An insight to the process for building our summer ranges!
Hello everyone, my name is Graham and I am one of the Directors here at Oak&Hyde.
Ever wondered how we build our ranges? Today, I will give you an insight into our process for creating our summer sandal ranges. Exciting right?!
Travelling to Spain
It is that time of year again for myself, Emma and Rob to travel out to Spain and develop our new collection for Summer 2025. It may seam early to you as we are just starting to enjoy the Summer in 2024, but we need to start our developments with the factory early to ensure we receive the sandals in plenty of time ready for next summers season.
It was a 6am flight from Bristol so the journey to the airport was quiet. The airport on the other hand was packed with holiday makers heading out for some summer sun and relaxation. Nothing fancy on the Ryanair flight which was full, but it did get us into Alicante on time. Phew!
We were met at the airport by one of the Oak&Hyde team who drove us to the Hotel for a pre development meeting to discuss the plan for the next day at the factory. We always have a plan for what products we are looking to develop for the next season, in these meetings, usually, we come up with something new that we can add in for the season. When thinking about what type of sandals we want to create, we look at whats currently trending, what features we want to add to ensure quality, comfort and lasting wear and of course what we feel our customers, you, would want to see.
Its the evening before that all important meeting!
The evening before the meeting we always go out to our favourite beach front restaurant called Moments with the factory owner for a catch up to talk about family, what we have been up to and life in general. The food and wine is always incredible at Moments, but as a team, being in moments enjoying the food and each other's company, we always find this a very enjoyable part of the trip, after all, business isnt just about making money, it is about something bigger, the people, the team and having fun while working towards a common goal.
The morning before our range building meeting.
The next morning it's breakfast and then straight to the footwear factory to start work. On arriving we always call around the office and warehouse to say Hola to all our Spanish team who create our beautiful leather sandals. We only see the Spanish team twice a year but it always feels like we only saw them yesterday.
Next it's into the showroom where all of the developments we have been working on line the shelves in amazing colour. You can smell the leather in the air, this is always my favourite place as this is where the magic happens. Note pads out and computers open. With the factory owner present to make additional notes we start the process of building the lines and selecting materials for what will become the Oak & Hyde Summer 2025 sandal and slip on clogs collection.
The process, building a range.
We are probably in the showroom for 3 hours, drinking the odd Cortado (Spanish short coffee with a little milk) to keep the mind sharp and working through piles of different leather swatches and soles. Over the 3 hour working session we use our range planner and the available leathers to slowly build, line by line, the colours, styles and types of leather that we believe work best for that season. It is something that takes time and we do have to decide as a team what works and what doesn't. There is a lot of enjoyment that comes once we have our selection in place for the new (or existing) style which we will sell for SS25 and of course your favourites like the classic Savannah sandal will remain in the range but we will add some new colours.
Once all of the new styles, colours and leathers have been logged on the factory system, we then move the meeting onto discussing other details such as box design, branding and packaging. This usually doesn't take long but we feel it is important that our sandals are branded clearly as Oak&Hyde and that the packaging has a quality feel. After all, opening the box and taking the sandals out is our customers first impression of our brand and first impressions are super important to us. We want our customers to be excited to open their new pair of sandals.
The end of another successful trip to Spain.
Once the meeting is concluded we then say Adios and head for the Airport, hoping that the flight will not be delayed which can happen this time if the year.
Another season planned and finalised, now we just have to wait to see all of our hard work arrive in our UK warehouse.
Stay tuned for more updates and maybe a sneak peak of some new lines.
All the best
Graham
