If you’ve been following The Journal since Issue #1, you may remember I reflected on our first ten years and the journey we had been on, and also alluded to some exciting developments we had planned for the coming year. Well, it’s fair to say there were definitely developments. More in fact, than I had envisaged at the time.
You will by now have noticed the familiar surroundings of the Louisa Grace website and social space have undergone somewhat of an overhaul. I guess even champions of all things vintage sometimes need to switch focus and look towards the future.
When we started Louisa Grace, we had discovered a passion for what we were doing with restoring and up-cycling antique and vintage furniture. Fair to say it was a side-hustle that morphed into a full-time business, and our brand style kind of evolved in the same way so it always felt 'comfortable'.
For a while now though, we’ve been talking to our customers and hearing what many of them think of the Louisa Grace brand, and it has become clear that like us, they felt it didn’t truly represent the core of what we do.
So we decided to take a step back and look at the business, and ask ourselves 'what really is the essence of our offering and how would we describe that?'
It took a while, but after a number of conversations and attempts to articulate the difference between what we do and the reason why we do it, we finally managed to boil it all down to a core statement.
"We believe that every piece of furniture has a story to tell. From the weathered patina of an antique mirror to the sturdy craftsmanship of a reclaimed wood table, each item bears the marks of a life lived, waiting to be discovered and cherished anew.
We pride ourselves on handpicking pieces with soul, each one carrying a narrative that transcends time and trends, inspiring you to envision the stories behind each item, to imagine the places it's been and the lives it's touched.
Our collection invites you to connect with the past while adding a touch of character to your present."
It was amazing how once we read that statement back to ourselves, a few key phrases stood out straight away; 'a story to tell', 'a life lived', a narrative'. How many times have we heard the phrase "If these walls could speak..."? Well if you think about it, what makes a piece of vintage furniture or decor special, is the idea of where it has been and the many stories to which it could bear witness.
We started working with Subversion:Studio our digital agency and very quickly arrived at the theme of stories. As Darren at Subversion positioned it, "We aren't just about the items, we're about the stories they could tell. And there must be a hundred of them".
A Hundred Stories.
It just felt right. Subversion instinctively knew what to do with the name and how to make it work for us and the personality of the business. They were already in the process of migrating our website to a new platform, so having made a brief diversion to help us with the new logo, quickly built out a new colour palette and brand style.
Before we knew it, we had a new identity and website and somehow it all felt so comfortable, it was as if we'd always been A Hundred Stories.
It's been such an exciting period and it seems to have gone by in a whirlwind. It's really quite invigorating in a way, and I'm really excited about the way this will enable us to speak more clearly about different aspects of what we do as a business.
I hope, like us, you feel it's a change for the better and you find the new website easier to navigate and use. I'd love to hear what you think. And of course, like the many stories our furniture and decor pieces could tell, there are still more chapters waiting to be written. So watch this space...
Cheers
Claire