THANKFUL.

This is a direct cut-and-paste of a LinkedIn post that I put out there yesterday:

*Thank you*

This time 4 years ago, in 2014, I finally walked away from 4 profitable business I’d grown over 14 years.

I was 46 and unhappy. Unfulfilled. Doing what people thought I should instead of what I was born to do.

I wanted a clothing brand. But I didn’t know how. So I decided to find out. I wasn’t sure why. So I sought my purpose. Ideas were fuzzy. But I kept on moving.

On a grey Valentines Day 2015 I stood in a bar. A guy skipped past with a red umbrella. I stared. The guy with me stared. Everybody stared. And the notion of Always Wear Red was born.

On that very day I created a Twitter and Facebook presence. I told the world that I would launch this thing called Always Wear Red exactly 1 year later on Valentine’s Day 2016. All I had to do now was source Britain’s best makers, the world’s best materials, design an amazing collection and build a brand with a purpose.

So that’s what I did.

On Valentine’s Day 2016, AWR launched. It’s purpose? To Create Confidence in the wearer. To change you. To help you, in some small way, to do what I’d done maybe. To change your life. To have the confidence to do what you were born to do.

AWR is 2 years and 9 months old. With a 69 piece collection. And I wanted to take a moment to tell my little story and say thank you.

It was 10pm when I wrote it. Tired from a day of packing beautiful things that beautiful people had been kind enough to invest in from the Always Wear Red collection.

And as well as being tired I was thankful.

I didn’t have the characters available in the LinkedIn post to list the people I wanted to thank. Which is a good job really because I’d have surely forgotten someone.

There are hundreds. Really. And I am thankful to all.