Our First Show: Saintfield

Every brand has to start somewhere, and for us, that somewhere turned out to be a windy lake island in Northern Ireland — over lunch, with a family friend, and absolutely no plan at all.
We were up visiting, enjoying a typically blustery day out, when the conversation turned to what we’d been building with Redhouse & Bellew. Our friend mentioned that he was hosting a country show on his own land in a couple of weeks, run through a local organisation, and asked if we’d like to set up a stall.
I said yes before I’d really thought it through — and then spent the drive home thinking about nothing else.
The truth is, doing shows and fairs has been part of the plan from the very start. We’ve always had our eye on the bigger stages — the RDS, Royal Ascot, that kind of thing. But you don’t begin there. You begin somewhere smaller, somewhere real, where you can actually stand behind a table and talk to people about what you’ve made. A country show in Saintfield wasn’t the RDS. But it was, without question, the next best thing — and exactly the kind of first step we’d been waiting for.
I called Patrick that evening and told him what we’d signed up for. He didn’t need convincing. Within minutes we were talking through what the stall could look like, and from there it became a proper little project of its own.
I sketched out a rough rendering of what we wanted — something that felt like us: warm, a bit heritage, not overly polished. We knew the look we were after, but not yet what we’d actually build it from.
The answer turned up, as these things often do, in an attic.
Rooting through the loft of an old barn, we came across a beautiful mahogany table — the one Patrick’s grandfather used to have his breakfast on, years ago, now sitting forgotten under a layer of dust. The second we saw it, we knew. A bit of cleaning, a white cloth thrown over the top, and suddenly we had the centrepiece for the entire stall.
From there it was a trip to the hardware store, a list of odds and ends, and six days to put it all together before the show.
Six days. That was the entire build time, start to finish, from the moment we said yes at lunch to the moment we’d need to load everything up and head to Saintfield.
We’re not there yet — but we’re close, and there’s a particular kind of excitement that comes with a deadline like this. The stall is coming together, the table has never looked better, and soon enough we’ll find out what it’s like to stand in front of people, in person, with the ties we’ve spent months working on.
More to come once we’re back from Saintfield — including how it actually went.