Update and sale

Hello chickens!

Not a lot of writing about textiles happening over here at the moment. The American postal situation threw me for a bit of a loop, and I am still working my way through possibilities there, especially given that La Poste only just reopened postage to the US late last week. But I am going to write a separate email about that shortly, in part so that I can direct people to that newsletter when they ask, without having to wade through the this next bit.

But the sticky problem of what to do when tariffs and their obligations cannot be met by your national postal service brought up other questions and things that I have been dodging for a while. Mostly I haven’t been dodging them actually, they keep being stuck on the backburner because the life of a sole self-employed business owner is pretty hectic at the best of times. But the pause necessitated by the Orange One’s unfulfillable demands have allowed them to be aired.

It’s been eight years since I started this business and in that eight years I moved seven times, each time becoming increasingly monumental as my business grew and began to include large quantities of stock, dyeing equipment, and dedicated pieces of furniture (shout out here to my fabulous late 19th century bistro table with the elegant legs and the beautiful weathered wooden top that appears in so many of my photos, as well as my collection of four Stockman mannequins). By the time I made the seventh move, to a house which I own, thanks to this business, I had mountains of stock but was exhausted beyond all reasonable limits. I’ve been in this house for almost two years now, and have had enough time to settle in and calm my nervous system to the point where I can think logically about lots of things.

And now my business needs to grow and change because I need to grow and change.

I have ideas and thoughts about how this will happen, not all of which are ready to be shared. Not all of which I am certain will work. But what I am certain of is that I cannot stay doing exactly what I am doing, not because it’s not working - it is! But because I’ve changed, my life has changed, and so what I am doing needs necessarily to change. Not radically, and not abruptly, but change nevertheless.

Behind the scenes, I am redoing my studio space in its current rooms, whilst out in my garden the 19th century stone barn that will eventually become my studio is slowly being stripped of its horrible concrete render and having its windows replaced, so that eventually, I can move my entire business into there, complete with dye vats and huge work tables. That won’t happen for a goodly long while but small steps are unfolding. The visible bit of this change for my customers will be that in the next couple of weeks, my current website will close down and I will open a new one.

Over the past eight years I have collected a LOT of textile-y things. Most of them never made it onto the website - usually because I never had enough time. I was, and still am, so seduced by the incredible things I find that I haul home many pieces to study, to save, or for eventual repurposing, by me or by customers. As my dealer contact list has grown over the years, and as I have become known amongst the brocante-folk for what I do, those hauls have become increasingly amazing - three weeks ago I took over the last stock of a lace-maker’s atelier working from the 1930’s-50’s, and now have enough beautiful Belgian linen thread to last several lifetimes.

But now I need the space to change. So for the next couple of weeks, as I work on my new website, take 30% off everything on my current website. But also, please join me on my specially-created second Instagram account @lagrossetoiledeux where every day I am aiming to put up clearance items. Currently up is a lot (a LOT) of linen thread from the aforementioned atelier, which I am selling in large batches at very-much-reduced prices , some early 20th century chemises and nightdresses, some Belle Époque novelty postcards, and others. I don’t know what is coming up, as I unearth it and photograph it up it goes, once it is sold and paid-for it is deleted. As I am clearing my atelier, the changes and directions I want to make are becoming also clearer to me, a sort of therapeutic clearance sale!

So, I am not going anywhere. Just changing things up. Slowly and carefully and meticulously, which is how I work and which will always be how I work.

Have a lovely day/evening wherever you are.

xx Hanna