What a year it’s been, we can’t quite believe it’s nearly over! As we come to the end of 2022 we reminisce over Whale Of A Time’s highlights over the past 12 months. We’ve been pretty busy, from campaign shoots, product launches, collaborations to charity sponsors, we've covered it all!
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SS22 Collection
In March 2022 we headed to one of our favourite local beaches, Wells-Next-The-Sea with the team to shoot our SS22 campaign shoot. The brief at this shoot was 'Day At The Coast' we wanted to shoot the perfect day at the beach, we bought the deck chairs, beach games and drinks. We of course headed to Wells Quay to indulge into the famous Wells fish and chips.
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For the SS22 collection we introduced a modern twist on our much loved Deck Shirts and Quarter Zips. We welcomed the Hurley Cropped Deck Shirt and St Ives Cropped Quarter Zips to the collection. These pieces have been a hit ever since they launched, making them one of our best selling pieces. We also added polo shirts to the collection for both him and her, the Holt Polo Shirt and the Polzeath Polo shirt, both products were a summer favourite this year.
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2022 Events
We were so pleased to be able to attend our favourite events this year after not being able to for 3 years, and they did not disappoint! Our first show of the year was Badminton Horse Trials. This year we sponsored GB’s young and upcoming rider Alice Casburn, Alice wore our Burnham Long Sleeved T-Shirt for her cross country round. Aged just 20 years old, Alice rode a seriously impressive round at her first ever Badminton, to finish 19th on her homebred horse, Topspin.
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In June we attended the Suffolk Show where we showcased our new SS22 collection. The following month was The Game Fair, this three day event is always such good fun! We had some familiar faces join us on the stand, it’s always so great to get the chance to meet our customers and people that we work with at these shows, it’s what we look forward to the most!
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Burghley Horse Trials 2022 was very exciting, this was our biggest stand yet and where we launched our AW22 collection! The highlight of the weekend was to see our sponsored rider Alice Casburn finish 5th at her first ever Burghley Horse Trials. Alice wore her lucky Burnham Long Sleeved T-Shirt on her incredible cross-country round on Topspin. We got the chance to walk the course with Alice and get her professinal prespective on how she would tackle one of the hardest cross-country rounds in the world! If you missed it head over to our Reels on Instagram for Alice's top tips!
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AW22 Collection
In August we headed up to Northamptonshire with the team to shoot our AW22 and Christmas campaign shoot, on the hottest day of the year! We hired a beautiful house in the Northamptonshire countryside to capture a picture perfect Christmas. Wreath making, board games, Christmas dinner, we did it all! It felt a little odd getting festive in 30+ degrees but the team worked their magic and the content delivered! For AW22 we bought back an old favourite in new colour ways, the Arnoux Sweatshirt along with brand new designs, the Sussex Full Zip Fleece, Helmsley Hoodie and Blenheim round Neck jumper.
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Charity Work
We love to get involved in charity work when we can, we always work closely with Mind charity. We regularly send a box of clothing to Mind’s charity shops. This year we decided to launch the Arnoux Quarter Zip where 100% of the profit from sales in October were donated to Mind charity. We managed to raise over £700.
In October we supported the 3 Dads who set on an incredible challenge to raise awareness for suicide prevention by walking walking between each parliament of the 4 nations in memory of their beloved daughters Beth, Sophie and Emily. Their aim is to make suicide prevention a compulsory part of the school curriculum, they needed 100,000 signatures on their petition for it to be considered in the houses of parliament. They have managed to get 152,572 signatures therefore their debate will be discussed in parliament.
Collaborations
Over the year we have collaborated with our favourite brands for giveaways and influencers to create social media content. We love coming together and working on exciting projects with other brands, it's a chance to catch up and check in with how we're all doing on this journey together as fellow small businesses. We love to work with old and new influencers to create exciting content for our followers. We are very grateful to this community we've built over the years and very much look forward to working together again in 2023!
2022 has been a great year for Whale Of A Time for so many reasons! We've made lots of memories, worked with lovely people, released brand new designs and had a lot of fun along the way! On behalf of all the team at Whale Of A Time we'd like to thank our customers for shopping with us this year. We wish you all a very merry Christmas and a happy New Year!
See you in 2023!