I’ll be honest, when we went into lockdown, I was ANGRY. A huge part of me was anxious, like many others- especially around public health and the impact on our NHS. Aside from that I thought, you really couldn’t make this up could you? Just as I was due to receive tech packs, prototypes and press go on my first stock run – the world stopped. Additionally work went into overdrive. The first week working from home was the last week before I was due to present on a pitch. This intense level of work had to be carried out while trying to navigate being productive with two strong headed Muses being home all day. To top things off, we have family staying with us which can be testing even when you can leave the house. In those first two weeks, to say I was approaching a breakdown is not an over exaggeration.

If I rewind a few weeks before, things were already getting sketchy. I was having a really hard time contacting my manufacturers. I had got to the point where I started thinking, maybe they just don’t want to work with me. Maybe this ‘ghosting’ is how manufacturers break up with start ups. I knew they had been busier than normal due to the round of trade shows happening in Europe, but I couldn’t understand why after these, I still hadn’t heard anything.

You can imagine how bad I felt when I found out that my point of contact had been forcefully quarantined after returning from Europe. By this point, the continent had already been deemed a hotspot for Coronavirus cases. The government didn’t want the virus spreading further so decided to quarantine those that had recently returned from the continent. This made me feel a little better (not that he’d been in quarantine, but that there was a good reason for being ghosted).

I now need to wait for the lockdown to be lifted in my manufacturer’s city before I can resume the process of getting prototypes, samples etc. I do wonder how the manufacturing process is going to change in an era of social distancing and COVID in general. No doubt it will change, however, I also have no doubt that the show must go on. My contact has been explaining how the government wants to conduct checks to ensure it’s possible to work in their factories while observing social distancing. And to be honest, despite my initial impatience, I’m grateful that the time is being taken to ensure people can work in the safest possible conditions. I’m a big believer in the ingenuity and creativity of human beings; this season has proved that again. We will always find a way.

In the meantime I’m trying to write more, I’m trying to develop the brand (in the absence of anything to actually sell – ha!) and I’m trying to do more colour and print work (because this brings me so much joy). Many lives have been lost and negatively affected by this virus, but those of us still here still have the gift of life, hope … and time. I plan to use this time to really work on injecting more beauty into both this product and the process.

I chuckle to myself when I remember towards the end of last year when I was telling myself that I’d be ready to start selling at the end of Q1 2020 (end of March). In some ways I do think maybe I was fortunate that I didn’t have all my stock arrive as we went into lockdown and consumer demand nosedived globally. I say this to look for the positive in an unexpected situation, however I know that if my stock had arrived as we went into lockdown, I would have made the most of that situation too.

The bottom line is I’m done licking my COVID shaped wounds and I’m ready to build again.