The Frockery celebrates 10 years in business
Tomorrow (5th April) marks a major milestone for the Frockery as we celebrate the 10th anniversary of founding our family business. If you don't already know our history, you can read all about our green roots here.
To help us celebrate, we have vintage champagne. We are also offering our customers a 20% cross-store discount, so if any of our frockery takes your fancy, you can use code BIRTHDAY-20 at the checkout (valid until midnight tomorrow, 5/3/17) and the discount will be applied to your order.
Many thousands of vintage frocks and preloved apparel have graced our virtual rails over the past decade, and we are delighted that some of our very first customers have stayed with us, sharing our love of 'slow fashion' and supporting our wee enterprise. A few have become firm friends into the bargain.
There have been notable highs and lows over our first decade, the lowest point undoubtedly being the devastating loss of Johnny Frocker in 2013. Having survived that, we know we can cope with anything else the business world throws at us.
We've certainly had our share of headaches, from technology failures to stock room floods. Then when we became victims of our own branding success, we had to take steps to legally protect our name, which is now trade marked after attempts by others at 'passing off'. Fortunately some of our customers were quick to spot the fakers, which galvanisined us into action.
One challenge we have positively relished has been our annual eco-fashion event, which has run every February since 2011 as a way of celebrating vintage, preloved and hand made style. A community of committed eco-fashionistas has emerged as a result, with members showcasing some stunning outfits and telling tales of their various ventures into vintage.
Numerous fashion shows, photo shoots and vintage fairs have also featured during our first 10 years, although we do far fewer these days - mainly due to time and personnel constraints, since only one of the three minor frockers is still based in-house (an exclusively techie frocker who makes a very reluctant model).
There have been so many changes since 2007, not least of all an explosion in ecommerce activity thanks to new user-friendly platforms and build-your-own-site providers. It has therefore been a constant challenge to keep our brand visible, relevant and Google-friendly while the goalposts just keep on a-moving.
Social media has also been a game-changer for small independents, although we have refused to become slaves to Facebook and don't use or update our page as regularly as we might. We are better at Twitter, but must try harder next decade! There is probably a Frockery MySpace page still floating around in cyberspace - now that's retro!
Interest in vintage and preloved clothing, accessories and home ware has never been greater, so we reckon that our founding mantra of 'why buy new when it's more fashionable, frugal and eco-friedly to go retro' is unlikely to go out of fashion any time soon.
We'd like to thank our customers, friends and fellow traders for their support over our first 10 years. We couldn't have done it without you all and look forward to frocking on for a few more years yet!
