Tell us a little about your background?

I graduated from university in 2014 with a BA in Fashion: Media & Promotion. Since then, I have worked for retailers including Karen Millen and Fenwick and also as a writer for a local magazine.

Why Audenza?

I had worked in retail for years and was looking for a new challenge, and I’d always been interested in working for an online retailer or within a head office setting. As well as the beautiful products at Audenza, I was really attracted to the variety of the job role, and with it being such a small team; I knew that I’d get to learn a lot more.

What is your job role?

I am the admin and customer service assistant. The role is really varied and no two days are the same. My main responsibilities are responding to customer email and telephone enquiries as well as supporting the Audenza ladies with general admin duties. On other days I could also be quality checking the gorgeous stock, uploading products to other sales channels or writing product descriptions for the website.

What is it like working for a family run business?

If I’m being completely honest, I couldn’t ask for a nicer family to work for. Each of the Audenza ladies has been so lovely and really welcoming. Of course there’s bickering, but what family do you know that doesn’t? I certainly couldn’t work with my mum and sister.

Tell us 3 fun facts about yourself…

1. I was…still am and always will be a huge Harry Potter fan.

2. I have a fear of public speaking. I get clammy hands as well as a really bad heat rash; it’s not a pretty sight!

3. I was banned from the arts and crafts table at nursery after pulling a dried pea off of a collage that I’d made and put it up my sister’s nose. Let’s just say it ended in a trip to A &E and took several hours and an abnormally large pair of tweezers to get it out.

Haha, that last story made us chuckle! Thank you so much, Jess for sharing about yourself.

On another note folks, we are now officially signing off for Christmas.  It’s been one hell of a year, with so many exciting developments, but it’s safe to say, we’re well and truly shattered! Roll on lazy days, mulled wine and copious quantities of food. We decided last year that the only way for us to really get to enjoy Christmas as a family is to shut up shop. So that’s exactly what we’ve done… Our warehouse and office is now closed until 3rd January.  Though you can still order online (and take advantage of our fabulous winter sale which has just launched), but we won’t be shipping again until Jan 3rd.  So we’ll see you in 2018 ready for another spectacular year.

Have a fabulous one!

Hollie x

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You see, we’re saying goodbye to MiaFleur….

No, we’re not going anywhere, it’s just that the name MiaFleur is.  Why?  Well, we’ll get to that.  But firstly, let me just say that this was not an easy decision.  It’s not one we’ve taken lightly, and we know that many of you love the name, but in the end, we just felt that it was the right decision.

We started MiaFleur 5 years ago (it’ll be 5 years since we launched on October 12^th 2017) and you may not know that we actually used to sell vintage furniture.  We spent our weekends at auctions hunting down beautiful one-off pieces and then lovingly upcycling them.   We also handmade cushions and tea towels from beautiful vintage fabric and then we sourced antique-inspired new pieces to complement the collection.  But that just wasn’t scalable for us, and things evolved.  The company grew, and so did we.

Share your fabulous home, your fearless story, your stylish new purchase (or anything inspiring in between!) with us on Instagram using our new hashtag #livefabulousandfearless and tag @miafleur_home.

We are not a brand that will religiously stick to a particular look over 20 years and never veer from that.  But we will always be fearless with our choices, we will always be stylish, and we will always empower you to design your own fabulous home.  So we needed a name and a design that reflected that; our brand values, rather than our product range at that particular moment in time.

Even when we sold vintage furniture, it was not your run-of-the-mill upcycled pieces in cream, grey and beige.  It was exactly as you’d expect from us – bold and daring.

So we needed a brand that said exactly that.  A brand that no matter what pieces we sold over the next 20, 30, 40 years, you would always know what to expect from us.  Which is why, we will not only be changing our name, but we will be redesigning our entire website.

This is your sneakiest of sneaky peeks of our new branding, designed by the very talented Caroline Harrison of Making Waves

By now you’ll be thinking – OK, enough of the chit chat.  Just tell us the new name!  BUT, my friends, you’re going to have to wait a little bit longer to find that out.  We will be launching on the 3rd October, with a powerful new name, a fabulous new brand and a brand spanking new website.

UPDATE: We have announced our new name!! Read about it here >> Goodbye MiaFleur, Hello…

Please rest assured that you will still be able to find us online.  When you type in our old website address miafleur.com you will magically be redirected to our new website.  If you follow us on social media , you will still be following us (albeit under a different name).  And if you’re subscribed to our newsletter, you still will be.

We really hope you guys will be able to get on board with us for this; the last thing we want to do is alienate you.  You have supported us since the early days, and we can’t tell you how much we appreciate it.  MiaFleur has served us very well over the last 5 years, but we think (hope!) you’ll love our new brand even more.

Please do follow us on Instagram | Twitter | Facebook where we’ll be sharing sneak peeks and regular updates.

I will be back in a few weeks to tell you more!

Hollie x

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As you will all no doubt know, we’re a small, family run business.  However, shopping with us doesn’t come without its issues and I thought in the interest of being honest, I’d pen some thoughts on why you might NOT want to buy from a small company:

1.  Large companies always stick to their working hours.  Don’t you just hate those companies that stay open longer than they should do, just to get something finished for you, or help you out?  Ugh.

2.  Small companies want to do irritating things like smile, remember your name and thank you personally for your business.  High five to remaining anonymous and being frowned at.

3.  If you have any problems, you know that buying from a big company means you’re in safe hands.  Sure, it’s never the same hands; you will always get through to a different person every time and have to explain the situation all over again and you will most definitely have to call at least 10 times before they do sort it out.  But yea, they’ll almost certainly sort it out for you eventually.

4.  Calling a UK based, local phone number is sometimes a bit of a chore.  It’s often a much more pleasurable experience to just call a premium rate number and wait on hold for 20 minutes.

5.  Big companies always reward long standing, loyal customers.  Take your insurance company for instance, they would NEVER offer a better rate to someone who has just signed up, than to someone who has been a customer of theirs for 10 years.

6.  If there’s one thing I hate, it’s people that want to help me out.  You don’t have any of the rubbish with large businesses – they rarely take the time to listen or to really get to know what you’re looking for or what they can help with and personally, I much prefer being dealt with like that.  Just stop trying to help me out, goddamn it.

7.  I don’t know about you, but when I spend my money, I like to know that it’s not going to that friendly family down the road.  Like these chirpy looking chumps…

Photo: Samie Lee Photography

Anything you’d add to the list?  I’d love to know in the comments below.

Sarcastically yours,

Hollie x

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We want to say a huge thank you to Amara for organising such a fantastic event.  The work and effort involved on their part is huge.  And, of course, a huge thank you to Bang and Olufsen (the sponsors for our category) and all the other sponsors. We also want to say enormous congratulations to all of the other winners. And last, but not least, a massive thank you to our lovely readers who voted for us – couldn’t have done it without you darlings!

I also have to mention the lovely Sophie Robinson from ‘The Great Interior Design Challenge’ who presented the awards. I was seriously star struck as I love the programme and the presenters Sophie Robinson, Daniel Hopwood and Tom Dyckhoff.  Sophie is warm, bubbly and friendly and did an amazing job of presenting the awards and can’t wait till the new series starts in January. I will stop gushing now before I embarrass myself!

Talking of gushing, the Ham Yard Hotel, the venue for the Amara Interior Blog Awards, was awesome and we now want to stay at every one of the Firmdale Hotels – what an experience – but more of that in another blog post.

What a night, I hope the walls were thick in that hotel – there was a bit of giggling going on that night and shock that we nearly missed the awards! We had got it into our heads the awards started at 8pm and were busy eating chips and drinking wine in our hotel room when Hollie looked at the invite and screamed, literally. It was 6.45 and it started at 6.30. Oh my god, I have never seen Hollie move so quick (she isn’t known for speed)! Needless to say we arrived a bit dishevelled and sweaty but made it just in time for the actual sitting down awards ceremony but missed the meet up in the bar which was a shame.

The goody bags were awesome; there was one for each attendee and a special winner’s goody bag. We had a lovely time in the hotel room rifling through them and oohing and aahing but a right job trying to get them home on the train in one piece! Good job I’m expert at packing!

This post has been delayed due to some slight disruption to the normal timetable but services will resume shortly haha.   My eldest boy’s lovely partner Giuditta has just given birth to the beautiful baby Isaac, my first grandchild, and I’m a bit overwhelmed, to say the least. Much prettier than his father was at that age but with the same love of making his presence felt! Need I say more?

Jacqui x

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Photography by John Nassari

We did it!!  We were shortlisted in the ‘Best Organisation’ category of the Amara Interior Blog Awards for the second year running, no less.  Which means we were voted in the top 5 in our category!  We’re absolutely gobsmacked and completely over the moon.

All of you wonderful people out there that voted for us, you’re amazing.  And anyone that didn’t.. well, we’ll deal with you later.

Seriously though… THANK YOU.   It’s such an honour and a privilege to be voted up there amongst some massive brands whom we really respect.   So the next step is a very swanky awards ceremony at the Ham Yard Hotel in London at the end of the month.   Which if I’m honest, I’m dreading.  I really hate beautiful interior design, amazing goody bags and free cocktails.  It’s going to be hellish.

Coincidently it’s actually our 3rd birthday on Monday, so as a double celebration and a massive thank you to you guys for supporting us over the last 3 years we’re offering the choice of 3 free gifts!  The email with the details will be going out on Sunday, so sign up here if you’re not already on a mailing list… trust me, you do not want to miss this one!

Have a wonderful weekend.  I’m off to continue working into the Friday evening, however I will be taking this weekend off!  Maybe.

Much love.

Hollie x

Hollie

1. I’m incapable of making a cup of tea.  Well, not incapable as such, theoretically speaking I can, I just forget.   I offer to make a cup of tea, only to get embroiled in emails again and then remember about an hour later.  If I make it as far as boiling the kettle, there’s about a 50% chance that I’ll actually remember to finish the job.  I’ve even made a tea before only to realise I hadn’t actually boiled the kettle in the first place and the water was stone cold.  Apparently Amelia and my Mum now take bets as to whether they’ll ever get the cup of tea that I’ve offered to make.  Not so much brain like a sieve, more like brain like a log flume.  If it ain’t on my to-do list, it ain’t gonna happen.

2. I still have a baby tooth.  Just one, and apparently I’ll be lucky if it lasts me another 10 years.  So I’ll be toothless at 40.  Well, perhaps that’s a little melodramatic, it’s just one tooth and I’ll get an implant.  But still.

3. I absolutely cannot stand the sound of people chewing.  Around a dinner table I can just about suppress it (amongst chitchat), but if someone happens to be chewing in my ear- God help them.  There’s something about it that makes my blood boil.  A searing, irrational anger that could see me ripping the food out of their mouth and strangling the offending person.  No, I joke.  But seriously, don’t do it.

4. I’m scared of… everything.  The dark, check (it’s dark for goodness sake).  Fish, check (just creepy).  Heights, check (I’ve been known to self-combust into tears walking across to the Bullring car park).  Spiders, check (shiver just went down my spine).  Cats, check (don’t trust them).  Ghosts, check (of course they exist).  The list goes on.   That said, I’m also very determined and if I’ve said I’m going to do something I’ll do it.   Though perhaps the parachute jump was a little too far.  Did you know that 98% of people who do a parachute jump end up really enjoying it, no matter how scared they were to start with?  Well, needless to say you’re looking at a member of the 2% club.

5. Apparently I’m a puffer fish.  Have you ever played that game where everyone suggests what kind of animal you’d be?  Well, we played that once and it didn’t end too well.  Amelia suggested I’d be a puffer fish- “likely to blow up at any given time”.   In retort I suggested that she was a lady bird- “pretty, but essentially boring”.  My mum called a stop to that game rather quickly.   These days I meditate and practice mindfulness in the hope of softening my puffer ways.  We’ll see.

Jacqui

1. I really hate Christmas! It’s not something I admit to generally as most people are appalled, but for me it’s a time of high expectations (all resting on me) and excessive amounts of work (also resting on me, but the girls do their share) coupled with the darkness at 4 o’clock and cold miserable weather. November and December are such a slog and I wish I could hibernate.  Oh the relief as January comes round and there is hope of more daylight and a possibility of warmth in the not too distant future, and I start to read my gardening books.

2. I am an introvert and find meeting new people really difficult as I am very shy and it is usually construed as arrogance or ignorance. My youngest daughter Amelia has the same affliction which is why Hollie is the voice of Audenza. She was always the noisiest child! I am happy to write but don’t ask me to speak too much, although a glass of wine always helps.

3. I panic if I don’t have a book or my kindle near me at all times. I think it’s the only thing that got me through bringing up five rowdy children – bury my head in a book and ignore them! I love Georgette Heyer for historical romantic fiction and she is my go to author when I want some light relief and witticisms (why aren’t there any films based on her books, maybe there are but I don’t know about them) and I reread her books constantly – and of course the fact they all have a happy ending is a winner when you have the blues. The rest of my books seem to involve a war, preferably the First or Second World War, much to my friend’s disgust as she peruses my book shelves for a loan.

4. Although I write blog posts I cannot upload or comment on a blog. I am shockingly bad at technology which, as you can imagine, drives the girls wild. I can’t use Pinterest, my satnav is totally redundant and I can’t change stations on the radio. I am excellent at buying online though – mainly plants haha. I have to stay off plant websites at midnight as I get carried away. My son (the gardener and tree surgeon) despairs of clients that buy loads of plants with no idea where to put them and no thought for design, and rants on the subject. I can see the look on his face when he is called round periodically to help me sort out the massed row of pots waiting to be planted.

5. I have been addicted to Vaseline for my dry lips from a young age and now all my children have the same addiction – the girls being the worst. I have a tin in the car, a tin by my bed, a tin on the kitchen table, a tin on my desk at the factory, a tin in my sewing room, a tin at the caravan – need I say more! I have tested all manner of lip salve but it has to be the plain old blue tin of Vaseline and I have tried to wean myself off but with no luck, but still, it’s quite harmless, I just look a bit greasy sometimes and get some funny looks on the train haha.

Amelia

1. Half my hair is shaved. The other half isn’t.

2. I’m scared of putting my feet on the floor of swimming pools because of the crocodiles lurking at the bottom.   I’m yet to actually lay eyes on said crocodiles, but I know they’re there.

3. Like my mother, I prefer not to speak. Wherever possible.   Unless I’m asleep….

4. I talk in my sleep and once insisted to Hollie that broccoli makes you tan, obviously she asked me to elaborate, to which I snapped back ‘oh just forget it, I’ll explain in the morning!’ (However, I would like to point out, before anyone starts eating absurd quantities of broccoli in preparation for summer, that I’m fairly sure it doesn’t actually have magical tanning powers!)

5. I love to cook and my boyfriend and I try a new recipe almost every weekend. I have however, had a few disasters… I saw a lovely looking recipe by Jamie Oliver for a moroccan tagine, which called for preserved lemons and I stupidly thought, no problem, I’ll preserve them myself. I diligently turned my jar of lemons several times a day for the first few days and then left them for a month to finish preserving. Now, I’m the sort of person that’s thinking about what to have for dinner at breakfast, so to wait a month for a recipe, it better be good! Well, the only way I can describe the taste of the tagine was lemon washing up liquid, it was vile! I’m not sure what I did wrong, but it’s safe to say I will never be preserving my own lemons again! To add insult to injury, I cooked an extra batch of chicken, thinking how lovely it would be to freeze and eat later. So in my effort to avoid any waste, I attempted to rinse the chicken (yes, that’s right, I rinsed my chicken under the tap), and then added it to a casserole sauce to try and mask the soapy lemon flavour, but there was just no hiding that vile taste. Even the dog wouldn’t touch it, he looked up at me as if to say, you expect me to eat this?! So, needless to say it all ended up in the bin.

We hope you enjoyed learning a little more about each of us- do feel free to comment below with a fact about yourself, we’d love to get to know our readers a little better too!

Audenza Ladies x

Photos: Samie Lee Photography