As the machines in our mill wind down and we look after the last of our Christmas shoppers this week we would like to thank you for your continued support this year (and the last almost 130 years!)
It has been a funny year of sorts once again for everyone. We began the year in yet another lockdown and our online, design and production team kept the flag flying while we waited to welcome back our retail team in the Summer. We also spent the year as Irish Country Magazine’s winner of the 2020 Irish Made awards! We were delighted to be nominated and voted overall winner. As you know we are immensely proud of the fact we still produce throws, lambswool baby blankets and scarves right here in the same mill our foundress built in 1892. You can read about our award here
It was a year of many new designs such as our first ever cashmere baby blankets, comfort Throws, our own mulberry silk pillowcase and eye mask plus we became proud stockists of many talented Irish brands.
We were fortunate to welcome some new members to our teams throughout the company and sad to say goodbye to friends who moved to pastures new.
Our focus is always on the future will our eye on the past for direction – Mother Agnes our foundress believed providence will provide so we looked inward to the building we have called home for almost 130 years and thought of ways to make the next 130 years as successful as possible for the next generations of Foxford custodians. In the Spring we saw a burst of colour from the well-tended wildflower garden and bug hotels! In the Summer work began on creating a beautiful space at the front of our mill. The old Admiral Brown building made way for a bright and spacious courtyard area – we cannot wait to see this space filled with people when the weather improves next year.
We developed a space within the mill to become a beautiful showroom that is host to our in-house photography sessions, virtual meetings and most recently was the base for our first video campaign that focuses on our bedlinen and bedlinen rituals. Most recently work has begun on a food production area – where once it was home to our finished woven goods store it will be developed into an artisan production kitchen! Our MD Joe is providing updates on this work as it progresses, and you can read the most recent one here… we are excited for this development in 2022
There were lots (and lots) of work digitally and virtually within Foxford – we launched our first website near the end of 2016 and from feedback and replicating the shopping journeys our physical mill shoppers we decided to create a website that was more than just products. We wanted our online customers to enjoy the journey of not just browsing our products but understanding more about Foxford, the company, our ethos, history and our innovation. Where you can seamlessly move from bedlinen to our Chef Kathleen’s most popular recipes in the cafe section and move to our stores section and learn about any events we may have (fingers crossed for some of these to return next year!)
So, in September this year we quietly said goodbye to foxfordwoollenmills.com and went live with foxford.com – we have been working hard to make the site as functional as it is beautiful (can you see the Foxford Bridge in the background of our homepage, a nod to the surrounding beauty of the mill). That same September we also worked with a small but mighty Irish team to create and shoot our first behind the scenes of Foxford – the first being based on our bedlinen. Kate Costello helped weave our bedlinen story into a digital vision, through interviews with our designer Helen McAlinden and our Head of Retail Jen Murray we learned about why Foxford introduced bedlinen to our product range and our ethos of shopping sustainably with our “Wardrobe for your Bed”, watch the video here
Looking ahead to next year, Foxford has a big birthday approaching! We are about to celebrate 130 years in business. A huge milestone and we cannot wait to celebrate this with you next May and all throughout 2022.
This week we will finish our final tasks for 2021 and set our ‘out of office’ within some departments, the web dispatch will send out your final orders for this year on December 23rd, Lauren in our customer service is off to get married (congrats!) but not to fear we will be answering your email queries up until 23rd and back again on the 29th, we will be back to our normal hours Jan 4th. Our hard-working cafe team are looking forward to welcoming some familiar faces for lunch and reunited friends for that all important coffee. Our Foxford, Westport and Arnotts team will be busy helping you to choose the perfect gift or style advise for our newly launched Bedlinen sale right up until Christmas Eve.
Thank you all once again for your support and custom throughout the year and thank you for allowing Foxford to be the gift you chose to give to your loved ones this Christmas, it truly is an honour to think of all those throws and scarves keeping people around the world cosy for decades to come!
Have a very Happy and Safe Christmas and here is to a much more positive 2022 for everyone.
