We're definitely part of a movement.

I hope all is well. Thanks so much for all of your positive replies to last week’s newsletter about our definition of luxury.

It’s very heartening to find that so many people share our sentiments, both negative (that the traditional ‘luxury’ industry is either dead or not for us) and positive (that we are all playing a modest part in creating a new type of purer luxury).

We’re definitely part of a movement, a consensus that leans heavily towards a more beautiful and meaningful world. Each week more of you write to us and more join our mailing list. It makes me happy.

Speaking of fresh definitions of luxury, next week we’ll have several new products to show you. Today we have these notecards which feature linocuts by Christopher Brown (genius), colours by Caroline (genius), and are properly printed in North Wales (also genius).

These fall elegantly into our definition of luxury; they look good, feel good, and are illustrated and printed in good old-fashioned ways. Provenance and quality, absolutely, but they also enhance the writer’s and recipient’s lives in small but significant ways.

And in so doing, they offer up a meaningful rebellion against all of the pointless, ugly and exploitative crap that surrounds us all.

What else?

I’ve got more to tell you than you probably have time for, so I’ll limit it to this.

Ten days ago, we threw a party to celebrate our Cecil Beaton: A Family Archive exhibition. It sold out and demand suggests that we should throw another, which we’ll probably do in the new year.

It gave me a chance to refresh the exhibition, and I decided to move a fair bit of it into The Temple of Peace in our home in Hawarden. This room was William Gladstone’s study and is an oddity in that it’s a room of national importance in a private house.

Caroline and I have done a huge amount of restoration and recording of contents here (things that hadn’t been done before), and have been thinking about ways to make it more relevant and accessible. Imposing Beaton on Gladstone is fascinating for me, and the exhibition has really come to life in new ways as a result. More about everything Gladstone / Hellen x Beaton is here.

Amongst some very distinguished guests to the party, we welcomed Hugo Vickers to Hawarden for 24 hours. Hugo is Cecil’s biographer and literary executor and his depth of knowledge and enthusiasm for all things Beaton is as impressive as it is moving.

Then we went to The National Portrait Gallery to see Robin Muir’s masterful Cecil Beaton exhibition. It was rammed at lunchtime on a Wednesday, and deservedly so. It is exceptionally good. There is one particularly lovely photo of my grandmother at the age of 15, which I hadn’t seen before.

One caveat is that the gift shop for the show has too much lazy crap. Cecil would not have approved, nor do I. But you can just buy the book and move on.

And.

The excellent Anna Murphy included us in a piece in The Times, which resulted in a thrilling spurt of orders. I find it humbling that we’ve had so much amazing press in our first year, from that feature in the FT, to the piece in Vogue, Times Luxx, Telegraph Luxury and more. It makes a huge difference and is truly game-changing for a tiny biz. And it perhaps indicates that the world is ready to rethink what people want to spend their money on.

Anyway, that’s it from me this week. Thank you for your friendship.

Best

Charlie.