An aniversary we don’t want to celebrate. Its an aniversary of great sadness. How could a year pass….
A year ago today, on the devastating morning of the 24th of February we woke up to hear our Seamstress in Ukraine had woken up in the night to Bomb alarms sounding from the first Russian Air Attacks. Our women had to learn fast how to use a gun instead of their sewing machines. Natala wrote to me “Today I held a gun for the first time” - It was an unthinkable situation, a war? in Europe? An attack on a nation just like ours. On a free democratic nation like mine? On women like me? On families like mine…? Men like my brother and my husband saying goodbye to their families on a morning like today to go to war? I think about this every day. It was heartbreaking but as marshal law came in to effect all work ceased & we had to reluctantly stop production in Kyiv.

Our seamstress did not want to leave, they wanted to stay and fight, and support their country. The Ukrainian people have the most incredible morale. I offered to drive and pick them up. I had made enquiries and we knew we could help them with accommodation and schools somewhere safe, but the answer was still firmly no.
It still is NO.

And then, in the summer months… it became possible for our seamstress to start to work again…. & @dhlexpress started operating again via Poland. And it was never a question for us to support Natala and her team, producing in a war zone has pretty big risks as a very small business but the rewards of knowing that our women are able to work and maintain some “normality” and to support them is just how we want to operate.

Thank you to all of you who have bought our linen this year, you have supported us and supported them, and their families.

Slava Ukraini.