In this episode of Out of the Clouds, host Anne Mühlethaler welcomes Alice Ruby Ross and Rebecca Monserat, the founders of Forivor, an award-winning sustainable children's brand known for its innovative, dual-sided bedding designs that transform from educational nature scenes by day to magical, enchanted worlds by night.
To begin, Rebecca and Alice share their fascinating personal journeys and how they crossed paths and led to their working together and their wonderful friendship. As they tell it in their own words, it all started with Rebecca growing up in a 400-year-old house without electricity and surrounded by nature in rural Wales and Alice being raised in West London in a creative Anglo-Indian family where their dining table was the center of artistic expression. The pair describe how they first met (through a mutual friend named Roxy), and what was initially a professional relationship quickly evolved into a deep friendship and business partnership that has sustained them through the ups and downs of entrepreneurship.
The conversation turns to the origin story of their brand. It began with Rebecca having a half-awake vision while trying to write a story for her goddaughter while on a train journey that was taking her from London to Hong Kong. The products she dreamt up — children’s bedding — originally featured a unique day and night concept, with one side depicting accurate natural landscapes with hidden wildlife, accompanied by educational fact cards, while the other side transforming those same creatures into mystical creatures with enchanting stories. The brand name is a tribute to Rebecca's father, Ivor (as in, “for Ivor”), who passed away in 2005.
The two founders then tell Anne about their in-person research process, which included visiting the Anglesey Sea Zoo to observe British marine wildlife for their "Legends of the Sea" collection, and how their immersive approach brings authenticity to their designs. And Alice, who creates all the illustrations, explains the delicate balance of making the creatures on their bedding designs both scientifically accurate and magically transformed, while Rebecca details the educational components that connect children to the natural world.
The pair also candidly address the challenges of working toward sustainable manufacturing, particularly their ongoing efforts to eliminate plastic from their supply chain and create products with minimal environmental impact. They articulate an acute awareness of the irony in their efforts to try and save the planet while simultaneously creating more products — a tension they navigate thoughtfully by focusing on longevity, education and exploring how their brand concept might live beyond physical goods and focusing on quality of life over forever growth. They summarise their philosophy as such: "The business is there for us to enjoy our life within it, not for us to serve the business." naming their approach prioritising creative fulfillment and. As Alice and Rebecca look to the future, they share their desire to expand Forivor's mission beyond products, potentially through workshops and experiential offerings like a Forivor Camp where children can connect directly with nature.
Throughout the conversation, Alice and Rebecca describe their work as "an ode to children's imagination," meant to celebrate the magical thinking that comes so naturally to young minds while also nurturing their connection to the natural world. The interview concludes with the three women reflecting on what grounds them (nature for Rebecca and people-watching for Alice) and what brings them happiness.
A warm, inspiring conversation with two talented women whose friendship is a bedrock for creativity, sustainability and the power of storytelling to connect children with the natural world.
00:04
Hi, hello, bonjour and namaste. This is Out of the Clouds, a podcast at the crossroads between business and mindfulness, and I'm your host, Anne Muhlethaler. Hello, hello. I'm so happy to be back with a new episode for you. I want to share how things are on my end as well. So we are nearing the fifth anniversary of Out of the Clouds and, I have to be really honest, I have completely forgotten about this until earlier this morning when I thought to myself damn, I need to do something to celebrate. I haven't quite worked it out, although I may make some merch, aka I may have some t-shirts made, particularly because I've been working with a wonderful illustrator, so I think that I'd have something beautiful to put on there. So it's percolating at the back of my mind, but if you have any ideas, get in touch. So, five years of Out of the Clouds coming up in June. More on that as soon as I firm up a plan.
01:15
Now, for today, I have a wonderful interview with two women entrepreneurs, Alice Ruby Ross and Rebecca Monserat, the creative minds behind For Iva, a beautiful, beautiful brand that started by reimagining children's bedding as a gateway to nature, appreciation as environmental education, but with a magical side to it the magical side to it. So in this conversation I get the full story for both Rebecca and Alice and get to hear their life journeys up until the point that they met, introduced by their friend Roxy. I get to hear how Rebecca half dreamed or had a vision, let's say for the award-winning sustainable business and how the two of them created these magical dual-sided designs that feature real wildlife by day and their enchanted counterparts by night. We talk a lot about the importance of storytelling to support kids and adults to connect to nature and the idea that we all need help to nurture this connection to our natural world, and sometimes we need a little bit of mystique and magic to help us in that sense and magic to help us in that sense. I'm personally very enticed by the offering developed by Forever. I'm not kidding, if they were making this for grown-ups, I'd be one of the first customers. I absolutely love Alice's illustrations and I'm actually excited a couple of friends of mine have given birth recently, so that I can buy them some For Ivor baby gifts, but anyway. So I really enjoyed hearing Alice and Rebecca talk about their business philosophy, about the irony of wanting to save the planet and to retail products at the same time, and together we explore what the future of Forivor could look like.
03:31
This conversation is full of laughs, a lot of wisdom about intentional living, frank or candid conversations about what it's like to build a sustainable and ethical business, what it's like to build a sustainable and ethical business, and the beauty of having creative partnerships with your closest friends. I hope that you will enjoy and be inspired by this conversation. Don't hesitate to offer some comments. Also, please don't forget to rate and review the podcast, because it helps us being found and it also helps me when I'm seeking out new guests. So with that, let me stop talking and I will give way to my wonderful interview with Alice and Rebecca of For Ivor. Happy listening, Alice. Rebecca, it's such a pleasure to meet you. Welcome to Out of the Clouds, thank you for having us.
04:28
It's lovely to meet you.
04:32
So I would first like to ask you where am I finding you today? Perhaps we'll start with Alice.
04:38
So I am by the sea in Ramsgate, which isn't too far away from London, and I am sitting in my flat with a beautiful view of the sea.
04:50
That sounds lovely. And what about you, Rebecca?
04:54
I'm on the other side of the country. Actually, I'm in a different country. I'm in Wales and I am at home and I live on the edge of the Brecon Beacons, well within the Brecon Beacons National Park, and I also have a lovely view out my window, but it's quite different. I look out on the mountains and I'm in the Wye Valley and this is, yeah, home. I grew up here.
05:13
I came back here in adult life, so yeah, sounds gorgeous, so all three of us have a view. Technically there's a bit of a cloud, but normally I see the Alps in the back. Yes, very nice. So, as you may already have understood from the podcast, I really like to start by asking my guests to tell their story, and by that I mean tell us where you grew up, who you were as a child, what you thought you were going to do as an adult perhaps a child, what you thought you were going to do as an adult, perhaps. And I'd like to start there, so that we explore more of who we are rather than only talk about what we do. And, of course, what you do fascinates me and I can't wait to hear more about it. I know it's a big ask, but Rebecca or Alice, whichever one of you wants to start, would you tell me your story?
06:04
Yes, whichever one of you wants to start. Would you tell me your story? Sure, so my story starts in the same landscape that I live now and, yeah, I feel very rooted in this landscape, even though I've been away from it and come back to it, and I think that's partly down to the kind of childhood I had. I suppose in a way for the UK it was quite an unusual childhood. I grew up in a house without electricity, in the middle of nowhere. We didn't have any neighbors and we didn't have much money either. So it was quite a simple childhood in lots of ways. And yeah, I think my main memories of that are how connected to the landscape I was, I connected to the outside world I was. I don't really have so many memories of being inside my house, as much as I loved it. We were surrounded by these beautiful fields which had a lovely small river, large stream running through them and woodland, and it was this kind of little kind of world that we inhabited and, yeah, it was a really magical place to be, to be a child. But it's funny because I was so in that world.
07:16
But I think as I became a teenager, I really very much wanted to get out of that, even though I was not a rebellious teenager in any way. I think I was a really easy teenager. Actually, I think I drank, probably sooner than I should have done stuff, but I didn't rile against my parents in any way like that. But I nevertheless wanted to get out into the world. And, yeah, I started in a very tiny primary school and then got into these slightly bigger secondary school really big sixth form, college and then I decided I wanted to go traveling on a gap year, which I hate saying. But I went on a gap year. Why do you hate saying that? I don't know. I think it just makes it sound really middle class Not that I have a problem with that in a way, but I think it's just because people can take the mickey out of you. Gap year, yeah, but it was great and I had such a brilliant time.
08:12
And I think, when you look back at that sort of experience now, I know that my friends and I who've got children who are getting older and approaching that sort of age when they might mine aren't that old yet, but I have friends who've got children that are coming towards that age and you think, gosh, we went across the other side of the world and we were just like see ya, and that's it. And the thought of my children doing that is, oh my gosh, I don't know. But at the same time I think that is an incredible thing to have. Is that just sense of responsibility, maybe, and freedom combined? I think that's a really wonderful thing. So I went off and did that and that was great. And then I went to university and I studied fine art, which I feel like I was just following in my mom's footsteps in some ways, but it was great. I loved it, but then I definitely had enough of it. When I came to the end of it, as much as I loved it, I was like I don't want to do any more art for now.
08:59
And me and two of my really close friends from sixth form college, where I met a really strong group of friends we'd been in the pub one day when we were back home from uni and we'd just I don't even know why I'd only been to Paris for half a day in my whole life on a school trip. But we all just were like, hey, let's move to Paris when we finish university. And it's just really weird, because that's just what we did. We literally finished and my mom was like, what are you doing? You've got no money, you've got. I had the minus 250 pounds on my bank account. I remember she was like, what are you doing? And I was like I'm gonna move to London or Paris? I was like, quite frankly, what's the difference in terms of my bank account? I may as well, and so I couldn't even afford a Eurostar ticket. My brother put me on the National Express from Victoria Coach Station. I remember being in tears, my big brother like sending me off, and I was like, oh my God, I'm going. Oh, that's so sweet. And it was the best decision I ever made in my life. Paris will always be like an absolute, massive piece of my heart. I think I love that place. I'm definitely like a middle of the city or a remote countryside person and Paris, I think, is just the most beautiful of cities.
10:07
Yeah, but I'd had this kind of very formative experience between university and going actually, which has informed a lot of what I have gone on to do, and that was I started nannying for this lady here in the Brecon Beacons. I'd been home for a few months looking up her children, but she also wanted to set up an organic hotel linen supply chain and I'd never even heard of organic cotton before that point and she got me doing all this research into organic cotton and everything like that and I became absolutely fascinated with it and so when I moved to Paris, I then started volunteering at it was, I think it was, called the Platform pour la Commerce Équitable, like a fair trade platform, and I started writing about fair trade, fashion, or ethical fashion as it was called in the early days, ethical fashion For the Paris Guide. I did that and I was mostly just doing jobs to make ends meet work for an events company I always seemed to be drawn to quite eccentric ladies to work for, and then I landed a job working for this big financial firm and earned good money and that was just random because I studied fine art and I was just doing editorial layout. But what was really life-changing about that was that I was doing all this other stuff and having an amazing social time. I had the best time, but it was just in the financial boom before the crash and I got a really amazing bonus and I could never have afforded to go and do an internship for one of the fashion brands that I so admired and would have loved to have gone to work for, and they gave me this big bonus and so I was like thank you very much, I'm leaving.
11:45
And I just wrote letters to, I think, about four different designers, and I can't remember who all of them were, but one of them was Catherine Hamnett, who I went on to work for. And then I can't remember the other companies. I think one of them was the no, I can't remember. Anyway, catherine Hamlet called me in for an interview, which was just really exciting, and and they offered me a paid job. So I got this double whammy of not even needing to use this bonus, and so I think I spent that going to Columbia.
12:17
But anyway, I moved back to London and worked for Catherine and that was just.
12:22
She was just absolutely my hero and that kind of then started me on this path of really being in the cotton industry and that being really a core interest.
12:32
And she was a supporter of this charity called the Environmental Justice Foundation, and what I realized by working for her was that, as much as I found it really fascinating, actually I didn't really want to at that point be in the fashion side of things, I wanted to be more in the campaign. On the cause side of things, the Environmental Justice Foundation had an amazing campaign working on cotton production in Uzbekistan and I ended up working, getting a job working as the executive assistant to their director, and so I worked across all of their campaigns and then went on to be the director of of that charity over time and it was the most amazing place to work. I had such varied experience. I continued to work with Catherine and people like Vivian Westwood and lots of different designers. It was really exciting. I got a real freedom to create my own work destiny. In lots of ways, I had the idea for Thriver whilst working there.
13:27
So, yeah, that's Beautifully condensed. Thank you so much for sharing that I was interested in so I wanted to tell you that I'm actually familiar with the Environmental Justice Foundation because one of my old clients, the jewelry designer Nina Randstorff, who's based out of New York City, we actually contacted them. I worked a little bit with Juliet Williams.
13:50
Yeah.
13:51
And we set up a program in 2021 for one of their bracelets to actually support and donate money to the causes. And I have to say I don't know a lot about the Environmental Justice Foundation because I find that they do so much. I feel like I only understand like a small piece of it, but it does sound like the most exceptional environment to work in.
14:12
It was really incredible and, I think, what was always so good. So I was there in very early days of the charity. We were a tiny team and our turnover was tiny, so I think we were about six people then, maybe in total less, and we were very able to be really nimble. And I think that what you're saying about them doing lots of different things is I think they've kept. My impression is it's been 10 years since I've worked there. Now I'm still in touch with them, but not as much as I'd like to be because life is busy. But but I think that because of that size and I think because of the way that Steve and Juliet run the organization, they are able to follow what they think is right at the time. And, yeah, I think that they somehow don't feel like they need to conform and I don't, I think in that way.
14:59
Yeah, yeah, I feel I'm interested about that. That expression, yeah, it feels I'm interested about that. With that expression they don't have yeah it, that echoes my impression of the breadth of what they do.
15:12
Yeah, it's very interesting. Yeah, yeah, I think that they can be, yeah, very, yeah swift to follow what what is going on. And, yeah, we I mean we just we had some really exciting things. So the things that we were working on that were just brilliant. And actually, what's so lovely is that the photographer that we worked really closely with at ejf has done she's godmother to my children, I'm godmother to hers. She's done loads of our photography, so we've stayed very close but her and her now husband, who also used to work there, it's all very interlinked.
15:46
They did a lot of work in Sierra Leone with illegal fishing and that was a really exciting project that we had, where it was about empowering the local communities to document illegal fishing and inshore waters.
15:57
But it was a really I think it was a really amazing example of how you can empower small communities with quite a limited toolkit to create this huge impact, both politically and financially, because we would have these trawlers documented by local fishermen using a boat and camera equipment that we'd put there and train them with, and then that would be sent to the ministry in Freetown but also also to other European authorities, and we had big, huge, multi-million pounds worth of fish coming into Spain, stopped at port because of this chain of events and that was not without complexity and probably quite a lot of risk for a young.
16:38
We were a young team but we were so tight knit and so close and yeah, and we worked our socks off but we loved it and I would, and one of the reasons why I didn't go back to EJF when I had my daughter, I had to give it everything, because it was the kind of job where you want to give it everything and that was not because they asked you to, because what you're working on was so profound and important that you felt that was just what you need to do and yeah, so I just felt like it was better that someone who could give more time had that job, actually, because jobs in the charity sector are limited and hard to come by.
17:14
Sure, that's a very good point, alice your turn.
17:22
Yes, so I grew up in London and with quite a kind of mixed heritage. So my father is Anglo-Indian, so he came over from India when he was about 11 and moved to Fulham and then my mother was from Australia so they met and became very kind of London centric and sort of West London was where we grew up and my mother was the housekeeper to a woman in Kensington who had this huge kind of dilapidated house in Kensington, right near Kensington Palace, which we lived rent-free with kind of Kensington Gardens as our playground. So it was this sort of very unique upbringing and I was thinking about the. What do I think of when I think of our childhood and what it was? And I was thinking about a dining table. That's where we would spend our time as a very close-knit family, but always drawing, painting. My father's an artist and that's, I think, where my creativity came from from, as well as there always just being this really interesting. We just have huge parties where all my Anglo-Indian family would come round and they'd stay up really late, my dad always playing the guitar, lots of partying and drinking happening or friends coming around for dinner, and so there's and it's funny that's I have a proper architect's drawing table, but I always just work at my dining table. That's where I'm most comfortable and I think that's what my upbringing centered around in lots of ways this sort of creativity and generosity of time as well with people. But I think I was definitely a daydreamer and definitely realized that quite young, that I loved being around people. But my name Alice, you know, I was Alice in Wonderland a lot of the time. So I still think I am now. I'm. Sometimes I'm somewhere else even though I'm in the room a little bit, and I always loved drawing. So I think when I was younger I thought that's somehow I probably used to give the answers of a vet and things like that. But I think I also thought this is what I'm like happiest doing.
19:32
But I did history of art. At the end I apply. I did history of our a level and my teacher said to me oh, you should really. There's an amazing place called the Courtauld Institute of Art. It only takes a few people each year. I think in the year there's about 40 people. But he said I think you'd be in for a really good chance. And it was weird because I think I applied to do fine art at Oxford but then applied to do history of art and I got into the Courtauld and decided to do that and I think you know sometimes I've looked back and thought, oh, I could have gotten the trajectory of being an illustrator earlier on, but actually it was such an incredible, very traditional place at that time to study very intense learning. I had to academically grow a lot in that time to sort of pop with the level of education, but I think it's actually studying kind of classical history of art like that is something that really informs my way of thinking, thinking but also, I think, my approach to drawing. So I think it worked better in a way. I think I would have probably got a bit lost at art school, potentially too. So I'm really grateful for doing that.
20:36
But when I came out I did not want to write another essay. I didn't want to work in the commercial art world. I didn't want to work in the commercial art world. I didn't want to work in an auction house. So I basically waitressed in a member's bar in Knightsbridge for about two years and that was basically to fund, yeah, partying and traveling basically.
20:59
And then I, my friend, was working in adult education and she was working with young adults with learning difficulties and I think I was feeling a bit lost actually. But she said I think you'd love doing this and it's a great job and I'm leaving. And so I did that for a long time and I really loved that. I loved working with the students, but I knew that I didn't want to go into teaching with the students. But I knew that I didn't want to go into teaching and then I it clicked and I thought, oh, maybe I should get into sort of arts education and I think, socially, I always felt that I wanted to do something that felt positive, but outside the commercial world of art.
21:38
So I did an internship at the Dulwich Picture Gallery, which is a really, really beautiful small gallery but they probably had one of the most kind of forward thinking educational departments. They were one of the first to in the 80s get a lot of community and educational projects off the ground and that was amazing. And then I ended up doing maternity cover there on a young people's programme and then that ended up me working at the British Museum in their community department and that ended up working at the British Museum in their community department, which was amazing. The people I worked with were just so lovely. But also you'd get funding to work on a temporary exhibition, maybe with a curator engaging, sometimes like local community groups. Sometimes it would be about co-curation and kind of meaningful projects, I'd say, as well as running workshops and things like that.
22:28
But yeah, I think a bit what Rebecca was saying about. I think I had got to the point where I was doing it because I love the team I was working with and I saw the value of the work, but I was also feeling like this is a completely oversubscribed sector and I'm not really I'm not making the most of this job really and I think I was beginning to feel just a bit of detachment from it, I think. And it was around that time that I, that Rebecca and I met basically. But yeah, I did love it and I still occasionally do like sleepovers there with kids and their parents come, or I do family workshops because it's again, it probably links back to history of art and this idea of old things that I love. So I still find a lot of inspiration in places like that as well.
23:17
Yeah, that sounds like an incredible place to work in, but I echo with the two of you that sometimes comes a time when you know you're no longer in the right place and it's time to go and find pastures new.
23:31
Yes.
23:32
Thank you so much for sharing your story, Alice. I love the fact that you were a daydreamer. I wonder what did you think you were going to be as an adult? Did you ever dream of anything specific?
23:43
No, it's weird, isn't it? Because I do think that I mean, I did used to love animals and things. So I think if you would have asked me when I was like six or under 10, I probably would have said something to do with animals, I think, whether that would be a fair or. I always remember pretending to work in a zoo when I was a child and really enjoying that. But also I would say that my both my parents and they were worked really hard.
24:07
They were completely unprofessional, so they did jobs which gave them value in life, as in we'd go on nice holiday, we'd go on a holiday or we'd go out for a treat, for a meal, but when they were encouraging me to draw or to study history of art, we never really talked about work. And I think that might be quite similar to Rebecca as well. I feel like I've actually had to professionalize myself a lot because the object, the focus of my upbringing was always on knowledge, creativity, never really related to a career or money, and I didn't really see that in front of me, which is quite interesting, which is why I think it also took. I did lots of different things and prioritized traveling, having a good time, over actually getting to the nuts and bolts of what I really wanted to do.
25:01
I think I'm really glad I asked you that question, and I guess, in a sense, what I find so beautiful when we hear each other's stories is we realize all of the different ways one can experience being a human right. Because what you described about drawing on the family dining room table is incredibly far from what was going on my dining table, which is only really used for homework or dining. But then again, neither of my parents were artists and my father was a doctor, and that doesn't mean that the dining table was not a happy space. But it's love to hear this and to find echoes of what you then develop into. So now we've heard this, let's go to the meat of this, because your friendship is, let's say, the glue that holds four ivory together. So I'd love to hear about when the two of you met. Go on and interrupt each other.
26:04
It just feels really odd that there was a time that we didn't know each other. I think is the reality. So I had the idea. For forever, when I was still working at the charity, I'd been overland on the train from London to Hong Kong and I was trying to write a story, okay.
26:22
No, I have to stop you because you went. I remember I read this you went overland on a train from London to Hong Kong.
26:30
I've done quite a lot of journeys so I can talk about this quite some time. Yes, I did. I went from London to Hong Kong on a train and it was incredible. But the idea for Thrive came out of this when I got back to London and I can talk about that later. But when I got pregnant, I thought now is the time to get this idea that I've had off the ground. But I'm not an illustrator and so I need to find someone.
26:55
So I had just spoken to one woman in my life, roxy, who gave me my job at Catherine Hamnet and then introduced me to Alice and also was the reason why I met my husband. So it's pretty influential in my life, wow. So I had she'd put a post on Facebook, I think, for me and or had I put a post up and she had tagged a friend of yours and it was something. So it was just like a tagging on Facebook, really, that we kind of neutral. Then you just emailed me one of your, some of your, didn't you?
27:27
But I think immediately because Roxy, because I just trusted her so much, I was just like, oh, this is going to be a good fit, and so I remember so clearly going around to your house and I was eight weeks pregnant with my first child but couldn't tell you because it was in that weird don't tell people zone.
27:45
I mean, you're for me a gin and tonic and yeah, when I look back now I think, oh, that space was such an Alice space even all the way back then, when it was not the house that you live in now, with a certain fit, a certain Ross household feel to it, and, yeah, just how warm and welcoming Alice was, how frustrating it was that I couldn't say yes to the gin and tonic. And yeah, it's funny though, because I think we are close, but I think more. I feel like we are still learning about each other all the time though, and I think that's and, if anything, at the moment I think I feel frustrated. Yeah, but I think I feel frustrated in a way at the moment because we I was just thinking this morning I haven't spoken to Alice like chat, alice like just me and Alice, friend Alice, since Friday, which feels like ages, because we've been in meetings together but we haven't been like we talk about all kinds of nonsense. Obviously we haven't had a nonsense chat for too long.
28:41
Yes, and we probably don't get to. We often say as well, we miss that sort of 20s into the early 30s time of being quite reckless. Together we've been quite responsible friends, I think together.
28:53
I don't think Alice believes me that we haven't had lots of fun yeah, because we've never had an all-nighter together, which I think is weird, because that I don't want to talk to her, but we used to enjoy doing that kind of thing and I know Alice did too but we've never done that together. But in a way that's a really beautiful thing too.
29:11
It's just a different, I think we often feel that we can amazingly in touch would for the stresses that a business goes through. We haven't had a falling out personally or in business, and so I think we're very sensitive to each other's needs, we're really generous to each other and I think that we complement each other personally and in a business sense as well. I think there's lots of things that are similar about us, but we know that where Rebecca can drive business forward, where I'd be more resident Resident that's not the right word Resident- and I do get a lot of words wrong.
29:54
Alice gets a lot of words wrong.
29:59
Sometimes I can keep things in check a little bit more so that we can look at things before we move forward too. So I think, yeah, as Rebecca said, I couldn't imagine us not knowing now, and what kind of hole that would feel like in our lives of having been able to start something like Forever, but also of care. I think that there's a lot of care that we have for each other, which does feel like family.
30:24
Yeah, beyond it's not. It's a different thing to a regular friendship. I definitely consider Alice to be my family, yeah, and we get told we look like sisters it's quite funny.
30:39
It does happen all the time, yes, but I think, yeah, it's interesting what you were saying before about what's happening your dining room table, because I think one of the things Alice and I do have in common is that neither of us had this childhood where we had any experience like for either around us, no entrepreneurs in our world or anything like that. So I think together we've had to we've. We're both creative beings and we are having to transform together into being more business minded and, and I think within that we are complimentary. But I am so grateful for Alice because she has got her head into the things that I struggle with sometimes in terms of just being, yeah, the checks and balances. Alice is really good at that and I'm good at saying let's just do it.
31:31
Yes, it's true. You don't want two of you doing that.
31:35
I think sometimes it'd be better.
31:38
Business is quite a lot about speed, which is a weird way to describe it, I think, but you need someone to be thinking very fast and be thinking quite far in advance, which I think I really struggle. I even struggle with making plans two months in advance. I find it hard to commit to that for whatever reason. I don't think it's the simplest thing. I live in the here and now. It's just something in my personality and my makeup, but you really need that in business, but, yes, equally. Personality and my makeup, but you really need that in business, but, yes, equally. There's this attention to these small things that needs to get taken care of all the time, but, yeah, so I just my mind works in a slower pace, I think, than Rebecca's.
32:18
I can literally hear. I think I know you so well that I can. There's just like a particular tone of voice that you use when you're feeling a bit unsure. It's a very nuanced thing. You don't want to set because we don't ever have a fallout, but I can read you like a book and tell when you're not happy. And I think, because we are both sensitive, we I'm like, okay, I'm pushing Alice too much, but sometimes I do think I need to carry on with the push. Sometimes I'm like, no, actually this is now time for me to pull back, and I think it's. I think we're both good at doing that, maybe together.
32:57
You have to be a bit impressed by your business partner as well. It's that's I'd say I'm impressed with Rebecca as a person, which I'm sure that a lot of people close to her think, because you're a very highly competent person who's able to get things done, and I think I find that really quite enthralling and in some ways quite different from who I am, even though I think that we're similar. So I think that's a nice dynamic to have.
33:21
If I do something, rebecca would always tell me like if she loves a drawing or whatever I do, and that will always give me a nice boost.
33:29
That's one of the greatest joys is, for me is working with someone like Alice as well. When she does, when Alice could you just rustle up a something and in comes this like incredibly beautiful thing that has been plucked out of her incredible imagination, and so, yeah, I think that you're right. I think being impressed and I think that's alongside the more practical I think that's what's amazing about Alice is she's incredibly creative and talented with her illustration, but also has this very meticulous mindset, too, with things like our accounts, which I've done.
34:06
That does sound like a very interesting marriage of skills.
34:09
Yeah, it is. Yes, I think it's fair to say that we adore each other.
34:18
So I wanted to ask you mentioned you were daydreaming, or I read that you were half asleep on that train when you had the idea for Foriver. I need to tell you, by the way, that when I first read it since my first language is French I read it in my mind as Forivore.
34:39
Oh, yes, we do get it.
34:41
Which is very funny. So every time I'm going to see a survivor, I'm going to have an internal giggle about this. What was the first vision that you had in that sort of Yoga Nidra-esque space on the train?
34:53
I was actually back home at my flat when I had the idea, but I was asleep. I was, I think, in that moment between being asleep and awake is all I remember is.
35:04
Yeah, I was.
35:06
So I'd been trying to write this story for my goddaughter. I'd taken a monkey, a little teddy monkey, on the train with me and I was going to photograph it and take and make little stories about all the things that got up to for my goddaughter, because I didn't have my own children at this point. She's my first goddaughter and and I was struggling to write the story. I don't know why, but I was struggling to write it. And I'd also been that day to John Lewis to look for bedding and I just couldn't find any organic bedding that I liked and it was just all so boring. And I was thinking about how boring it was, about how we needed to increase the market share of organic cotton in the world, because it was only at 1%. I think it's probably still only 1%, because that takes a long time to get that up. It might be a little bit more now. It must be a bit more, but it's not significantly more.
35:53
And I was also thinking about this moment of bedtime and I don't know why I was thinking about this when I didn't have my own children, but I was thinking about I must have been thinking back to my own childhood maybe, and thinking what a kind of special time that time is and what a shame it is to lose that special time to modern technology. I think it's essentially where my brain was thinking like that this time. Sometimes can we take? Sometimes iPads or televisions are used in replacement of a book and a cuddle from your mum, maybe, and I think that's really sad. So all these kind of random, different thoughts must have been kind of percolating in my brain.
36:38
And, yeah, and I just woke up and I remember saying to my husband oh, I've had this idea. I said I just had this idea. I was thinking about this bedding which so you can learn about wildlife on one side and you have fat cards that teach you all about them and they're all hidden away and then at night time, when you make your bed, all those animals have turned into magical creatures and you can tell stories about them. Because that's a way to nurture two really important things in terms of solving the planet's problems in a child as they grow up so a passion for nature, and I think that we just need to be creative to solve problems. That's a really key skill is creativity and solving problems.
37:25
So, yeah, so that's where they, that's where the idea came from. It was quite a lots of, lots of sporadic thoughts, but I think that's the way my brain works. As I cast the net quite wide and pull things together, I think I like to join dots up. Yeah, so it definitely was. It was strange that it happened in that moment, but that's when it did it's funny.
37:47
What year was it that you had the idea and that you got started?
37:50
I had the idea in 2012. So a couple of years before I met Alison. What was it? February 2014, something like that, 2014. And then we launched the business in 2016.
38:05
Yes.
38:06
I have to say so. You have no idea of knowing this about me, but I remember very well discovering my favorite sheet when I moved to new york and I lived there for three years and I realized that, unlike most people, I couldn't afford to wait three months for a bed to arrive. I needed a bed as soon as possible. Yeah, and so I went to the holy grail of interiors for me in New York called ABC Carpet and Home.
38:34
That was on our hit list for a long time to be stopped. Oh, I can tell that this is for you yeah.
38:39
I mean that's just over your brand and I found the most amazing bed which has followed me all the way back to Switzerland, and a really interesting, beautiful bedding and at that point I had not yet been to India and I discovered an amazing range very eclectic, multicolored, very boho-y. The cotton is not organic but it's very fine in its block print and I have fallen in love and have never looked back ever since. I can't look at other kind of bedding. And I have fallen in love and have never looked back ever since I can't look at other kind of bedding, Because once you discover something that has that sort of fantastical quality and magic.
39:14
And so I feel, even though you have no idea of knowing this about me, when your lovely Ella contacted me for you guys to be on the podcast and I looked at your work, I was like, oh, this is what I needed all my life. I was like, oh, this is what I needed all my life. But I find a real sense of connection to what you're describing, because you can have that such a special moment of getting into bed, Even though I do suffer from what I think is called bedtime procrastination, which when you just can't get up and can't make yourself go to your bedroom, but I know that every time I get in I have this moment of just delight. So that you connected to this and wanted to bring it to kids with this whole other magical universe, is very special.
40:01
That's really. It's funny, isn't it? Because I think thinking about it in that way it makes it resonate again with me. Weirdly, because we do think about it. But it's funny how, when you get caught in the mechanics of your business, you sometimes forget to look back. And I yes, I feel like that about.
40:18
I think I'm a bit of a bedtime procrastinator too in some ways, in that I just I think I just am excited by life and I want to do all the things.
40:27
So, even though I love going to bed, I'm not I wish I was one of my friends oh, I went to bed at 8.30 last night I'm like, oh, there's too much other stuff I want to do, but when I get there, that moment is like no other, isn't it? It's just such a special moment in your day. I really think that actually extrapolating that out, teaching healthy bedtime routines to children is yeah, it's and adults and adults. It's really such an important part of well-being, and I've had my own health issues and I had breast cancer and I had to really teach myself. When I first had my diagnosis, I really had to drill into my bedtime routine hard to get my sleep to work for me and it really taught me a lot actually having to do that, because obviously the stress was quite overwhelming and you, yeah, I had to pull everything out and really work out what was going to work and I don't need all those tools anymore, but I know what they are, should I need them.
41:32
Yeah, thanks for sharing that, and I'm glad that you're OK. Yeah, me too, I'm sure. So what was it like for you, alice?
41:44
when you first heard about it, I think it felt like a step away from museum and gallery work, but it equally was just going to be a side project because the commission was just going to be for our first Enchanted Forest collection and, interestingly, my practice isn't really based around nature or animals.
42:11
Yeah, I saw lots of shoes right.
42:13
Yeah, lots of shoes women normally more interested in drawing those things. But I didn't feel that was a barrier and I think that's because I saw within the concept of Thrive, as I would describe it, that almost more than that was the idea of transformation and sort of endless possibilities, which I think is true of Thrive it can go anywhere. Over the years I'd had people come up to me with commissions and work that I'd done and sometimes if you don't chime with something, you don't look forward to it that much. But having met Rebecca and just found out more about the idea I wasn't oh, I'll just get this done. I did feel excited about it.
42:52
But I also just thought it was going to be that commission and we can't remember at what point Rebecca was like would you like to come on board? But it must have been quite soon, I think. Probably I did some sketches. Probably I did some sketches, maybe I'd done the final artwork and then maybe because we must have met each other quite a few times before we decided to become business partners and that happened.
43:15
I think it was quite early on, because I remember thinking it's not just this that we'll need to launch, it's all the other things, and there's so much more need of illustration than what I could possibly afford to pay you at that time. And we obviously really got on and I just thought, yeah and I didn't. I was just like, yeah, let's just do it, if you want to.
43:39
So it felt, and I think we both had other things going on Rebecca was going to be on maternity leave, but that maybe there was going to be time to focus on this. I was still working at the British Museum and the National Portrait Gallery, so it was. I guess it started off as something we spent an awful lot of time on, but we still had other things that we were doing, and it stayed like that, as it does for a lot of businesses, for quite a long time as well. So what it meant to us to start a business at that time is interesting to think about, because there's a lot of people say if you would anyone start a business if you knew about your VAT bills and shipping and logistics and all the other things that become a much bigger part of how your time is spent a lot of the time. So you're in that kind of. It's almost like the kind of what do they call it? The first dating things that kind of.
44:31
Oh yeah, the honeymoon period.
44:34
That first bit of starting a business is a mystery, isn't it? You're not into the nuts and bolts yet, or because we weren't from a business background. That's a very free time, I think, and quite a special time.
44:50
So I wanted to ask, before we go any further, about the name for Iva Rebecca. I think this one is for you.
44:56
It is indeed for me, for Iva is named after my dad. My dad was called Iva and he sadly passed away in 2005, when I was 25, living in Paris, and yeah, so it means forever either, and it's just that simple. Yeah, so it was to honor him, and there's other ways that we honor him in our collections as well, which there's a phrase that actually he used to say to me in French. He was a complete Francophile. He would always write at the end of his emails, which means I hope the bird of paradise flies around you always, and he would riff on this theme and say I hope the bird of paradise lands on your forehead and random stuff, because he was quite an eccentric person, but it was a very beautiful sentiment, and so that's written into all of our designs on little banners and things, and it's yeah, it's a really lovely, beautiful thing, and so it just it's weird.
45:51
I had the name Priva before I had the idea for the company. It was always going to be Priva. Whatever I did was going to be Priva, so yeah, that's beautiful.
46:03
And so now I think for it's almost unfair at this point for our listeners, who don't know all of the details about your company, whereas I've done my research, so I know everything that there is to know about Forever. Is there anything that's available on your current website? Could you please describe in a few words what the company stands for and what it does today? Who wants to?
46:27
take this out. Do you want me to take it? You know, I think in a simple way, we want to grow, we wanted to grow the organic marketplace and we wanted to do that by instilling in children a sort of love and passion for nature. But I think we're also aware that's also inherently there with children. So we're speaking to an adult audience about that and really being evocative actually for parents of those things that they loved as children as well, and that they can see the value in those things as a kind of vicarious way that hopefully becomes important to all of the family.
47:05
But increasingly and this may not be the same for Rebecca, because obviously we can say that we're sustainable and that we use organic cotton and, where we can, we try to be really aware of the impact that we have. But in a slightly different way from that, we are really aware about how we talk about the environment around children as well as adults, and how, by slightly changing that, we can have a different outlook. Because I think it's really difficult, I really feel, for parents at the moment. I know when I'm with my nieces and we start talking about politics, the environment, it's quite scary for them and I think that it's. We're full of a sort of negative rhetoric around a lot of things that we discuss, which is alarming even for an adult, so how does that feel to a child?
47:56
Whereas I think what we can try and do with things like Forever is actually say we're incredible too and we can become well informed and creative to make positive change as well.
48:11
And I think that a really good example of that is the book that accompanies our collection, the Space Above the Ground, all about air and bird migration, because I think interviewing people that are working within the field of nature and activism in the most brilliant, genius, bonkers and inspiring way is actually a much better way to try to encourage children to become active members of our community that care about the planet as well.
48:44
So I think that's where yeah, I think at the beginning we're talking about what Friva was and sustainability felt more like that, but I think under it, underpinning it, was always something about human power as well, which I think is something we need to get back to thinking about as well. And, on top of all the bad world news stories, it would be nice if we like celebrated all the amazing research, all the incredible things that are happening, which I know are also at risk at the moment because of things that are happening at the world and where money is going and how research and everything like that's being affected. That's what I think is important about Priva.
49:24
And it's maybe worth saying that the premise for that book when we first did it was about giving children ideas. Even if they're quite out there, ideas are a handful of jobs in reality and actually in this book you've got incredible humans who are doing brilliant things to save the planet, from a meteorologist through to a comedian astrophysicist, to this incredible lady, sasha Dench, who runs the charity called Conservation Without Borders, and she follows the Buick Swan from Siberia to Gloucestershire on a microcopter thing. So there's all these really inspiring individuals a biodynamic farmer, different kinds of things to give ideas to people and for them to connect it back to the bedding as well, because there's all those different themes going on in the bedding for them to connect it back to the bedding as well, because there's all those different themes going on in the bedding for them to explore. Before I ever started out really making bedding for children, initially the idea was for duvet sets and the duvet sets have a daytime side and they have a nighttime side and the daytime side is explores, different habitats, and we started with the forest habitat and one side is full of wildlife that is hidden away which you want to find, because children like to find little hidden things. And with the bedding you get a set of cards and the cards give you facts about all that wildlife, a bit like top trumps, so you can find their weight and conservation status, what they like to eat, and then a little bit of a narrative fact as well. And then when you turn it over at night, all those animals that you've found on the daytime side they've all transformed into these magical creatures on the other side. And on the back of the card it gives you a little story about who they've turned into at night and who their friends are, and other little tidbits of information to make up stories.
51:28
And we changed that format ever so slightly on different things. So the first two collections that we did the first collection is the Enchanted Forest and with that collection we just launched with a duvet set and we thought, oh, while we're doing this, why don't we make a quilted blanket? And I think, like all these things, oh, the quilted blanket's all better than the duvet set. That's funny, and that's funny. And then we added some sheets in and complementary products to a children's bedroom. But we don't have a huge range. But I suppose what we like to do with each new collection is explore a different thing, maybe not to be wed to the same product line. So we've made jumpsuits and night dresses for our first collection with the sheets, and some embroidered cushions, some night dresses for our first collection with the sheets and some embroidered cushions.
52:10
And then then we did the legends of the sea collection, which actually, in terms of our research and the concept, I think has been the most fulfilling so far for us to do, and I think the reason for that is that we decided right the next collection after the forest should be the sea. So we got in the car and we drove to North Walesales, to this angle sea zoo it's called, and they only have british marine wildlife there, and it's in such a beautiful place I don't know if you've ever been to angle sea, but it's beautiful. It looks out across this place called the menai straits. They look across water to the snowdonia mountains. It's just glorious, a bit like geneva water and mountains. It's beautiful anyway.
52:47
So we went to this Anglesey Sea Zoo and researched all the wildlife for the collection there and I think being together with the actual wildlife that we're researching really brought that to life. So we walked in. There were these juvenile stingrays and I'll always remember this because they were one of the first animals we saw and they were like dancing up against their tanks as we went in and we were just captivated by them. And Remy was little, wasn't she my daughter? She was a little girl and we just had such a good time looking at them and they're like they've got to be cabaret dancers in the nighttime side and it's so interesting.
53:23
I think you recommended visiting there and I think at the time I thought, yeah, cool, that will be. Yeah, I'll do a trip to the aquarium, why not? It's been a long time, but I hadn't really thought what an impact that would have, because I think what you're seeing then is you're seeing really what's on your doorstep, and seeing like a cuttlefish, like camouflage in with its surroundings on your doorstep within whales, is just mind-blowing, and so I think it had a huge impact on how excited we felt about even the common UK prawn. I was just like, when you see them close up, all these things that we sort of eat that's most people's experience of things like that or cod is that we might eat them if we're what's the fish with?
54:08
is it, I want to say wolffish? The fish with the antifreeze, and it's, yes, wolffish, yeah, exactly so cool. Has this kind of special antifreeze in its body that enables it to go to low, low depths.
54:20
Yeah, it just stays with you somehow when you do that kind of research, and I think that's why, for now, we've kept the collections really based on nature that we can see here, which we did the same for the space buzzer ground, which features birds, moths, butterflies and beetles that you find here, and I think we want to do something in the future, but that we'd probably want to travel travel there as well. So there's something lovely about being able to research what you might actually be able to see.
54:51
And I think, actually going back to the kind of reason why Forever can start, I think rhinos have always been my favourite animal and I've always wanted to protect them or had always had a lifelong passion, interest for them, and that's because I had a rhino teddy bear and I connected with it and ever since then they've just always been my favorite animal. I think that sort of taught me this kind of strength of what you connect with as a child tracks through your life. So if you connect with something really powerfully, like I did with my rhino, it can stay with you and inform what you choose to do, what you choose support. So I would probably choose support save the rhino over the charity, because that was my childhood experience, I suppose.
55:37
so, um, yes, and I yes moving, yeah, sorry we've done a lot to talk over each other.
55:45
Yeah, we have also was trying just then as well. The dog, sorry she was having a little whoop in the background, did you hear? No worries?
55:52
no, I just vaguely heard it. Mine also had tried to.
55:56
I was going to say when we started off I think what Rebecca was talking about there wasn't a lack of sort of plain, high-end bedding for kids, but I think what we always think. So once we do that research, I always go away and think if I was a child, what would I want to look at, what would delight my eyes, what are the details that I'd love to find and create stories with? And I think that's. I love simple, repeat designs. I love simple plain linens, but I think that children designs I love simple plain linens, but I think that children, in the way that they love book illustration and the way that they want to immerse themselves in a different world, that's something that I think is really important to us and a big motivating factor and that's what I mean.
56:39
That will delight parents too. But I think there's definitely people out there that still want plain bedding because that kind of goes with their aesthetic and their interior more. But I think I think people will see the value in our thing because it become it really does become part of people's family's life, and that's what we hear back from people, which is always just so lovely to hear for us.
57:05
It makes it really ring true. I think that the kind of fabric of life sort of sentiment, because I think that because I've had our stuff through 10 years of being a parent in my house, it feels like this really beautiful backdrop to lots of different varied times and I think that's such a beautiful thing. And actually we have expanded a collection. So another kind of almost by chance thing that we did well, we might as well try it on baby muslins and then they flew out the door and we're like, oh, that was good, that worked.
57:41
So we have expanded more into the baby world, because before we sold our quilts as a really beautiful first baby gift.
57:48
But it's a really beautiful first baby gift but it's a really high-end gift and it's not a gift that everyone's going to give because they are quite a high price point. But our baby muslins enabled that to be a kind of more of an everyday gift. A new baby and I don't think it has as extended that idea that it tracks with your family, say, right from the early days, and people like to take those muslins and put them on the wall and or frame them with different things with them so they live with them, or if they have the larger sizes, they'll just stay with the baby as they grow. And it fills me with huge joy the families that I know whose teenagers still have their private bedding and it's their favorite thing and they take it with them everywhere. And we know that because either lovely customers that tell us or because it's our friends, who've obviously all supported us since the beginning and got all of our stuff and they have.
58:37
This might come up more with a later question, but I think that we started more with kids stuff because we were also thinking about the longevity of those products and that a quilt will last forever and a duvet has a pretty long shelf life and even the value for money on that being a high-end product. So that's why we didn't really start with babies first. So I think one thing that we always think about, even with baby products, is this is something that has to be treasured. It has to have versatility, so we've stayed away from some baby products that we know have a shorter life span.
59:14
Of course, I think is one thing to say, and it's quite difficult, because there are lots of lovely baby things that you could do that we know would sell really well as well, but we do abstain, in a way, I think, from those products as much as possible. We do clothing which you can argue the children will grow out of.
59:30
But I think that most people will pass it on to a friend or a cousin or it rarely gets discarded for the sake of it and, being an organic cotton, even if it ended up somewhere sad like a landfill, it's regenerative. But so as I discovered your collections and I looked at each of the designs, I could not believe how beautiful the worlds you were creating. And I'm not saying this because you're on my podcast, because I could tell you something else.
01:00:04
I felt like the illustration. There is something about the way that you must have used paint, Alice, as well as drawn, that gave me and I am not an artist, but that gave me more of a sense of a world like you were building, a world within those beddings or those quilts, a world like you were building a world within those beddings or those quilts. The only way I can say it now is it doesn't look flat, if that makes sense. It felt like you were taking me somewhere, and now I understand a little bit more about the depth of the research that you guys are doing as you create these collections. I understand how for me, it seems to come through even in photography. When I look at the product, I understand that there is a certain amount of myth and storytelling weaved in. I'd love for you to tell me more. So I understand how you researched for the Under the Sea collection, but in general, where do you find your inspiration for the more mythical storytelling aspects of this?
01:01:17
I think probably both of us just tap into being children again in one sense, with some adult perspectives thrown in there, but I think that there is. There's a great quote, which I'm probably going to get wrong now in in, in, in time, what is a myth becomes history. I think that's. There's a truth to that line which I always think about was, which is that you're asking what is reality, what isn't reality, which I think also goes back to the idea of Rebecca getting the idea in between sleep and waking life, which is this sort of magical moment.
01:01:47
And I think increasingly, since being involved with Thrive, I'm more and more interested in that sort of realm where reality meets imagination. But I think the Legends of the Sea was probably the most demanding one, because for the Enchanted Forest, for example, we can say, okay, the badger at night becomes part of a musical band that are playing these secret roots of the tree. But when, with the fish, how could you make an octopus more spectacular than it already is, because it already does so many almost magical things? So that's where I think we had to develop the stories more about the creatures.
01:02:29
I feel like we talked about some of those more, perhaps, at that point than others, because I feel like sometimes Alice will just deliver all these incredible things that she's pulled out of her imagination, but I feel like some of them we yeah, we have chatted about what they could do and I can't remember specific ones, but it's but, yeah, informed by that, informed by what they are already able to do as these incredible creatures, and I think sometimes we find it even ridiculous that we need to make them magical because they are beyond cool anyway. And I, someone posted something on Instagram the other day and it was not to dismiss dinosaurs, because I think dinosaurs are amazing, but they were basically saying why do we feed our children so much about dinosaurs, these animals that no longer exist, when there is so much incredible wildlife to learn about that we can fascinate ourselves with and then become passionate about, and etc. Etc. So I think that something that I think that is true of fiverr in a way that this kind of factual side it definitely leads into the magical, mythical side. But, yeah, I think we I think it's also informed by the books and things that we also probably loved.
01:03:48
As a child, I loved this book Trouble for Trumpets, which I don't know if you've ever. I've probably got a copy. I'm looking over there. I've got a copy, usually in my office somewhere. It's a beautiful book and it's like this incredible sort of they're bear, not bears, but they're bears. But they live in this kind of underground realm, that kind of poke up into the real world as well. At times they interact with the real world but they're actually living in this underground world. It's very cool. The illustrations are amazing. So for me that's always been a lovely source of inspiration. But I think what's amazing is that Alice has some really good tricks up her sleeve for making everything magical, but I don't know how she does all those incredible drawings making badges, hold drumsticks, stuff like that.
01:04:31
That sounds like a real unique skill Sorry, the challenge is also, I think, with animals, of wanting to make them sweet but somehow based on a reality.
01:04:43
So if you're trying to draw an intricate moth wing, how do you then distill that into something simpler but which also you're happy with the drawing? So sometimes I think that's the challenge of bringing all of those things together. But I think that, yeah, but I think overall that's the thing is that you are tapping into something that is both real and unreal, because I was thinking kids love, they just love that idea, don't they, of a little door in a tree with the family sitting inside, the little family of squirrels. But that's true, isn't it? Those creatures are inhabiting that tree or they are near the roots of the tree. So there's always this sort of yeah, I think they're overlapping each other a lot of the time and I think Rebecca's right in one sense how can we make bird more incredible than it is? But you have to. That storytelling part is that you're like providing a kind of framework and then you're hoping that the child will be doing the rest.
01:05:36
I think the other thing that we have thought about with the storytelling thing I know we've had many conversations about this is that interesting thing in children's literature which is that kind of darkness which is very appealing to children, and there must be a reason why lots of children's literature is really quite dark. It's like how do you get that sort of slight jeopardy into something which is a bedtime thing, which you need jeopardy in a story a certain amount, but you don't want to make it really scary because it needs to be accessible? Those kind of nuances are quite important to us. We don't want it to be too generic, we want it to have its own unique identity, but in reality nothing is completely new anymore. We're repurposing ideas always. Yeah.
01:06:20
I'm so glad you said that. I guess it wasn't something I was keenly aware of, but there is something about that dark versus light, those two worlds living on either side of the bedding, like, so to speak. Yeah, and there's something already magical about having access to both of them. That's wonderful, Rebecca. I wondered if you wanted to speak to how you approached the sustainable and ethical nature of the business, not just how you set it up, but what you feel it's looking like today.
01:06:54
Yeah. So I think that I have some frustration, in all honesty, with being a small business and what you can actually do as a small business, because there are some limits. I also think that the landscape has changed so much in terms of sustainability and I think there's lots of really good things happening, but I think really to stand out as a sustainable brand in a way, you need to be being really innovative. Perhaps Our interest isn't really in innovation of new materials or things like that. That's not our kind of USP. Let's say we obviously we use all organic cotton and work with organic printers, and we talk to our manufacturers a lot about various different things in our supply chain, like the removal of plastic, which is just such a big one. For me, I think one of those areas is our quilted blankets that have a recycled polyester interior in them for the moment, and the reason why they still have that is because they wash well with a recycled polyester interior and that's something that parents want, and so, in terms of longevity, that is important. But we have thought really long and hard about it and I would like to, at some point in the future, change that. We've tried with organic cotton wadding, but the cotton wadding moves around inside the bank, so it's not as durable really essentially. But I've made my piece with it in the kind of shorter term because the blankets don't get washed loads because they're blankets. So in terms it's a recycled polyester in terms of what's going out into the aquifer when it's washed. It's also encased in a really fine mesh organic cotton satin, so it's going to be encasing most of its microplastics within its blanket. So, even though it's not ideal in terms of sleep health, I would rather it had something different for children to have over the top of them. For now it's something that we keep on our agenda, that we want to change, but there hasn't been a good alternative yet. Possibly will, but it's really complex because we make in India and these are things that when you're a small business, it's as much time to really invest in that as well as the finances. That is challenging. So that's one that's more kind of globally.
01:09:13
In terms of the products, we definitely have ideas for things that we would like to do in the future. We make tons if there's any production. We don't have production waste, basically because we just make stuff out of it. So it's either the little pouches that our cards go in or we make hot water bottles, but then the irony of that becomes the hot water bottles are really popular. So then you make hot water bottles because people want to buy them. So it's this kind of thing where it's like production waste but then it becomes a product people want, so then you have to make it anyway.
01:09:41
So that's an interesting thing that I think there needs to be more honesty about in businesses. That it's like that's where it starts its journey, but if you don't have the waste, you don't have the waste, but you still want to sell it because you still need to make money. So that's a reality of business. In terms of the plastics, I remember the first shipment we got from India. I still have some of the plastic bags that it came in and I was just like horrified. They're like really heavy duty plastic bags. The reason I've still got them is that they are really durable and they last forever and they never break down the environment. So I keep them in use lots of different things. But that kind of taught us a lesson in terms of being really strict with our suppliers what we don't want them to do, I suppose. So it's being really clear.
01:10:24
We made our suitcases in canvas, so the duvet sets and the blankets get put in the organic cotton suitcase and that's what they get sent to the customers in. So there's they. Our customers don't receive anything in plastic in the post and that's the same. Coming from India. They, nightwear and stuff comes in compostable plastic bags because it has to be separated, even though I would like to change somehow. And then I think the thing that's interested me the most recently is that our manufacturer sent us a video and he had put our quilted blankets into a vacuum pack and made them tiny, so normally we would fit like six in a box coming from India, but vacuum packed 25 or something like that, like a vast increase.
01:11:11
And what you then have is a decision between carbon emissions and cost reduction as well and a plastic. And at the moment we're going for the carbon emissions because it also reduces our cost and it makes sense. But really now what we're trying to feed in is to find those bags in compostable plastic if they're going to be strong enough. But compostable plastic is also not as green as it seems because they're not genuinely plastic free. I think is the problem a lot of the time. So my friend who I was mentioning, who takes the photographs for us, eleanor, who used to work at the charity. She made an incredible feature documentary called X Trillion and that research. She went with an all-female crew to the Pacific Jaya, which is the great garbage what's it called.
01:11:57
Yeah, I've heard about it, I've seen it. The.
01:12:00
Pacific oh my God, what's happened to my brain. Lots of garbage in the Pacific Ocean. Her and lots of women sailed there and she made this really amazing documentary about it, and I think that's really her dedication to that as an issue has really, yeah, given me motivation to really drill down into it. I think, and and just to keep reminding our factory what, like even what's, the fabric arriving in when it comes to you as yet we don't yet have the answer to that and I this is where I want to push further we want to join up our supply chain. So it comes from this beautiful vertical supply chain where they grow the cotton and they mill it. I think that we that's where we started out, but there was issues with print consistency because they were sourcing out the print, so it was complicated, but really we want to be making that all together.
01:12:52
But these things are complex for small businesses who don't have huge buying power. That's where we're up to, and it's interesting to look at companies like House of Hackney that are giving the environment a place on their board. I think Faith in Nature were the first one to do that. So every company decision you make, nature holds you accountable for it, and I think that moving forward is something that I think all businesses need to be aiming for. It's also, I think there's lots of barriers to businesses doing the right thing, and I think that things like there's not much support to help you when you don't have the infrastructure yourself.
01:13:30
There's not that many incentives for a small company and support at all, I think. But I also think that geopolitically, at the moment it feels like we're coming from this globalized world where things were done badly, like shipping and production, but we're having this on this global stage and now it feels like those things are breaking apart a little bit. We are going to be having to look in the next few years of what our production even looks like based in India, realistically, and I think a lot of countries are going to start looking back at manufacturing in their own countries, but at the moment that's not possible for us.
01:14:09
I mean, it's really interesting, though, I think the UK manufacturer. We had a customer email us recently saying I'm just curious, why do you not make in the UK? And I wrote her a fairly long email back saying there's various reasons. It's a costing our products are already expensive and they'd have to be so much more expensive that are made in the UK. But also the reality is we don't grow cotton in this country as much as I would love to have a product that was made closer to home that's where my heart resides in more crafty kind of things like that, but it's not a reality for the product that we've designed. Sure, yeah.
01:14:44
I think that's interesting. You should say this because I think that there are some countries that are the best in the world at one particular thing, and I think India really owns the craft around cotton. Yeah, and the craftsmanship that comes out of India is just absolutely amazing and exquisite, and I'm not sure how many factories in Europe, not even just the UK, would be able to produce anything that looks remotely like what you offer yeah yeah.
01:15:08
I think it's just staying on top of, or keeping on asking the questions within your own supply chain and of your manufacturers, of where you're up to and stuff, because I'm thinking we're launching wallpaper this year and that's been a long climb in the coming. Yes, it's really exciting, but we have been me particularly I've been dragging my heels because although you can get a pure wood pulp paper, it doesn't have the best finish and it isn't going to stay on your wall for as long, and so the best paper that all the best wallpaper companies use has a certain amount of plastic within it, and that has been really bothering me deeply. We've just been talking to the manufacturer again and is there anything coming down the line that isn't going to have plastic in it? And he said, okay, there is one that's coming that's got to have 70% recycled plastic in it. Like, why is it taking this long? There will be something in the next few years, but as many businesses like ours asking those questions keep asking.
01:16:10
Exactly If the consumers keep on asking who are the client.
01:16:13
Yeah, so it's just just keep coming back and it's I've asked that question many times, but I will keep asking it until it's a yes. They will only ask it the manufacturers. If someone's asking them, it's to recognize in your own small way, where you do hold a little bit of sway, I suppose.
01:16:31
I was going to say power, but yeah, maybe power, so completely different track, but I love cooking, so I have particular stakes in there. Different track, but I love cooking, so I have particular stakes in there. I heard that you're launching a cookbook with your newest collection.
01:16:47
Tell me more about that. Yes, so our new collection is called Once Upon a Feast, and it's a bit of a departure from our other collections actually, but in a way not at all, because what it does is one side is an afternoon tea setting and it's actually very pretty in a way, and at all, because what it does is one side is an afternoon tea setting and is actually very pretty in a way. And then the other side is this magical midnight feast and my son's favorite of all of Alice's drawings so far. But the afternoon tea is made up of foods where an element at least could be found in your garden or your hedgerow element at least could be found in your garden or your hedgerow. And the idea of that collection is that it, like bedtime. Is this really unique special time in family life? I believe, and I don't think everyone agrees with me, but that mealtimes also are a really special time in family life.
01:17:36
I do love cooking. I definitely get cooking fatigue, like every normal person, but I do love it. I definitely get cookie fatigue, like every normal person, but I do love it. But mealtimes in our house are really that is, we always eat together every breakfast and dinner and lunch, if we're all here, and so the idea for the book is that they are. It's centered around afternoon tea and kind of feasting, but it's the same as the afternoon tea. So it's elements that you could pick from your garden or from the hedgerow to include in delicious treats that children enjoy making. And I'm keen I'm still finishing it off at the moment in terms of the final recipes, but I'm really trying to make sure that there's some healthier options in there, because I've been on a whole health journey myself and I was raised eating organic food and healthily, and I don't really want to be encouraging huge amounts of sugar intake. But the recipe book is designed to encourage children to, I guess, just be more flexible cooks, because it's so great when you're in the kitchen to be able to say I haven't got this but hey, look, there's this, and that really feeds into what's available in terms of the season.
01:18:46
So the easiest example being a sponge cake, which I think you can adapt your sponge cake so easily to any season that there is to make it just a little bit more delicious. For example, you know, if it's the height of summer, you chuck some raspberries in it. If you've got raspberries, just chuck some blackberries as it goes into autumn, maybe layer some apples in the bottom of the pan, or it's very simple things. If you haven't got anything at all in the depth of winter, go into the spice cupboard and get some caraway or some cinnamon and bits and pieces like that. And then little fun things like making like a you can make like your creams, make a little cordial to make your cream go pink and for the icing of the cake and stuff like that. So it's fun.
01:19:23
But the idea is, yeah, it's got little like the characters that are on the midnight feast. They're cooking, they're cooking like a birthday party. So the little stories woven into the recipes as well. They were waiting underneath the raspberry bush for it to ripen and then the blackbird came and stole the raspberries. So they've got this one to come and fly them up to the cherry tree to pick some ripe cherries for top of the cake instead. So just, it's a bit sweeter and maybe not as in-depth as some of the other storytelling, but it's like a different tack and I think that's what's really nice for Thrivers, that we can. Yeah, I think we're a concept brand so we can go. Okay, this is what we want to explore, and so this time we've got tablecloths and napkins and baby bibs and yeah, it's fun. It's like a really fun entry, I think yeah, action.
01:20:08
And going back to what we were talking about, what is Friver about? And this really it's a sort of ode to children's imagination and the idea of a midnight feast and what it means. And then we've realized that a midnight feast and what it means, and then we've realized that a midnight feast is quite a British thing in a way and isn't necessarily universal. The idea that you would do something when your parents were asleep and you'd go down and you'd help yourself and make this amazing food that you weren't allowed in the daytime but so innocent, but again on the fringes of what is considered naughty when you're a child. So in lots of ways it's a celebration of that.
01:20:47
But we will be looking at the connection of, obviously, cotton agriculture and food agriculture because obviously they're coming from the same place and soil and how important that is. So that's, yeah, it will be different, but I think that's where we'll be able to touch on some of the things that we want to connect the dots up for, not just for children, for adults. I think a lot of adults don't think about that either. You know where your common sleeping comes from.
01:21:12
I did a nice talk in my children's school recently actually with this kind of idea in mind, which was what does a T-shirt and a tomato have in common? And the children were like they're both red. And I was like, maybe, if the t-shirt's red, maybe they're both red. But it was actually really incredible in terms of what we were talking about before, because I said, oh, I take some cotton sticks in with me and they looked at them and I was saying, oh, your t-shirt comes from the ground, just like your tomatoes do.
01:21:37
And we're making tea towels with the school and I had called up the manufacturer of the tea towels and they'd given me this kind of breakdown of where the tea towels had come from, and on a big map in front of the children. I was like so the cotton is grown in America and then it's put on a ship to Pakistan I need to remember that and then it's where it's woven into a fabric and then it's shipped all the way to the UK where it's printed and made into a tea towel. So it's like literally gone like around the world and back again to come to you to be a tea towel. And I was like every product that you wear has probably done a similar journey. So I think it is in terms of kind of food for thought for the collection like that will be within the book.
01:22:15
This full cycle idea it needs to come out of the ground and go back to the ground, like all the things that we wear and use, should be able to have that journey. It should be full cycle and obviously at the moment our quilted blankets can't go back to the ground because they've got recycled polyester in, but it's really important that we can also say that to our customers. This is one of our products that can't do that at the moment but hopefully in the future it will be able to.
01:22:44
So, yeah, I actually really like to have the full information and I prefer to hear where people can't yet do everything that they want, but that they tell me and that it's clear. I feel more connected to brands that tell me they can't get it than to those that are pretending that they're doing everything right when it's blatant that they're not. And it's interesting that dichotomy, because my coach, martha Beck, she likes to say that our bodies are truth seeking machines. We have this innate system to filter out the BS, and so when I hear you say that, I hear the truth of what you're doing.
01:23:15
I think that many brands could get inspired by the way that you're talking about this, because because in being so explicit you create trust, and trust is created in small actions and every time that we do or say something and that we build on that, then your consumers, they're going to continuously feel more connection and trust to you because of how direct and how clear you are.
01:23:38
I think that's increasingly important as well as sustainability has become more mainstream, in a way, and more commercialized, maybe. So brands have cottoned on to the fact that it started out with fair trade cotton. When I was first interested, it was we use fair trade cotton and I was always like hang on, but what about the environment here? What about the pesticides that are going into the ground? And then it was organic and now it is. It's so spreading out. But maybe now that is how you tell, as you're saying, how you tell the brands apart.
01:24:09
I was going to say the more brands, the more it comes up that brands are having a similar problem with moving forward in a greener way, then that's a shared problem which becomes more highlighted. I think so it's showing the gaps in where small businesses struggle to get support, for example. So if we're all a bit more honest about what those issues are, we're probably going to find a government solution or help more quickly.
01:24:34
One of the things that's always really surprised me, and I'm sure I just don't understand the politics of this enough as a reason why, but it feels like when you do the right thing and you source properly or doesn't feel like it, it's a reality. When you import products into your country and you've paid already a premium for it to be organic and printed on organic factory, so you've paid a premium at that point that then, when you pay your taxes on it coming in, you are then paying a premium which you then have to pass on to the customer and those premiums just carry on, whereas as I don't know loads about it but this generalized system of preferences where you can get preferential trade tariffs for country, but why does that not exist for companies that are sourcing in a way that is protecting the environment? And I think that that's an interesting question. Yeah, I don't know the answer at all and I remember I did ask it to my old boss at EJF actually, and I think about it often, but I still don't know the answer.
01:25:34
Did you ever see the documentary called Fashion Reimagined? No, I believe it's available on Sky. I can send you the link after. I remember feeling really miffed because it was going to air in cinemas in the UK and not in Switzerland. A couple of journalists I like and follow in the UK press wrote about it and I was like, eh, so in the end I took it upon myself to get the film screened, so I paid for it to get the documentary screened in Geneva, and it was following the journey of Amy Pawney of Mother of Pearl.
01:26:07
I think you guys would have a lot in common.
01:26:10
By the way, the documentary is absolutely fantastic, and I think that there's something really sad, because I used to work on wholesale, so I did the showroom appointments and all of that, and you can tell how difficult it is in front of the clients whether it was Bergdorf or Saks or whoever it was in front of them, to actually explain the price because of how the product was sourced, because of the fact that everything was made organic, because they had met and visited every single factory, and yet it's still very hard to actually sell that and then for the product to then reach the consumer. But what was fascinating, though, is that after the screening, all of the people that I'd invited and it was 30 of us were completely obsessed by the brand. I had a friend who was like I need to screen this at my kids' schools. The teacher needs to know this, the kids need to see this, and there can be such passion that can come out when the general public get to understand the reality of how things are made.
01:27:11
Anyway, yeah, I think that the reality of how things are made is, yeah, fascinating.
01:27:19
And someone posted like yellow sponges with the green top you get a plastic basically, oh yeah. Yeah, it was a video of people making those and we know how things like that are made, but seeing something with all the different chemical processes into the sponge that you use to wipe your dishes with. It's not that I was innocent about those things, but it was still an opener, because we just don't think about things like that. A lot of the time.
01:27:44
So one of the things I wanted to ask you since I discovered your work is how important was it for you, was it something you were keenly aware of, that your personal friendship was going to be part of the story of For Ivor?
01:28:01
I think we didn't know because we didn't start off as friends.
01:28:06
I think, in a way I always think that if we had been friends first, I don't know if it would have worked and that sounds really weird because we have become such close friends. But I think that there's something very special in the dynamic of it started out as business, which sounds like a weird thing to say, but it did start out in a professional world. But our friendship is eternal, now for sure.
01:28:36
I think we thought we will be friends maybe and I don't think I would have gone into business with you not thinking we were going to get on.
01:28:44
But and how is that now important to Thrive? I think it's critical to Thrive now that we are friends and I like companies where I can see the people and the humans behind them. I think Alice and I are both reticent to be too forward in our sort of outward facing things, like we don't want to be, like talking to camera or Instagram and stuff like that. That's not us. But I still think nevertheless that we sort of, in a gentle way, enjoy interacting outwardly too, like it was really nice to be invited to do this, because I think the trust between us means that doing stuff like this is fun to do together. I probably feel a bit nervous.
01:29:25
I was doing it on my own with you, but knowing Alice is here is reassuring, so I think it's yeah, it's a really important part and I think you sacrifice a lot for a business and, in one sense, if you can't have the kind of business and the dynamics from the business that you want, what's the point? So to, I've always felt like work, has felt like hard work at the times when I haven't been enjoying who I've been working with, and it normally feels much more pleasurable and inspiring. We choose to work with people that we really like as well, and that's I don't think that will ever change. I think who you surround yourself with is paramount to me.
01:30:00
I think who you surround yourself with is paramount to me. We talk quite a lot about the business. We're not interested in a business for the sake of making tons of money. We want to have a nice lifestyle, definitely, and we're not there yet, but we hope that's where it will take us, that it will afford us to live in the way that we like not in any kind of crazy way, but in the way that we like, will afford us to live in the way that we like not in any kind of crazy way, but in the way that we like. But that it's not a business to endlessly grow.
01:30:27
Or I met someone the other day and he'd built and sold already a couple of companies and was building more companies to sell them. And I was like, wow, I'm like really curious as to how you do that. I don't want to sell my company at all, but I'm curious at how you build them, like that kind of different dynamic with it. So yeah, sorry that was a tangent, but yeah, the business is there for us to enjoy our life within it, not for us to serve the business, if that makes sense. I think that's an important definition, Thank you.
01:30:57
I'll reflect back to you that not long ago I discovered a really interesting company.
01:31:02
I met the two owners, a husband and wife, and I was very interested in what they were doing and so I went to their website the other day and I looked for the About Us section and there was nothing about them. But I had met them and they were really interesting people and they seemed also so genuine and compassionate and they seemed to have a very interesting mission. And yet they were nowhere on the site. And I think that, having had this example only days ago and then gone back to your website yesterday and reading how each of you wrote about the other which I thought was very wonderful it gave me a very warm and fuzzy feeling about the company. Yeah, that's good. In a way, that did not matter whether or not we were doing a podcast. I think for any person that will stumble across the work that you do and the beautiful products you make, it felt to me that there was a tangible it's funny to say tangible, because I'm touching my heart and pulling transparent, energetic string.
01:32:05
There's nothing tangible about this, but it felt like then there was a sense of connection yeah, I wanted to say really, that I felt was very unique as to how you present to the world that's really nice, because we did that only in the last few months, didn't we?
01:32:22
we did have about a section, but we rewrote it recently, so it was a bit scarce and I also just thought if we write about each other, we won't be embarrassed to say how great the other person is, you know. You know it's more uncomfortable to write about yourself, but it's like different things to say, and then we don't have to be embarrassed but we're still pushing the things that we know are maybe positive about, whether that's our backgrounds or our aspirations for the company. So it felt like a less cringy way, I think, of approaching that page.
01:32:55
I totally get that. And then the last question I want to ask about this is what is the vision 10 years into the future? What would you love to see happen?
01:33:04
and I'm specifically not talking about growth yeah, yeah, and it's such a good question because we were talking recently and I was saying when you're in the eye of the storm which I think sometimes it feels like at the moment and someone asks you that question, it takes you back because I think you stop thinking about that, because you're so focused on oh, we're doing another trade show, we've got this collection to do, and it's a really important question to sit back and ask yourself. And I think that we although we've said earlier that we're not into that material innovation and that sort of thing I think that once we get to the point where we can think about that a little bit more, that's definitely something that will be be really important to us. I don't know what that looks like yet, but I think it's something that we both want to explore more once we can.
01:33:55
I know that I would like to explore how we can live beyond product as well, in a way, because in terms of sustainability, I would say that a core part of sustainability is our concept and what we want our product to achieve when it's out in the world living its best life with all those lovely families. But that actually it's a complete irony to be wanting to save the planet and push products at the same time. So how do you try to pull our concept? I'm not saying I want to stop making the things we do because I want to make them, but I think that growth.
01:34:35
It would be lovely if we can find ways to pull our concept out so it lives in another way, and I don't know what that is yet because we haven't got there, but I know that we have started in the last few years doing these children's workshops and we pull the concept out with the children in real life, and that's not the answer, but it's like maybe a stepping stone to finding something in a way that the concept can live on in other ways, because it feels very fulfilling to do that as well and I think, yeah, if we were going to do kids workshops, we'd be teachers, but so it's not that sure on its own, but it's something that I think can, that can be a building block towards even buying a piece of land at some point and having somewhere where kids that don't get to explore nature as much, so the children could come, things like that yeah.
01:35:21
I would love like a forever camp where kids can come and just spend like a week with us and we'll live forever in in real time. I have so much fun doing activities like that with my kids, like we build boats and sail them down little streams that pop up after the storm, and I love doing all that stuff. It's like super fun and memorable and somewhere in forever. I think that is such an important part of who we are is this memory. I think we all have this kind of a very burnt in our brain memory of our childhood bedroom and that carries through with us, or certainly does me, or even our bed maybe, and yeah. So something to do with like memory making, yeah interesting.
01:36:06
That's beautiful. Thank you so much. I my eyes kind of went like super wide at some point because I started having ideas for you. I was like let them talk, no, share, do, share, no. But it's just that, for example, I was before you said the camp. I was thinking how about you collaborate with some hotels? We've actually been wanting to do that, okay.
01:36:26
I can see how there's many ways in which you can bring the brand to life and build on what you're doing without selling. But I was going to also say selfishly, because I now have a dog and even though I've always had cats, my cats have never destroyed my bedding. But my dog has, and so I was going to say care and repair should be in your future plans.
01:36:49
Yes, I know we work with a local seamstress who does all of our embroidery for our personalized blankets and stuff, so it's something that we could definitely quite easily add in maybe.
01:36:59
Alice, I'm so sorry to say that apparently your computer has decided that this was the end of the conversation for you, so I was like, okay, and we see your timing and we have gone over time. So, to close this portion of the conversation, one of the things that I'd like to ask you both is what's something that helps you anchor yourself either in your day or in your body? I like to talk about the podcast being at the crossroads between business and mindfulness, but we can also say it's about intentional living. Both of you give me a sense that you're very intentional about how you live. So what are the things that work for you and help you feel grounded and present in your life, and present in your life?
01:37:47
For me it's extremely straightforward and that is just nature walking. I think it's really as simple as that. That's the thing that I come back to daily for kind of inspiration to make my mind feel good. But it's also the thing that I go to when things are really hard, because that's always the thing that I go to when things are really hard, because that's always the thing that makes me feel better is to be out just enjoying the natural world and the views, and it can be rainy or windy or sunny or it doesn't matter, I don't care what the weather is, I just want to be out in it, experiencing it. And yeah, I guess that's kind of why I ended up doing something like Forever, because that's just such a central part of who I am.
01:38:35
Yes, and I think that I do it in different ways, but I do think that sort of actually people watching is something that I really enjoy. So for me to rebalance, I think working really hard it can be going somewhere quiet or somewhere busy and just being able to sit somewhere like a cafe and kind of roam the streets and look in windows, look in people's houses. That probably ends up reflected back into my work and into Thrive as well, like I love going to Wales and going on walks um with Rebecca and it can happen there, but I'd say that I can equally find that piece in a busy London market as well. It kind of works both ways for me.
01:39:24
That's interesting because it feels like a direct reflection of our upbringings, almost like you go back to the childhood that you, yeah the things that maybe were the center of your world when you were a child, and for me that is sort of being isolated, weirdly.
01:39:40
Yeah, yes, as much as I love, it's beautiful now let's go to my closing questions, which, I must say, I can't wait to hear your answers to. The first one is what is a favorite word? And I say a favorite word, I mean one that you could live with for a while, perhaps tattoo on yourself.
01:40:05
I have thought about this and I think it's such a hard question but a good question to ponder, and my sort of instinct just goes well, you can't kind of mess with the classics like love and peace, because they're just well, they are what they are and will forever be some of the most important words that we have in our language because they represent so much, because they represent so much. But if I had to tattoo something on myself so as to remain some kind of cool around me, I'd probably go with celestial, because I think it's such a beautiful word and is also really encompassing of so much, and my daughter's middle name is Celeste, so that's lovely and it also connects to forever. I think forever is very much about the kind of celestial realm let's say.
01:40:52
I feel, you. She says wearing stars and a moon across her neck. Yeah, yeah, how about?
01:41:01
you Alice? Well, I'll just say Rebecca didn't get the Friva logo.
01:41:04
then no, we have had a Friva tattoo, which is very exciting news. Question. Someone has a very relevant question. Yes, tattooed a private rabbit on themselves wow, yeah, that's.
01:41:23
That's really cool. That is really.
01:41:25
I'm so glad you shared that so she said it was because she had enjoyed wrapping her son up in the swaddle so much when he was a baby, and now they still use the swaddle for storytelling and the cards for storytelling, and so that rabbit just represents so much to her that she tattooed it on herself.
01:41:42
The testament to what you guys have created. That's absolutely wonderful.
01:41:47
I know it's quite beautiful and emotional actually.
01:41:51
Yeah, it's very touching, yeah.
01:41:55
Alice. Um, I actually love the word rigmarole. I love the sound of it and I I called a old piece of artwork I did years ago rigmarole and I think it's. It can be thought of as something negative because it's about the conundrum of something, I suppose, or that it's a bit of a pain. But I think it's also about kind of undisclosed narrative as well, or something that's open, and it sounds very British and sort of funny as well. I think it's quite a kind of humorous sounding word, so I think I'd give that tattooed.
01:42:28
It does sound funny actually of that tattooed. It does sound funny actually.
01:42:37
What does connection mean to you? I think comfortableness, I think. In a way. I think connection to people means that you can be at your most vulnerable and exposed but not feel judged by that. So I think, for me, I really cherish the people that I can feel connected to in that way, because I feel that there's an acceptance there and you're not disguising anything. So for me and that's intimacy, I suppose isn't it A connection to things? I think is something more complicated and really specific to each of us? But the things that I feel connected to, I think are the things that quite often make me feel I wish I'd done that, because then you're kind of in awe of something and so I'll feel a connection to it because it's obviously excited and stimulated me in a way. But I can also feel that, oh, that's so cool. I wish that I'd done that too.
01:43:38
But then it will inspire me to want to do something like that. Well, thank you, that's inspiring me.
01:43:40
Yeah, me too, me too yeah, it's funny connected.
01:43:45
I think I see it in a couple of different ways as well, and the first thing that came to my head was actually, weirdly again, the words love and peace, because I think that those are the things that you feel when you feel connected to someone, which is really the same as what Alice is saying, is that feeling of comfort, but I also guess, again in the kind of celestial realm I would say, being connected in that way.
01:44:09
For me, and particularly living through hard experiences that I've had in the last few years, having breast cancer, I think it's somehow opening yourself up to connecting to like a I don't know a different plane maybe, of like being open to things that come to you. And I had experiences that made me feel connected on a in a bigger sense, to the world around us, that were quite otherworldly, and taking signs from things that gave me comfort, which all sounds a bit hoo-ha, but I think in those moments those feelings of connectedness really mattered to me and I guess you know I lost my dad, who Fry was named after, when I was quite young and I think that that is plays into that as well. It's somehow being open to another realm of connectedness. That's not explained very well, but I think maybe it makes sense if you know what.
01:45:06
I get that yeah. I think that when you see a different plane, yeah, it feels like an openness to something, to everything we don't understand, to everything greater than ourselves that's exactly what I mean, exactly, and I think if you lay yourself open to that, then you can find connection.
01:45:30
I guess we're talking on a spiritual realm, maybe here more so. I wouldn't consider myself to be religious, but I would consider myself to have a spirituality in ways, and when my dad died I went into Notre Dame Cathedral and that's for some reason that's where I felt connected to him at that time, I don't know why. How chic of him.
01:45:52
I love it. He's like darling. If you want to feel me, come to Notre Dame de Paris. Congratulations, iva.
01:46:00
Yeah, exactly, so, yeah, it's funny.
01:46:03
Yeah, that's lovely. Thank you so much. So the hardest of all my questions is what song best represents you?
01:46:11
Such a lovely question. I would probably go with the Beatles' Blackbird, as it's just something that my dad always used to sing when we were younger, or my brother was obsessed with the Beatles, so we always used to pour over the Beatles' lyrics anthology book when we were younger. It's not that it's a song that represents me one, but it's the one that, yeah, I feel most connected to. If we're talking about connection, Thank you.
01:46:38
I find these questions really hard when it comes to choosing a song, and I think you almost have to go back to something that's a classic, something that's from your childhood, maybe because that stands the test of time, whereas other music we might go in and out of. So I would choose Eric Clapton Promises because it reminds me of driving with my family in Southampton and it's a really beautiful song, although the words are just really sad. But I'm one of those people that doesn't listen to the lyrics, I just listen to the song. So that doesn't bother me, I just like the beautiful song.
01:47:16
I think that's a good point when I asked the question what song best represents you. It doesn't have to be about the lyrics, right, it's got to be about the emotion that's calling out to you. And yeah, as we said before, the connection.
01:47:26
I'm the person that always gets the lyrics wrong when they sing the song. That's me.
01:47:32
Well, I'll tell you what because I didn't speak English when I first learned a lot of songs. I also get most of them wrong, and it's funny because I used to be a singer. So it's a few embarrassing moments. It's a good read. So what's the sweetest thing that's ever happened to you?
01:47:51
I'm gonna pick something from very recent memory, because it's just something so sweet that happened, and actually that was so sweet that it ended up as an illustration that alice did. We were in our yard and then we get lots of red kites the birds, red kites flying above us here, and we see them all the time, but I always I'm the person that points out trees, birds. That's just who I am. Oh, look at that tree, look at the nice flower, look at the nice bird. And I pointed up with my son oh, look, red kite in the sky. And he went oh yeah, but where's its string? He's six years old, so, and he's six years old, so I don't know how long he's thought that red kites are actual kites, but it literally made my day, and so Alice then drew that, which reminds me that the other sweetest thing that happened with my daughter was that for a long time she thought that sausages were pig's legs.
01:48:47
No that's so cute, worthy of an illustration.
01:48:53
I should do actually do an oh my god, I'm gonna keep you.
01:48:57
I'm gonna laugh about this and I was gonna say actually I think mine's sort of related to yours to Rebecca Suntaran as well, because Rebecca's been having horse riding classes and she recently said to me oh my God, I just had such a good lesson. I jumped on my horse and my immediate reaction was thinking that she'd launched herself in the air off a horse Me too, and she was like that's so funny. What she meant was she'd like jumped you know over something on the back of her horse, but she's like that's so funny because that's exactly what Taryn said and I thought, yeah, that's kind of sweet, I've got the same mind.
01:49:37
Apparently me too Maybe it's just we're dating. I think perhaps we're just seeing this. In your future, you'll be jumping on top of that.
01:49:47
Maybe, maybe.
01:49:54
What's a favorite?
01:49:55
book that you can share with us. Oh, I know, actually, my favorite book, one um my Family and Other Animals by Gerald Durrell, is absolutely the book I would take with me to a desert island. It's yeah, it's amazing. I don't know if you've ever read it, but it's a family going to Corfu to live and they just Gerald Durrell is. It's a real story actually. Have you read it?
01:50:23
No, but it sounds wonderful, it's really great.
01:50:25
So it's quite an eccentric sort of family. It's just the mum and the sons and and they go and live in Corfu and they just find a village to rent and he just collects animals and they go. It's this amazing kind of Mediterranean experience from these London children. It's great.
01:50:48
Amazing.
01:50:48
I would probably choose a children's book it's called Magical Changes, by Graham Oakley, who you may not know, but he did lots of like, very detailed illustrations of cats and mice that lived in a church, which was amazing. But this book, each page is split into two, and so it's a bit like a game of consequences. Each time, you can basically let the pages fall in any pattern and the bottom and the top will always match up. So, for example, it could be like spaghetti falling down and the right thing to match it with is a plate, but it can match to any of the other images as well. So it's a sort of yeah, it's this endless visual game. So whenever I'm feeling a little bit stuck, that's what I tend to look at. As I've not seen this book I've not.
01:51:37
Oh, it's so good how have I not seen this book?
01:51:43
it sounds absolutely hilarious and also, for some reason, now I can see it in my head. Yeah, I can read it in my head.
01:51:48
Yeah, I can really see it in my head as well. Yeah, no, that sounds amazing. I want to see it. You have to show me, yeah.
01:51:55
Now, imagining that you can step into a future version of yourself, what most important advice do you think future you needs to give? To present state you oh that's a good question.
01:52:07
Do you want to go first?
01:52:12
Yeah, I think I can answer that quite simply slow down and it is probably the best thing. And, yeah, I think slow down and yeah, value the people that you love and love you back, which I do anyway, but I think it's, yeah, there's particular reasons why that feels relevant to me.
01:52:29
Yeah, yeah, I think I'd say just sort of belief. You know, if you believe in what you're doing, enough sort of everything else falls into place, as well as just the understanding that everything is unfolding as it should and having more trust in that. Sometimes, I think, just I think, particularly when you know you've got a company, you can lose sight of that a little bit and get kind of lost in the, in the minutiae of things, rather than just feeling a sense of peace, I think, around it of what you've created, perhaps. So that's, yeah, a sense of peacefulness that comes from a belief in it thank you, and that takes me to my last question what brings you happiness?
01:53:26
laughter, I think, and that being able to carry you through good times and bad times, but, I think, and laughter around a table with friends, ideally, yeah, I would say that's something that always delights me and brings me great happiness and I'm gonna give you the same answer as my another question, which is nature?
01:53:51
going on a walk with my family with a picnic in our rucksack and a forever blanket? Almost definitely and I'm not just saying that it's heading off into the wild with. I remember when I was a kid I just wanted to pack a knapsack like a triangle of fabric with like enough stuff in to survive a day and head out. And that's still just what I want to do is just head out into the world with a rucksack and flask and bit of cake.
01:54:19
Can I also reflect back?
01:54:21
when you both started laughing before you answered the question, I kind of felt this vibe, that also, what brings you happiness is each other oh, definitely it was just very alive, yeah, visually for me in that moment yeah, no, we are so lucky that, yeah, we get to enjoy each other's company and walk in nature.
01:54:46
Laughing together is probably when we're both happy.
01:54:56
But you know what? We were up late, baking scones at nearly midnight with loads of stuff to do the other night.
01:55:01
We're still having a good time. Thank you so much for answering these questions. It's been such a pleasure to get to know you, to find out more about you and your journey and the journey of forever, and I hope that we'll have the opportunity someday in the future to meet, perhaps face to face in london or somewhere else yeah, that would be so nice thank you so much for everything.
01:55:22
I wish you absolutely all the best. Thank you so lovely to meet you same. Take care, guys. Bye. So, friends and listeners. Thanks again for joining me today. If you'd like to hear more, you can subscribe to the show on the platform of your choice and if you'd like to connect with me, you can find me at Anne V on threads on instagram Anne V Muhlethaler on LinkedIn If you don't know how to spell it, the link is in the notes or on Instagram at underscore. Out of the clouds, where I also share daily musings about mindfulness. You can find all of the episodes of the podcast and much more on the website outofthecloudscom. If you'd like to find out more from me, I invite you also to subscribe to the MetaView, my weekly newsletter, where I explore coaching, brand development, conscious communication and the future of work. That's the MetaView with two Ts themetaviewcom. So that's it for this episode. Thank you so much for listening to Out of the Clouds. I hope that you will join me again next time. Until then, be well, be safe and take care.