Blog
March 12th 15.27 – click here for Brooklands radio interview link!
March 9th 19.01 – What a busy week. After photographing like mad last week we’ve got our 2 new designers Lisa Ryder and Emily Rose up online, we’re really getting the hang of this photography lark! Tuesday was a particularly interesting day, did a live radio interview with Radio Brooklands, not as nerve racking as expected as noone actually watching just a very friendly chat with the 2 interviewers Trudi and Celia who were delightful, will add a link to the interview when it goes live on their site. On Wednesday found a fantastic new brand called StyleSnob from Denmark, I’m ecstatic about this brand, the first of the scarves will be here next week and will be online as quick as we can get them photographed, very Rock Chick, I’m loving all things Danish right now, is anybody else watching Those Who Kill?? Thursday saw me at 2 networking events, one in Kingston and one in Farnham. Never been to a networking event so a bit full-on to have 2 in one day, both great in their own way and really made to feel welcome, met some really lovely people, looking forward to next meeting already, very interesting to find though that I was more nervous talking for 1 minute in front of just 20 people than for 20 minutes on live radio !
February 3rd 17.29 – Really happy today to have been offered a great location at this year’s Spirit of Christmas, last year we were upstairs which can be a bit dead but this year we are downstairs, near the front, with a wider ‘shopfront’ – result!
January 27th 16.50 – Very pleased to have got our new designer Fabryan all photographed and up online today, her scarves are stunning and this very talented designer deserves her success.
January 19th 20.46 – Our Butterfly Blue belts and Liberty print scarves continue to sell fantastically so we thought we should take the time out to update the images for the New Year, so today we’ve been photographing them from all angles and mixing up with some favourite ties to give them a bit of edge, we are really pleased with the results. Tomorrow we’ll be photographing the new Liberty scarves, Liberty ribbons and wrap-around scarf belts which are new for 2012, can’t wait to get those on line as well.
November 7th 20.06 – Finally recovered, after 6 days driving up to Olympia the early mornings have taken their toll, and tomorrow it starts all over again with events in Basingstoke, Chichester and Cobham. Met some lovely people at Spirit, not least the lovely Lulu Taylor (and family) from Claremont Clothing, who was next to us for the 5 days and helped maintain our sanity.
November 2nd 21.52 – Day one at Spirit, brilliant to see so many old friends coming up to see us but again exhausting. Tomorrow the fair is open until 9pm, let’s hope all those people hard at work during the day make the effort to come over to West London for an evening’s shopping!
November 1st 18.50 – An exhausting day setting up for Spirit of Christmas at Olympia but feeling optimistic as the stand is in a great location just at the top of the stairwell on the way to the food, hopefully everyone will stop for a scarf on the way to filling their tummies!
October 14th 18.05 – I love visiting new designers, and today took a trip into Shepherds Bush to see Charlotte Taylor’s new Spring range. This extremely talented designer has been the talk of the fashion press and I am so delighted that her designs will be featured on Knot Only in the Spring. Her delightful brother Ben showed me the range, it was difficult to know what to choose and what to reject they are all so lovely, with a trip round Westfield afterwards the day was complete!
October 3rd 17.20 - Finally uploaded all the new designs from Seven Gauge Studios today, we photographed these weeks ago but thought we would leave them until it was properly cold ie beginning of October to launch them! Alas it is still 29deg outside (I’m not complaining, really), so we thought we may as well go ahead given that it is only 12 weeks until Christmas. Seven Guage designs are just stunning, take a look at our new page, and find out more about Joy Bates the incredibly talented designer behind the brand.
September 26th 16.00 – Started level 2 photography today, I did level 1 earlier in the year and I’d like to think you will be able to see the difference in the photos on this site, when we started in 2010 we only had a little Sony Compact and no photography knowledge and the results were poor to average, last year’s Photoshop course + lovely new Canon DSLR last Christmas and a couple of photography courses this year should hopefully mean that by January we will be up there with Patrick Demarchelier, Mario Testino et al. In my dreams!
September 13th 17.20 – Went to Top Drawer today, a trade show held in London twice per year, had the usual giggle with Justine at Butterfly Blue and caught up with a few friends, but the high point of the day was finding Lisa Ryder, an incredibly talented print artist based on Ireland, I’ve put her designs into the melting pot that has become the range plan and expect to see some of them on the site in the New Year, fantastic!
September 1st 19.10 – Visit to the lovely showrooms today of Becksondergaard, their cottons and wool/silk scarves are just beautiful and can’t wait to get the Autumn range online as soon as they touch down, watch this space.
July 6th 22.00 – A busy busy day photographing & cropping these 4 beautiful crinkle cotton scarves from Jo Edwards – they are absolutely stunning and the first scarves in our collection to take you from summer through to Autumn in great style – at the bargain price of £20.00 who can resist. My work here is done – now ready for a glass of something cold and to catch up on the Apprentice which (hopefully!) awaits on Sky+!
June 25th 21.00 – No. 654 in our list of reasons to wear a scarf or have one handy: hot and sunny day, Wimbledon Court no. 2, no shade, sunscreen left at home – say no more…..
June 18th 2011 3.50 – Our final two summer scarves are now on-line, already proving popular at our retail events these stunning bold stripe and wave design 100% linen scarves from Amet & Ladoue are just right for summer days, light and floaty but substantial enough to wrap right round you in the evenings.
June 7th 2011 19.25 - We’ve spent the last 2 days at Pulse, a fab gift show held every June at Earls Court - and are really chuffed with what we’ve found for the Autumn : scrumptious new winter scarves from Avoca, updates of last year’s favourites by Earth Squared, stunning silks from Somerville, some great new belt/scarf ideas from Butterfly Blue and beautiful transitional cotton prints from Jo Edwards which we aim to get on line as soon as they are in – hopefully in July. To top it all we have found a couple of designers which are brand new to us and the wider world, watch this space!
June 6th 2011 19.00 – Stuck on a train that refuses to leave Waterloo and reading the Daily Mail Life & Style page which gives ‘your guide to festival essentials’ : ‘Getting your body temperature just right at a festival can be tricky, as even if you’re lucky and it’s sunny during the day, it can become dramatically colder in the evenings, so always take a scarf to wrap around your shoulders’. Sound advice but it applies to so many situations in the summer months in the UK – with the great sunny days we are having we go out nearly naked and then when the sun goes down over Wimbledon/Queens Club/the pub/the park/Ascot etc we end up very chilly and in need of a comfort blanket aka the scarf.
May 22nd 2011 10.38 - We attended a great Summer Fair yesterday at Ibstock Place School in Barnes, fantastic to run into so many old friends and to be made so welcome. Slightly challenging /hilarious(!) trying to keep the stand together under a gazebo in wind and the occasional downpour but we were all in the same boat and a kind of blitz-spirit prevailed. Response to our scarf range was amazing and having crunched the numbers the outright winner from the ladies of Barnes has to be the Yak scarf from Jago which comes in these 3 great colours:
May 17th 2011 15.14 - How cool is this, 25 ways to tie a scarf, demonstrated in less than 5 minutes, to music, although if I’m honest the music does get quite irritating! http://youtu.be/5LYAEz777AU
May 10th 2011 14.11 – Just found this link showing 50 ways to wear a scarf, yes 50! Granted some of them are verging on the ridiculous but take a look! http://www.howdoesshe.com/50-ways-to-wear-a-scarf-yes-maam-there-really-are-50
May 9th 2011 15.30 – Sitting in the hairdressers reading Hello, OK etc (as you do…), top tip from Look magazine: ‘possibly the chic-est bad hair day saviour we’ve ever seen, just tie a silk scarf round the front of your hair and tuck the ends back into the knot to hide them. Pull hair into a fuss-free pile-up or simple ponytail. Now pass the cocktails’.
May 8th 2011 18.00 – Spent a lovely afternoon at the St Catherine’s School May Fair in Bramley, Surrey, selling our beautiful scarves and scarf belts. Favourite product of the day has to go to the scarf belts from Butterfly Blue, so many people loved the idea of updating their old favourite scarves by wearing them as a belt, with just as many adding a stunning Somerville silk skinny scarf or Liberty print for a splash of colour against their summer jeans – lovely!
May 1st 2011 03.15 - High heels and posh frock were the order of the day today as invited to the Audemars-Piguet QE 11 event at the Hong Kong Jockey Club – fabulous, had a flutter on the winning horse -Ambitious Dragon but won’t be retiring any time soon! Posh frock was a teensy bit more low cut than I’d remembered but luckily had a suitcase full of lovely scarves to spare my blushes and this beautiful silk bandhani from Peony was just the ticket, another great reason for wearing a scarf – Knot Only to cover your cleavage!
April 30th 2011 05.22 – In Hong Kong, doing the trade fairs, have found some great suppliers to UK designers, very excited about possibility of doing own ranges to add to our great list of brands.
April 27th 2011 00.16 – Literally burning the midnight oil to get the last four Craig Fellows designs up online. These 4 silk skinnies are just fabulous, I’m struggling to choose a favourite, probably Blackberry Gumption, loving the colours, the fact that it is slightly less ‘buggy’ than the others, and as somone who is permanently attached to a Blackberry it would seem wrong to choose any other. Off to Hong Kong in 22 hours, can’t wait, one of my favourite destinations, and looking forward to doing the trade shows and finding some new goodies.
April 21st 2011 14.42 - Hilarious pictures of Nigella Lawson on the beach in Australia wearing a burkini in the press this week, surely one shouldn’t have to go to such lengths to cover up on the beach! Many of our larger scarves can double up as sarongs and we’ve had great fun today photographing the Wallaby range by Jago – see the blue version below, we’ll get the rest up online as soon as we can.
April 20th 2011 23.04 – Just back from a sneaky family weekend away in New York – wasn’t supposed to be shopping but thought it would be rude not to! After a trip upto Statue of Liberty’s crown (not great on a windy day, but fab views), and a walk in Central Park, a couple of us formed a break-away group and headed down to Greenwich Village and Soho to take a look at NY’s finest, and we were not disappointed, our new fave has to be Madewell, – so far only shipping within the US and Japan (why?) which is a lot of a shame but that just means we’ll have to get back there asap to restock on goodies!
April 14th 2011 17.10 - You may have noticed we’re gradually making some changes to this site, we’re working on a new zoom feature to give you an even better look at the scarves in all of their lovely loveliness, it’s not quite there yet and I’ve got a sneaky suspicion I’m going to have to resize all of the photos to make this feature work to perfection………..I feel an all-nighter coming on!
April 13th 2011 19.00 - Very excited to receive our first scarves today from new designer Jo Edwards – a range of spotty scarves in 4 colourways in 100% linen at a great price of £20.00 – watch this space, we’ll be getting these online as soon as we can get them photographed.
April 12th 2011 21.34 – A very busy day photographing the new designs sent by Craig Fellows. We love his designs featuring bugs, bees and other creepy crawlies and are convinced you will also love these scarves even if you are not a fan of insects, and like us keep a can of Raid by the office window…can’t believe I just ‘fessed up to that, oh well, anyone who knows me knows I don’t do animals, or anything else with more than 4 legs! We’ve got 4 designs online so far with 4 more to follow as soon as.
April 12th 2011 08.45 – I’ve been told I need a blog to improve SEO(!), so here it is: ‘Anne’s blog’. It’s quite daunting having a blank page to fill but my husband tells me I’m too ‘wordy’ when writing letters etc so this might just suit me down to the ground. I suppose I should start with why I set up Knot Only, I won’t bore you with all the details but in a nutshell it started with a bit of an obsession with wearing scarves. Patsy Stone in AbFab said ‘You can never have enough hats, gloves and shoes’. I don’t wear hats and only wear gloves when I’m skiing so would change that to ‘You can never have enough boots, scarves or Mulberry handbags’. The point about scarves in particular is that they will give your outfit an instant lift: Plain shirt plus classic jeans: boring! Plain shirt plus classic jeans plus nice belt: slightly less boring. Plain shirt plus classic jeans plus nice belt, plus colourful scarf: now you’re cooking with gas. Shall I bang on a bit more or do you get the idea??? Here endeth the first lesson.xxx
