People often imagine that running a luxury knitwear brand from a farm is either impossibly idyllic or impossibly chaotic. The honest answer is that it is both, usually before nine in the morning.
The day starts with the herd. Feeds, water checks, a walk through the paddocks. Because I know every animal by name, this is also my daily welfare check, who is moving well, who is off their food, who has decided the paddling pool/water trough belongs to them alone...
Then the farm sets the agenda. In the Summer, that means heat management: shade, water, showers for the alpacas who like them. It means preparing for the hay cut. It means the monthly walk through our biodiverse field margins, notebook in hand.
Somewhere in the middle, the brand. Emails, knit samples, collection decisions, content. This summer has an extra thread running through it as we are preparing for Emerge at London Fashion Week in September. There is something wonderfully grounding about reviewing runway pieces an hour after mucking out. It keeps the work honest.
Family, always. This is also a family life, school terms ending and beginning, a daughter growing up alongside the herd. The juggle is real, and I have stopped pretending otherwise. Some weeks the business gets the best of me; some weeks the farm does; some weeks neither and we order takeaway.
Why I would not change it. Because the farm is not the backdrop to the brand, it is the brand. Every alpaca wool piece we make carries this place in it: the land, the animals, the slow rhythms of the farming year.
That is the life. Muddy boots, fine knitwear, and no gap between the two.