Time to be your kind of Beautiful

When I started out in business 26 years ago, it was all about WHAT we had to offer the world.  Success was about getting as much of our product into as many hands as possible through some form of retail chain, either our own or someone else’s.

That world no longer exists. The Internet, e-commerce, removal of trade tariffs, free shipping, and the list goes on and on, has created the age of borderless shopping and it’s fierce. Every month we read about another local manufacturer or retailer that has fallen by the wayside, unable to shift their business model or find a way to compete and survive in this brave new digital world.

But that’s only half of the story. Amongst all of this digital disruption and unparalleled levels of choice, another list of demands has been placed on the business world.  Today consumers want more transparency.  They want a window into our supply chains, they want environmentally friendly, and they want to deal with businesses that are thinking about more than their bottom line.

Simon Sinek, the Leadership Guru, perhaps captured it best when he said: “People don’t buy what you do, they buy Why you do it.”

Today’s consumer is asking us to remember why we started our business in the first place; to rediscover our roots and to bring that story to life in everything we do and say.

For the Annah Stretton Label, our WHY has always been about Inclusion.    

We live in a world that is so captivated by physical beauty. It surrounds us on every screen and every magazine page, and it has led us all on a long and unhealthy pursuit for the perfect body, the perfect skin, the perfect hair, the perfect teeth, the perfect everything. We’ve seen this behaviour in our grandmothers, our mothers, ourselves and even in our children and the fallout has been significant.  

Today the world is facing unpreceded levels of social challenges around mental health, obesity and even general levels of unwellness.

The benchmarks and dreams we set for ourselves are not even real, let alone achievable, and so most of our lives are spent in eternal hope and then despair mode. We’re always looking for the next miracle diet, exercise machine or life-changing beauty product.  We measure our success in kilos rather than kindness and self-appreciation never gets a look in because self-deprecating rules the roost in our world. When will we ever be enough? 

We will start to be enough when we move our frame of reference from perfection to inclusion. We will start to be enough when we can celebrate beauty in all things and all people. We will start to be enough when we fall in love with ourselves and let that love spill over to those women we love and those that cross our paths. We will start to be enough when we realise that our amazing body is the one person we will have the longest relationship within our lives and therefore deserves the most tender, loving care.

At Annah Stretton, we’ve made it our business from day one to create clothes that make everyone feel beautiful. Our clothes fit all body shapes, embrace all body shapes and celebrate all forms of body beautiful.   

In our world, there is no benchmark for beautiful. There is no perfect size or perfect weight there is simply beautiful people. We all have them in our lives so now it’s time to become one.

You are uniquely you, and we love that. Come and celebrate beautiful YOU with Annah Stretton. Everyone is welcome!