Romantic Reveries, Volume 36

Full disclosure: as a full-time working mum I dread summer holidays.

10 weeks of pending guilt. 10 weeks of activities to plan, of hiding the TV remote control, keeping the pantry stocked, and 10 weeks of daily washing machine cycles and wiping sticky fingers off every drawer and door handle.

However, this summer was different.  It was more peaceful, more tranquil, and just fun! I love my kids. Even after ten whole weeks, I still love my kids.

We started the summer hols with a trip to Menorca with my extended family. A new island brought days exploring caves and coves of crystal blue seas on our kayaks and pedalos, and by night we enjoyed family suppers of paella, with laughter and wine. It’s a beautiful island, and the trip gave me the inspiration for the azure turquoise blue colours of our recently launched Anika and Ziana throw and cushion collections. 

Back on UK soil, we had the annual FB Summer Party, celebrating our fantastic and hard-working team with a cocktail-making session in the summer sunshine, complete with personalised glasses for each member to sample the delicious creations. 

With friends I’ve enjoyed vineyard picnics, danced at gigs on Brighton Beach, and lots of entertaining – I found a recipe for Aperol ice cream that is super easy and a great crowd-pleaser (and you can batch-make for the freezer).

In August, we spent a family week in Rye, East Sussex. The unspoiled landscape and simple beauty leant itself to coastal bike rides, beach picnics, kite flying and time to reflect, and to engage with nature. Rye itself holds a wealth of antique shops (13 in total) so I came home with a boot full of antique books (some with rather risqué titles), hand-made pottery and dried grasses all set for fame on our September photoshoot. A short hop along the coast and into Kent, we visited Dungeness in all its remote glory, with tarred wooden beach huts, abandoned boats and vehicles, and the somewhat dystopian nuclear power station beyond.  It's a barren expanse of beach reminiscent of an arid landscape; with such low rainfall it’s technically considered as a desert.  We ate lobster flatbread from the Snack Shack and admired flowers in the garden of visionary filmmaker and artist Derek Jarman. 

Back home, Ben and I had a rare child-free week (thank you Dad & Sarah!) relishing in a daytime date at Glyndebourne Opera House to watch Carmen and enjoy an alfresco picnic. It was an absolute pinch-me, bucket-list moment.  We also had evening sea swims, sunset bike rides on top of the South Downs, a Brighton beach sauna, and even a gong bath!

In the office, our photography and video teams have been busy shooting our AW collection and a wealth of content using our friends as models; we love the authenticity of genuine brand connections.  The design team have been enjoying meetings with new suppliers for our autumn/winter collections.  At the drawing board we’ve been putting together a wealth of enticing new furniture designs for next year – dark woods are incoming, and antiques are finally coming back round.  The 'new traditional' trend beckons as we embrace and pay respect to tradition and heritage with heirloom pieces.

As summer blue hues turn to autumnal green and browns, we're bringing the outdoors in, creating a sanctuary for slow living, looking forward to hunkering down and enjoying the feeling of hands cupped around earthenware mugs, and mother nature displaying the full spectrum of her autumnal cloak.

It's been a summer of healthy moments, fun and family connections, plus an opportunity to reflect on the joy around me.  It's easy to focus on the negative with everything in the world right now, but it makes me appreciate how lucky I am that behind my front door it's a home of happiness (and sticky drawer handles).  I really hope you had an enjoyable summer, however you spent it, and good luck to all the children and grandchildren starting nursery, school, GCSEs, A-levels, Uni, or first jobs. 

Sunday Discoveries

Heading out of the typically temperamental British summer and towards autumn, we are adding key pieces to our wardrobe to make the transition with ease. Here are some products we’re loving and would recommend adding to your repertoire of seasonal pieces.

In Bed With… Claire Burrows

Fashion is a rapidly changing landscape and many brands adopt a trend-led approach when designing and sourcing new pieces. How do you ensure your footwear remains both timeless and fashionable in equal measures?

That’s a good question, it’s not easy, it takes a lot of thought. As a brand we take a slow fashion approach to design. We really want to create great looking shoes, that are as comfortable as they can be and that stand the test of time. I’m not into disposable fashion and trend led fads. 

Our shoes are very well priced for the quality, but I’m always aware they are more of a considered purchase so we really think about the “pounds per wear” scenario. How is the style going to work in our current wardrobe, what can it be worn with, when will it be worn? 

My aim is always to create a style that you’ll still love to wear in years to come. For that reason our products tend to be centered around style rather than trend. I guess they are classics with a twist - we love a bit of sparkle, animal print and neon pops and adore metallics, but it’s all done in a way that’s not too much so that it doesn’t date. 

What has been your favourite Air & Grace launch to date and why?

It’s always exciting to launch new products and collections. I actually get really nervous, I always have, but thankfully the nerves turn to elation when the launch is well received. We’ve had many amazing collaboration launches that have sold out in a matter of hours, but I have to say my favourite of all was our Re-purpose collection. I created a capsule range of trainers using dead stock materials left over from the sampling process. I hate waste and it was bugging me that we had all these lovely materials in the studio but not enough quantity to make full production runs of shoes. So, I created a range using these materials to colour up our most popular trainers. I then persuaded our manufacturing partner in Portugal to make them in whatever quantities we had enough material for, some were as limited as only 6 pairs, others we could make up to 60 pairs. That’s small for footwear as most manufacturers won’t work with less than 120 pairs of a single colour. 

We launched the range on Black Friday as an alternative to discounting and to my delight it was a huge success. Our customers really love limited edition styles and these were totally unique. The response was incredible, selling out in just over a day and we donated a tree for every pair sold with trees for cities one of our charity partners. For me this collection really embodies everything Air & Grace is about - doing good, looking good and feeling good.

We're heading into the transitional period where dressing for the weather can be difficult. What are the key pieces in your wardrobe as we step towards autumn? 

Transitional style for me is definitely all about layering. When the weather doesn’t want to make its mind up I need options, lightweight knits and jackets that I can throw in my Air & Grace Lusso bag, layered over long sleeves T’s and shirts. I’ll always try to get more mileage out of my summer dresses  this way and when sandal weather is finally over I’ll be wearing them with our classic Cru trainers. I’m loving palazzo pants and soft denim flares at the moment worn with our Isla Trainers for a more retro look. Once autumn hits I adopt a uniform of chunky boots, like our classic Chelsea boot, Troupe, or our lace up boot, Kiki, and chunky knits with bias cut maxi skirts, leggings or denim. I like my day to day style to be and feel effortless, but I’m the complete opposite for a night out, then it’s high octane! 

What sets Air & Grace apart from other footwear brands?

From the very beginning when I set about creating Air & Grace I wanted to do things differently. I wanted to create a footwear brand that was made by women for women so that meant delivering a combination of style, comfort and quality all made responsibly. We partner with small manufacturers in Europe allowing us to produce smaller batches to minimise waste and ensuring our shoes travel fewer miles to reduce our carbon footprint. Our leathers are sourced responsibly from accredited, traceable tanneries who adhere to the highest environmentally friendly standards. 

On top of all of this we go to great lengths to ensure our shoes are the most comfortable they can be, with many rounds of sampling, fit testing and wear trialling along the way, the process takes around a year. Our patented Tender Loving Air® footbed is unique to Air & Grace, hidden inside to provide cloud soft comfort with every step and of course we make sure the shoes look good too! 

If our readers were to purchase one pair of Air & Grace shoes, what should they be and why?

Oh my word, that’s a difficult one! I’m going to be really cheeky and pick two as they are both so different. The first has to be our best selling trainer Cru in the Off white, silver, gold colour. This has been in the range for 6 years and is still our most popular trainer. It’s such a classic, the colours go with everything and the amazingly super soft full grain leather is like butter. Our patented Tender Loving Air® comfort footbed inside gives you all the underfoot comfort of a performance sports shoe, but wrapped up in smarter styling. You can’t go wrong! 

The second is Dancing Queen, our first ever heel. This shoe has been phenomenal and it was nearly ten years in the making. When I started Air & Grace it was my mission to create comfortable heels. It was quite a journey but we got there. We managed to incorporate layers of our Tender Loving Air® foams actually built into the shoe. They  also have soft tubular straps and a flexible sole to make the whole shoe an absolute dream to wear. We’ve had so many amazing reviews on them and lots of people have chosen them for the weddings which we always love to see - dancing all night? We’ve got you covered.