also hugely symbolic (we wrote all about it here) – but only the wearer will ever know that the little bird over their heart is a message of strength. The card that goes out with every piece of our hummingbird clothing says:

As you’re now the proud owner of an item from our Hummingbird collection, we thought you might like to know why we chose to feature this amazing little bird.In various different cultures over thousands of years, hummingbirds have been seen as healers and bringers of love, good luck, joy and playfulness. Or to put it another way, they encourage the enjoyment of life and the lightness of being. They are said to “lift up negativity” – pretty cool, right? Oh, and they’re also said to represent resilience, adaptability, independence, and continuity. Yep, we’ll have all of that.So, every time you put it on, know that there’s a quiet little message of support and happiness embroidered in just for you.

Our last blog post still makes us cry every time we read it. Lotte, from Hector’s House, which is the charity we support, wrote so movingly about her brother taking his own life and the strength they get from the tattoo they all have in his memory. It shows the power and the quiet comfort of symbols. We hope in our own way we’ve created a clothing collection that will help boost the self-confidence of someone, somewhere who really needs that little extra bit of support.

Louise & Anna x