And what a beautiful collection we have in store for you!
But what a protracted, stressful, fabulous, beautiful photoshoot THIS was! As always - and you all know the pattern now - there was a story behind this one!
"Let's go to somewhere that 100% will have Fall leaves" I said.
"Let's go where we know we have a huge following and can easily get models for the shoot" I thought.
"Let's make it a later shoot than ever to make sure all the samples arrive on time" I laughed.
So after using a very fancy tracker that tells you exactly where the best Fall foliage will be on any given day and month - similar to the kind of app you might use to see the progress of the cherry blossom in Japan - we determined a place called Concan in TX was where it was at.
After a little investigation (ok...hours actually...!) it seemed there were some truly stunning locations - Garner State Park, Lost Maples, Rio River....just check online - truly stunning spots and when you LOOK at those pics advertising the area they are mind flowingly beautiful. It seemed to good to be true! So - location - sorted.
Now for accommodation - always a little tricky given the sheer size of our photoshoot group...and for the first time we decided to bring the ENTIRE company with us. We thought what better way to bring everyone to the same location and have a few days dedicated to team togetherness.
The choice of large houses was fabulous - this is clearly a location that is inviting and fun and used to large parties coming for vacation. So - astonishingly- accommodation - sorted - albeit across three separate houses but all close and easy to travel to and fro.
Flights a little more difficult - where IS Concan? And this then became the running joke....because despite its apparent natural beauty nobody seemed to know. We invited our Dallas showroom team to join us one evening - they didn't know where it was. We said it's in Texas - you must know...they didn't. It's like someone saying to me in London you MUST know my cousin Joe who moved there - he sticks out as an American! Well ....no...some places are just TOO big and Texas is one of those places with many hidden gems it seems.
We established the best way to get there was to fly into Austin and drive 3hrs. All seems marvellously easy and achievable!
Now for the models....so we now start to realise just how hidden Concan is... this MIGHT have been one of the hardest locations we have ever encountered to get parents willing to sign up - but we are in Texas - the land of Me & Henry where most boutiques carry us! Where are all the families! NOT in Concan it seems...
So...let's jump forward to the actual shoot...
The house we booked is stunning - yay - party house! In fact so much so , given we had the entire team together we decided to celebrate Thanksgiving for the first time as a group - with more than half the team being British we thought this would be a fun way for the Americans to wow us with their traditions!
The weather is on our side, sunshine but HOT actually...always fun persuading little ones to wear sweaters and jackets in 85F. But way better than rain or freezing temperatures we have previously endured in Tennessee.
The location for the shoot is to die for - drop dead gorgeous - the light, the water, the trees, the colors - oh my goodness we lucked out. Truly spectacular and awe inspiring. We were giddy with delight.
We had wonderful families find us and sign up! We had people come hours to join in the fun, boutique owners bringing their families from San Antonio (Crib n Kids). Fort Worth (Lindsey Paige) , Gonzalez (CREW) and beyond. We even had one fan family come all the way from San Diego with their little lad you MIGHT recognize (Jayden!). Thank you to all of you for coming!
So what could go wrong? I mean really? Nothing right?
Well....samples....the most important element of a photoshoot....samples! Me & Henry was actually ok...more than 60% of the collection arrived and so while we got a chunk of our pics sorted our sister line Vignette was being drip fed samples on a painful daily basis - which was proving even more challenging given our remote location....
We also had another little issue ....wildlife... on top of a near death experience with hitting a stag one evening (thats a WHOLE different story - not for here lol) we not only had scorpions in one of the houses - yes scorpions - but wait for it...TARANTULAS! Who the HECK knew tarantulas were in Texas!
Upon closer inspection it seems there are 14 types of tarantula in the state. 14! Why had NOBODY told us this! We may have done the shoot in London. And before any of you write in and tell me their vote won't kill....I don't care! Hey are big and hairy and scary and we are not amused lol.! Especially when there's one on the deck of the house and one in the corner of the store room - waiting to pounce on us no doubt when we go out to the fridge.
Thinking we would finish the shoot in Concan, we had arranged for a smaller team to move to Austin to do the photoshoot for our other brand 'ettie+h' BUT because so many samples were arriving in Austin we decided to flip and continue with Me & Henry and Vignette.
At least there wouldn't be spiders there surely...how about a snake? You can't make it up - as we arrived at our accommodation what should slither across the path in front of as we check in? I might be over Texas or at least NEVER leave the showroom Dallas ever again.
But again - leaves, light, location - Austin delivered and we had a wonderful few days shooting as much matching brother and sister moments as possible - thankfully with an even bigger pool of families to play with.
The sun shone...the samples look lovely but we were still missing a chunk of Vignette girls so as we got closer and closer to the end of the shoot dates it became more and more apparent this was not it - we were going to have to do ANOTHER very very last minute emergency shoot otherwise we wouldn't have a good enough representation of the lines to create our important lookbooks to help us sell the line to boutiques...
So what to do... much to the upset but amazing understanding of our families, we added in a THIRD location two weeks before Christmas in Richmond, VA.
A house not quite in the middle of nowhere this time but it DID have its own graveyard which was a little unnerving.... and we still haven't worked out how my bedroom was locked from the INSIDE meaning I couldn't get in without the owners fitting a new lock.
However - it was a fabulously large house - which despite people thinking we need it for US - we need it for the organization of the samples lol.
This time we had all the samples, a MASS of kids, gorgeous weather and to be honest such an easy experience we decided there and then we would absolutely be going back THIS November for the Fall 25 shoot.
Snakes, scorpions, stags, spiders and spooks aside - we LOVE this collection and hope you do too.
I have personally spent a huge amount of time working on color palettes and softness of fabrics. There are lots of new shapes and styles with more sherpa and sweaters than ever before. And for the first time in 8 years NEW jeans!
If you have a boutique near you - go and see if they have Me & Henry - it's always so much nicer to touch and feel but also to support local business owners. And if you live in the middle of nowhere like Concan, we are here for you with our website :-)
Thank you thank you to all that made this seaosn happen - from our manufacturers in Hong Kong, to the team who endured the three photoshoots, to the reps that did an amazing job of selling our line to all the boutiques and to you for being such a loyal fan of Me & Henry.
Happy shopping.
Click on the image below to view the gorgeous new lookbook
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