A Christmas Note From Shibumi

Well what a year we have all had! I don’t think any of us could have predicted the year that lay ahead at the beginning of 2020, what an upheaval and change from ‘normal’ life that we have all had, and the challenges that we have faced.

I have heard it said, “we are all in the same storm, but not on the same boat; some have yachts and some have a canoe”, this really resonated with me and made me aware not only of how lucky we have been at Shibumi both personally and professionally, but also what I think the whole Covid situation has really highlighted to a lot of people is that what is truly important in life is; being kind, giving and receiving love, and above all; taking time to appreciate those who are dear to us. Whether that’s been in person or more likely from a distance, I don’t think the importance of having deep, meaningful connections with other humans has ever been more needed or highlighted to us. And for that, I think this year leaves us something to be really thankful for. I hope that if nothing else, this year has encouraged us all to hold our loved ones a little dearer in our hearts, to hug them a little tighter and kiss them a little longer… even if that does sound like a cliché!

 While we know that this year has been incredibly difficult for a lot of people, we think that positivity is an incredibly powerful tool and we would love to share some of our most positive moments from this year and our goals for next year, in order to shine some light in what has seemed such a dark time for so many.

 We also invite you to share your moments of positivity with us, to help spread some joy and come together as one big, Shibumi family.

If you’d like to do this please email us at info@shibumistyle.com , we would love to hear from you.

And so, in order to spread some positivity and some good old fashioned Shibumi love here are our favourite moments from 2020… 

We feel we have achieved quite a lot this year, with and behind the scenes we have been busy building a brand new office premises for our Shibumi girls to work from…this amazing building is so nearly finished and we can’t wait to move in and show you all what we have been working on. This space has been designed to work perfectly for our needs, and will allow us to expand our offerings in a really exciting way…stay tuned!

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Continuing our plans to expand Shibumi in a way that feels really authentic to us, we are so proud to say that we have two new members of staff in the Shibumi team; our new dressmakers Sue and Michelle are just amazing and we can’t wait for you to meet them!

Sue will be specialising in fulfilling all your bespoke dreams; being able to copy your favourite garments in Shibumi fabrics, and creating bespoke designs. Michelle is our accessories queen! She makes our beautiful silk cushions and face masks, and is on hand for any alterations that you may need to your Shibumi pieces.

Both incredibly talented ladies whom we are so lucky to have as part of the Shibumi family.

This has been a weird and sometimes terrible, sometimes wonderful year and we have been so incredibly luckily to be able to have some fun despite everything that has been going on. As a team, the Shibumi girls haven’t seen much of each other this year with working from home but we are so proud of the way that we have come together to keep the Shibumi love going, and that we’ve kept each other smiling along the way. We were so lucky to be able to let our hair down earlier in the year for Elmore Court’s Covid-safe event, The Parrot Cage…this was total escapism, a night of fantastic food, music and cabaret and we had so much fun! We highly recommend booking tickets for when they can start hosting these events again.

And of course, last but by no means least our biggest achievement of this year has to be launching our new Alpaca Collection!

Launching this amazing little selection of completely sustainable and ethically produced Alpaca Dressing Gown Coats and super snuggly Shawls, whilst going through a global pandemic, and national lockdown was probably the craziest and best thing we’ve ever done!

Working with the fantastic team on the organic Weekfield Farm in Exmoor has been a dream come true for us, as we’ve wanted to create a more local, sustainable collection for some time; and the midst of this crazy year somehow felt like the perfect time for us to explore a slightly different side to Shibumi.

These designs were created in a small batch, made by hand by the team at Weekfield Farm who do everything from caring for the Alpacas, shearing them by hand, creating the yarn and putting together the final garments, the result is an impeccably made piece of luxury loungewear that can be worn non-stop (and has been by Ruth!).

Don’t worry, we still adore working with our incredible team in India and we will continue making beautiful silk for years to come, but this was so fun to explore and we cannot wait to see where this new, more local Shibumi takes us…

We hope you love it as much as we do! We always welcome feedback on new designs so please do get in touch and let us know your thoughts.

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Just before we sign off for a well deserved Christmas break, we’d like to take a moment to look towards 2021 with some positivity. While we know that things may not be back to ‘normal’ straight away, we are hopeful that there is plenty to look forward to and we’d like to share some of those things with you… 

Of course, 2020 was the year of no Shows! We have so missed seeing all your lovely, smiley faces at the various shows we visit, and we are hopeful that we will be able to start the show season this year with Hampton Court Flower Show in July, what a lovely thing to look forward to this Summer.

 We also greatly miss our Shibumi family in India and would love to be able to visit them soon! We know this may not be possible for a while but we can dream!

And of course, the thing we are looking forward to most is the prospect that weddings may be able to return with full gusto! To be able to have our lovely customers visit us to find their perfect wedding guest outfits, Mother of the Bride outfits, Bridal coats, Groomsmen’s waistcoats and more will just be so wonderful!

And in that vein we have some very exciting new things coming next year…

These stunning floaty silk slip dresses will be available in ten new silk colours and oh my goodness we love them! They are so versatile and can be worn as a luxurious silk nightdress, for Bridesmaid dresses, to a black tie event or dressed down with boots or trainers and a leather jacket. A real wardrobe staple!

Many of you will have seen Kate rocking our new Shibumi Silk Suit recently and we are so thrilled that these are nearly ready to be launched… Super cool and useful as you can wear as a full suit or as separates. We cannot wait to have all of our Shibumi ladies taking over the world in these incredible suits! Wear it to a wedding, to work, out for dinner or just because you can!

Not forgetting our classic and timeless embroidered silks, we will be starting the year with a couple of new fabrics including this stunning soft pearlescent taupe with delicate embroidery, Mother of Pearl.

This fabric is so stunning and we can’t wait to start seeing the wedding outfits you choose in this fabric.

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Finally, we’d just like to say that we are grateful beyond words to each and every one of you that has supported Shibumi this year, the kindness, patience, love and positivity that we have received from you has been outstanding and we simply cannot put into words how much it means to us. It is your support that has meant we have survived this year and so for that a huge, huge THANK YOU.

We hope that from our little Shibumi corner of the world we are able to spread some love and joy by sharing our positives from this year and that the things we are looking forward to may also bring something for you to look forward to too!

Sending all our love, and wishing you all a very Merry Christmas,

Until next year… 

Shibumi

xxx