Mother and daughter team, Florence and Florence, are a particularly endearing set-up. In their front room in north London we have arranged ourselves amongst pots of tea and decorative cake stands to discuss their new business selling ‘re-loved’ vintage goods. The conversation pings about between them; sentences are shared and overlapped as they discuss the perils of living and working together, the unexpected benefits of the recession and their shared love of all things second-hand.
“Mum’s always done what we do with Florence and Florence, collecting beautiful things and mending them, and making things from re-loved material. We’ve had so many people comment on it in our house over the years. I think Mum thought it was something everybody did” says her daughter, Annie, 25. Since October last year when they came up with the idea the two women, Annie and Chris, 54, have been sourcing second-hand kitchen equipment, furniture, tea sets, picnic sets, old Penguin books, luggage trunks and much more, giving the old and battered items a lick of paint, new covers, or replacing their handles or loose stitching.
Annie explains their preference of the term ‘second-hand’ to ‘vintage’: “on eBay they’ll buy something from TK Maxx, sell it the next day and it’s ‘vintage’. It doesn’t mean anything. Some of our things are over 100 years old, some are newer, so we just wanted to say it is all second-hand.”
Although they reject the current vintage trend, their mission statement is to show the glamorous side of second-hand. Chris explains: “I was brought up with war-time parents who made everything. But I’m also a great believer in second-hand, so I’ve always bought second-hand clothes and second-hand furniture”. After sourcing the items from charity shops, markets and auctions they have set about making them beautiful again and ready to sell.
When they came up with the idea for Florence and Florence, Annie was training as a chartered surveyor (after a philosophy degree at UCL and an MSC in Real Estate Appraisal at Reading). Chris was running the administration for numerous companies including her husband’s, a collection of jobs she is continuing at present. Her career has been a varied one: “I gave up full time working in advertising when I had Will [her older son]. Then when Annie was five my husband and I set up our own business. So I was a full time Mum for seven years.”
Both women have always enjoyed sourcing beautiful second-hand things for their family home. There is a nostalgic quality to their products often harking from the 1940s and 50s. “I suppose the tea-time things are me with their Famous Five, back to the future feel, with sandwiches, cake – that’s harking back to my childhood” says Chris.
As a woman in her mid-fifties embarking on a new career, it is possible she draws a connection between herself and Florence and Florence’s products: “It’s the idea that these things have been loved and useful, like that slide box” she says, indicating an attractive wooden box full of small compartments. “Somebody’s had their treasured slide collection in it and it’s been discarded. Now we’ve put dividers in and made it lovely, and it will go on to be a jewellery box or something, somewhere else. I really like that idea, that things that have been loved or treasured are now going on to have another life.”
They both acknowledge the useful timing of the recession. “There’s definitely been a resurgence of interest in mending and making – I don’t really like the expression ‘make do and mend’ because making do implies compromise, being resigned to something less than perfect – but ‘make and mend’.”
Annie believes Florence and Florence can help younger people struggling in the recession who are unable to buy new products to furnish their homes. “A large part of our market will be people of my age, setting up their first home, post-university, finished with being a student who want a proper home with a proper look.”
The family business also includes Chris’s husband, Bill, who designed the logo and luggage tag-style labels. All three live together until Annie is able to move back out of the family home. The working dynamic seems very successful; the only awkward moment of the interview comes when they discuss the ups and downs of both living and working together. After copious amounts of praise Annie ventures her one dislike: “When we get home from sourcing and we’ve been out all day Mum will make me get out every single receipt, go through every product and have it all written down and catalogued immediately.” Chris defends herself but agrees: “The worst thing is this having to be the baddy and say “come on Annie, get the receipts out, I need to do this now” – having to nag at you to do the things which I know are important, but you don’t rate as high”.
It sounds pretty familiar to anyone who has tried to work in collaboration with a family member, and in general the division of labour seems to work comfortably between them. Chris runs the finances, the spreadsheets, and most of the sewing. Annie is in charge of developing the website, setting up the business processes, sales, and using social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter to spread the Florence And Florence word.
Chris proudly explains how the business benefits from their different skills: “I’m not a parent who has to pretend I know everything about everything all the time – it’s being able to learn things from a grown-up daughter, and be able to say you do that, you’re the expert there.”
The benefit seems to work both ways. As well as Chris’s uber organisation, “Annie has the most amazing ability to say “Mum just be happy, enjoy it”. When I was getting really stressed about fitting everything in for the launch, Annie said no, think of it as a challenge, it’s thrilling, it’ll all be fine – and it was fine!”
[www.florenceandflorence.com]
