What a month! As you’ll know, we opened our very first pop-up store in February and what an amazing two-weeks that was. Although I want to delve deeper into the workings of opening a pop-up as a small e-commerce business (another post another day!), I did want to say the biggest highlight for me was actually being on the shop floor meeting both new and loyal customers that continue to support Hunter & Co.
Throughout the pop-up (located on Kings Road, Chelsea, no less) I was asked so many questions about the brand, its origins, the future etc, so today I thought I’d round-up the most popular and answer them right here for you.
Where do you source your products from?
CUSHIONS
In terms of cushions, we design them all ourselves in-house and work with a wonderful team of artisans in India to hand weave or block print them for us. The craftspeople we work with are great as they have a huge colour reel to choose from and they can practically make any design we send them.
We do always listen to customers however, and for our new collection we asked our followers on Instagram which colours they’d like to see, and the feedback was blush pink, mustard yellow, desert hues and monochrome.
We designed our Luna cushions in light pink with dark pink details, but we wanted to test that the light pink is really the blush that everyone loves so we only created one design first. We are really happy with the pink and they have sold well in our pop up so we will be introducing more blush designs in the future!
We had overwhelming interest in mustard or ochre but as you can tell from our Hunter & Co. colour palette, it’s not typically a key colour we incorporate into our style. So, to satisfy what our customers want to see, as well as keeping in tune with our style and colour scheme, we designed the Savannah cushion, which is a lovely mustard colour with grey and white using a modern design.
RUGS
Our rugs, meanwhile, are also handmade in India by two fantastic teams - one in Jaipur and another in Bhadohi. We originally designed some coastal styled cotton Dhurries rugs of white, navy or aqua with lots of pretty intricate details like the tassels and hawamahal fringes. In our new collection of rugs, however, we went for a more neutral palette and natural textures using jute and wool. They are just beautiful! Check out the Fullerton, Hartford, Westport and Madison rugs.
ART PRINTS
Our art prints are created by an incredible group of independent artists from all over the world - Colorado, Christchurch NZ, Melbourne, London, Newcastle, Arizona, Utah and Chicago! We aim to curate prints that fit in with our coastal style whether that’s through the colours or natural landscapes.
We also have 3 beautiful figure illustrations by Winsome Studio in NZ that we love as the artist is so good at capturing the empowerment of women through her drawings. Check out our Meet the Artists page to find out more about the talented woman behind each beautiful piece.
CERAMIC AND DECORATIVE ITEMS
Finally, our ceramics, baskets and home decor products are all made in the Far East. We flew out to China to meet our three factories that make our gorgeous ceramics and we plan to fly out again next year. Most of our wooden decor products are handmade in Vietnam and we recently sourced our new collection from two amazing American suppliers. We are also currently speaking to a South African supplier who make the most gorgeous homewares, we just need to figure out how to ship all the products over!
Where does your brand originate from as we don’t often see this style in the UK?
Believe it or not, we are a proud British independent brand! However, we take a lot of inspiration from the pretty coastal towns of America, Australia and South Africa. We even had some Americans, Australians and South Africans come to our pop-up store and said it kind of reminded them of home, which is so nice to hear! Our style is very much a laid-back coastal vibe with a modern twist. We love being able to curate products from all around the world to bring a slice of sunshine and warmth into our homes.
How long have you been going for?
We launched our online store for the first time on 20 February 2018 so we are just over a year old! And what a year it’s been.
Do you have plans to open a permanent store eventually?
Yes definitely! However, running the pop-up store made me realise how important it is for me to be on the shop floor to meet customers in person, and I currently can’t do that as I’m still working 4 days a week in a Finance job in the city. My dream is to one day have 4 stores in each corner of London - Blackheath, Chelsea, Notting Hill and Islington - one can only dream!
If you have any more questions, please feel free to drop Tammy an email at tammy@hunterandcostore.com and she will get back to you as soon as she can!
