Deborah Medhurst, is the Founder and Creative Director of No Added Sugar. CITYMOM had a little Q&A with her!
First of all my compliments, we love the collection of No Added Sugar! Especially the beautiful colours. Who or what was your biggest inspiration when creating this collection?
The collection is entitled “Things Aren’t Always Quite What They Seem”. We started with the idea of illusions, how the colours and heat generated from the sun can create visual distortions. We arrived at a place where there was an other worldly feel which we loved and ran with.
You moved your personal and business life from London to Hampshire. How did the country life changed you as a person and did it influence the brand too?
We were very naive! It was a much bigger deal to relocate than we first imagined, not personally but for the business. We moved over 5 years ago now and once we finally settled, it has been a breath of fresh air – (sorry, I couldn’t resist the pun!). We are in the South Downs National Park so surrounded by beautiful countryside and without the clutter of a city it affords a calm space to think and plan. We can hop on the train to London and be there in an hour so it all is perfectly within reach and absolutely essential to our creative heads!
After almost 15 years of No Added Sugar, where are you most proud of?
It has been a journey; the kids fashion land was pretty non existent when we arrived in 2001 and we have witnessed a big transformation to the market. It is now very crowded, highly competitive and offers the consumer a vast choice in styles, price and quality – I don’t think any of those things are a negative, it simply highlights for me that we need to stay true to our brand and constantly strive to be better!
What am I proud of? I think we have progressed as a brand but not lost our handwriting; our customers tell us that we have that elusive mix of surprising them with the new yet retaining the nas style that they look for in each collection. I’m proud that we continue to stock some of the same stores since the early days, a comforting sign! I’m also very proud that we have not compromised our quality, in fact I think our quality is the best its ever been and despite the draw of a bigger margin it is not where we want to sit as a brand. I value beautiful fabrics and quality workmanship and couldn’t work with anything less hence 90% of our collections are made in Europe.
www.noaddedsugar.com