As many of you know Social Bite is our charity of the year. Those of you who have left a review of Lily Blanche on Trustpilot may know that we donate to Social Bite as a thank you for every review we receive. But we also support the charity in other ways too and donate throughout the year.
So were delighted this week when Social Bite invited us to come and visit the new village they are building in Granton on the outskirts of Edinburgh to help people transition out of homelessness. This is an incredible project and we are delighted to be backing it.
Social Bite was founded by Josh Littlejohn and Alice Thomson to help homeless people, initially in Scotland but with an ambitious model which can be replicated throughout the world. I have been privileged to spend time with Josh and have got to know a little bit of the work he and Alice are doing. Not only does Social Bite allow customers in their cafes to “pay forward” a coffee or a sandwich for a homeless person, it employs 25% of its staff from the homeless community. This often means giving people who have been written off not just a second chance but a third or fourth chance.
Josh Littlejohn with Leonardo DicaprioGeorge Clooney with the Social Bite staff.
Josh has brought Leonardo di Caprio, George Clooney and Bill Clinton to Scotland for Social Bite and has raised millions of pounds for this incredible cause.
The Original Tiny House ScotlandInside the Tiny House
Their latest venture is to build a village in Granton, using houses designed by Jonathan Avery of Tiny House Scotland and prefabricated by Carbon Dynamics. The village will provide a transition from homelessness back into society in a supported and nurturing environment for 20 people at a time. It will be drug and alcohol free.
The project forms part of a jigsaw of programmes that Social Bite is developing to help 800 people out of homelessness in the next 18 months. You can find out more on the video below
The first residents will move in at the end of this month. Before they do, we have been invited to view the village on May 21 at noon. I am hoping to post to Facebook Live from the village to let you see it. So please tune in then. We’re really grateful to all the Lily Blanche customers who have helped make this possible. To find out more about Social Bite visit their website http://social-bite.co.uk/
It’s already mid-way through January 2017 but it has been so busy in the Lily Blanche studio that I haven’t had time until now to reflect on the year that has just been. One thing is certain, however. It has been our most amazing and busiest year to date.
Thanks to Liberty for the opportunity!
It started with a trip to Liberty London in January to pitch our designs to Julie Hassan, Liberty’s chief homeware buyer. You can read what happened on our blog. We managed to combine it with a fabulous stay at The Westbury Hotel, Mayfair – home from home for Jackie Onassis in the sixties and seventies – which boasts the best cocktail bar in London.
Flowers at Liberty London
Our Liberty experience and the boost we got from it was just the start of a whirlwind year. We couldn’t have anticipated the huge success of the launch of our Memory Keeper Lockets in Gold and Rose Gold vermeil. These have been bestsellers in 2016.
Our Luminous gemstone cocktail rings were also a hit and prompted us to design earrings to match which will launch in a few weeks. Watch this space!
The graduation of Colette, great grand-daughter of the original Lily Blanche, with a first class honours degree in History was a fantastic occasion and we marked it with the Lily Blanche Vintage Key Pendant, the perfect way to mark key moments in life. You can see the video below.
Summer saw us on a trip to Zambia, emerald capital of Africa, and a wonderful place to go on safari. The kids bungee-jumped off Victoria Falls and I stood at the very edge of the falls and looked down into them – an unforgettable experience. And then there was the safari in South Luwanga Valley. So much inspiration came from this trip. You will see it played out in the collections we launch this year.
The fantastic success of Andy and Jamie Murray this year put mum Judy, an amazing woman and fantastic advocate for tennis, into the spotlight. Many of our eagle-eyed customers noticed Judy was wearing her Lily Blanche Birkin Locket during the BBC Sports Personality Of The Year Award and on the private plane with Andy when he became No 1 in the world. I was lucky enough to catch up with Judy at the fabulous Blytheswood Square Hotel in Glasgow for a quick interview which ran in the Sunday Times. (As many of you know I have a background in national newspapers and still write from time to time). Judy told me about the importance of parents in supporting their kids in sport. We’re big fans of her Miss Hits programme and Tennis On The Road. She’s a truly inspirational person and she has raised two sporting superstars with grace and modesty.
In October I was lucky enough to attend the Scottish Business Awards Dinner with Leonardo DiCaprio where I met up with Jim Kerr and Charlie Burchill of Simple Minds. I first met Jim 10 years ago. It was great to hear their stories about family, friends and rock ‘n’ roll. They had the entire business community on their feet with a high-octane rendition of Don’t You (Forget About Me) during the dinner.
Jim Kerr and Simple Minds getting ready at the Scottish Buisness Awards
But the real highlight of the evening was catching up with Josh Littlejohn, founder of Social Bite – an incredible entrprise to help homeless people in Scotland. Josh and his girlfriend Alice not only allow people to pay ahead for coffee and sandwiches for people who need them at the cafes they run throughout Scotland, 20% of their staff are from the homeless community. Their latest venture is to build a village in Granton, Edinburgh to house people who have lost their homes. The Social Bite Village is the Lily Blanche charity of the year and we have given a proportion of our profits to the cause. We’re really grateful to all the customers who have made this possible.
Josh Littlejohn with Leonardo Dicaprio
As anyone running a thriving business knows – it’s not all fun and creativity. It can be lonely and exhausting and more evenings than I care to remember have seen me still in the studio, working at the bench or the computer, at 11pm. But in October I managed to grab a few days in New York.
We made the most of the time, staying on Park Avenue and enjoying shopping, the sights, the museums and the fabulous food in downtown Manhattan. I took my sketch book and found ispiration in the Faberge exhibit in the Met.
Did I mention the food? Here is Clementine, one of the orginal Lily Blanche’s great grand-daughters outside Nobu New York.
Clementine wearing the silver Memory Keeper Locket, Nobu Manhattan.
Back in Scotland we were invited to collaborting with the avant garde fashion magazine Fated and Fabled for the Eternity Feature in their Alchemy issue. It’s one of our favourite publications for the sheer creativity of their styling and photography. We were delighted with how they showcased the Lily Blanche collections and wove them into a story. You can see some of the images on our Instagram and Facebook feeds.
The team continues to grow, with Eva and Robbie joining. Our web guys, Tom and Toms have been fantastic and we’ve loved everything that Carlie our graphic designer has done. Marsaili has taken fantastic photography for us. Emma has made some beautiful pieces and we’ve had vital strategic help from Colette, Clementine, Alexander and Colin. We’ve been working one-to-one with Google and Facebook this year to develop our digital marketing strategy which has been fantastically exciting and we’re developing new collections which we will launch soon. Later this year we are planning a new model shoot.
It’s been an amazing and exciting year with our best Christmas ever and we’ve got to know some incredible customers. Thanks for sharing your stories with us and for shopping with Lily Blanche. We realy appreciate every one of you and the support you’ve given our business. I hope you continue to visit our website and social media pages in 2017.
Now all I have to do is ice the Christmas cake – just four weeks late!
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