High street dreams are made of this....

Sooooo have any of you crazy lot been watching High Street Dreams on BBC1 9pm Mondays?? Bit of a rubbish name I reckon  but there is a reason Im asking .

You see a few weeks before last christmas we received the email that was doing the rounds asking creatives if they wanted to apply to be on this new show with Jo Malone......so being the shrinking violets that we are we did..... we only then went and got offered an audition a few days later. So off we drove to a hotel in Manchester and sat and waited along with lots of other lovely creative people all clutching our wares......it was a bit like XFactor with props. We eventually were called into a room and had to stand on an infinity wall and look into a big studio camera...we were then asked some questions about our business by 2 lovely young men and then we had to pitch to Jo why we needed her help......I immediately resorted to blackmail and offered her a free bag if we went through.

Well it seemed to work as we got to the semi finals if you like....the last 15 in our category (which by the way fell under giftware....oh dear)...we were assured that we had all beat thousands of businesses and had done amazingly well.....we only went along in the hope there would be free cake. We then had to go to Kent and stay over....we were going to spend the day in a studio.....a real proper one!!!

We were picked up in a car early in the morning...and taken to the studio along with a guy who made lovely clocks, a family who invented a chic bag to carry dog poo in (obviously for when you were walking your dog) and a lady who made quirky shelves that looked like hands.......it was very random!

There was lots of waiting around....we were shown the studio which looked like the weakest link, we all had plinths to put our products on and the idea was we would stand in a line behind our plinth...then Jo and Nick would come and speak to us one by one...the aim being to convince them to choose our business to work with for 3 months and get us ready to pitch to a high street retailer.

Being filmed was great fun....we loved the whole experience.....the staff were lovely, the other creatives were all lovely, Jo and Nick were extremely lovely.and gave us some amazing feedback and tips......one big inspirational and extremely insightful day.

Did we get picked....well watch next Monday at 9pm to find out......if we didnt we will pop up at some point near the start..........hopefully not trying to bribe Jo with a handbag.

http://www.mirror.co.uk/tv-entertainment/tv/todays-tv/2010/05/10/high-street-dreams-bbc1-9pm-115875-22246698/

shoooz baby

I decided to have a browse around Topshop last week. I went to visit the shoe section.....where I was in instant heaven. I came across these little beauties.......

They are from Kurt Geiger and are £160...... what struck me was how well they match our Tiaga Fold over clutch or even our Birch Mini fold over clutch, the colour and style match perfectly. Just thought I would share that with you!!

Tiaga Clutch £450

Birch Mini Fold over clutch £250


Available to order directly from Nook&Willow        Studio@nookandwillow.com

Roadkill

Ok...so one day I was walking my son to school and there was a dead hedgehog in the gutter...not squashed...just dead. We glanced at it and said awwwww thats sad...then went on our way.

Later at the studio I was feeling very experimental...I decided to work on an idea I had for some shoulder embellishments, like jewelry for your shoulders that can be removable. As my design progressed I realised that I had been heavily inspired by the hedgehog....albeit subconsciously.

It really goes to show that as a designer you can get inspiration from ANYTHING  around you....even roadkill.

Available to order in most colours direct from Nook&Willow....studio@nookandwillow.com

Our new ethos

We decided a few months ago that we were goin to scrap doin seasons  
and just have one collection.
 
Sounds mad? But it's really not. We handmake bags that we want people  
to buy and use for years to come...so doing 2 seasons a year was  
actually going against this ethos. Our handbags have a vintage look  
and feel so they will always fit into every season.
 
Also we are more desirable to stockists who don't need to put us in  
sale. It frees up our time to make and develop new ideas.......
so why didn't we do it sooner??
 
Because we like to do things the hard way..
 

Our new stooodio

Ok well a couple of months back we decided to move studios. We just  
never felt at home in the bluecoat...lovely building and studio but  
the wrong kind of vibe.
 
Anyway we searched and found a quirky little place literally a min  
walk from our old studio. It has a real retro feel about it almost  
like Brick Lane in london or a New York Loft...its really cool in a  
non obvious way and is filled with real characters and lots of  
creative vibes....we love it, its much more 'Us'!

Studio 7a Seel Street Studios

36 Seel Street

Liverpool 

Illness

Ok so im givin this blog thing another shot, i love reading other peoples and it inspires me to try it again.
There is a theme though..I set this up last year while suffering with swine flu...now ive got pleurisy and here I am again..blogging away. I assure you im not a hypo or a bloke and Im pretty well most of the time.
Anyway moan over, as Im stuck at home I thought I would do something productive... Ive been tweeting away and trying to get more fans on our facebook page and now Im blogging...all from the comfort of my Iphone (im such a geek).


From iPhone