A new month always comes with a feeling of possibility and change for the better. Somehow we've made it to month nine of 2020 and we're filled with gratitude for life and hope for better times to come.

The honest truth is we never imagined the events of this year. Some really amazing highs that we didn't see coming. I mean who could predict us getting the chance to show at London Fashion Week after four months of trading??? We were so excited and rose to the occasion unsure of how things would pan out. But we're so glad we did. Fashion Week was definitely an LYL highlight. LYL is still very new with 2020 being our first year of trading. As the founder I committed to hitting the ground running on January 1st 2020 and said yes to every scary opportunity to tell our story and raise our profile. I never expected the year to be easy, but was ready and willing to put in the work in any way possible. You don't (or definitely should not) quit a great career that you love to go into business half-hearted.  

With every opportunity our business has grown from strength to strength and we've built a core team that I'm proud to work with. Running a fashion brand is no easy task, especially when doing it alone.

The year was going incredibly well and it seemed the perfect time to meet customers face to face at our first pop up shop! We scored an amazing location in London Spitalfield's, a hundred feet from my old corporate stomping ground, for an International Women's Day themed pop up shop. Our team were pumped and raring to go. A week before our store went live, the news of COVID-19 had spread significantly with the entire country looking at the statistics in Italy and seeing the UK numbers creep up daily. By the day our pop up shop started, Boris Johnson had asked the public to work from home and the footfall  reduced significantly. In true LYL fashion we continued and completed the pop up shop. One day later, national lock down began.

We live in a world where we all love to show our highlights and all the amazing things we do. But sometimes it's way more powerful to honestly reveal your experiences especially when they aren't what you expected. Lock down began and my anxiety levels hit the roof, like so many others. Not only were we in a pandemic, that felt like a movie script, but I found myself really worried about the future. I'm a planner by nature and hate uncertainty. All our plans for 2020 went out the window and we saw events get cancelled on repeat. With everyone being forced to stay home, the fashion industry took a hit and I was really worried about the future in a way that I hadn't been for a very long time. 

So why am I telling you this? Life is unpredictable and the only constant thing we can expect is change. When change comes we have to adapt, evolve or dissolve, your choice. We've used this time to get very clear on our brand purpose and ethos. We're committed to creating limited edition, amazing clothes for unapologetic ambitious women. We want to see women succeed in life and achieve their personal and professional goals and we're committed to building a tribe of women and supporting this in any way we can.

So as we enter into this nine month of 2020 and our 11th month of trading, we're bringing all our many lessons with us so we can navigate this new normal together.

Thank you so much as always for your care and support and we look forward to sharing more. Wishing you a happy and fulfilling month of September!  

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Love the LYL Team

Xo