A Joyful 2022 Roundup

2022 has been quite the whirlwind of a year. After years of lockdowns and difficult circumstances, 2022 provided a much needed return to normal life for many people. We were reminded how precious life can be, and proceeded to life our lives to the fullest, we experienced joy like never before and appreciated our social lives that little bit more. 

It was a year of Joy for us all at Sarah Haran. We welcomed over 1000 new members to our Bags of Joy club, we created new relationships and fostered friendships we will have for life. Many of our members met up for lunches and cocktails, and we even hosted some events so we could all get together and share our joy. We laughed together, celebrated with each other, and when any one of us needed a helping hand we were there to pick one another up. 

It really has been a year of joy, so why not pop the kettle on and relax as we round up all of the biggest and best moments of 2022! 

 We kicked off 2022 with a bundle of joy like no other. On January 23^rd Martina and Rob welcomed baby Millie to the world. A true blessing, Millie was given the reception of a princess by all of her wonderful Aunties in the BOJ club. Now almost a year old, Millie has earned her keep, featuring in many photoshoots, launching her own handbag and keeping all of the girls at HQ in check!

 We launched the year with our Q1 event, hosting TV chef and personality Tonia Buxton and saw the arrival of the Daisy complimentary bag! This quirky little bag was an instant hit with our VIP’s who loved making vibrant new combos with Daisy’s brightly coloured flaps.

 In February we celebrated Chinese New Year with our lantern charm necklaces and combos rich in oriental colours. On the 13^th, we felt the valentine’s day love when everyone took to Facebook to share their sweetheart stories.

 We refreshed our palates with our citrus shagreen launch. We loved seeing everyone’s fizzy combos with their fabulous new shagreen Ivy’s, Jasmines, Gemini Straps, Bows and Flaps.

The readers among us were thrilled with World Book Day and World Poetry day taking place in the same month. March began with us sharing our childhood stories in the BOJ, everyone got to know each other that little bit better as we shared funny, silly, sweet and inspiring stories from our childhood days.

 We were empowered on International Woman’s Day as Sarah held an online shopping event, featuring bundles inspired by all of the famous ladies who inspire us, and honoured our amazing mothers on Mothers Day.

 On St Patricks Day we felt the luck of the Irish with new Clovers making their way into everyone’s boxes.

Q2 started with a bang as everyone raced to reserve their complimentary Ivy, and we heard from journalist and Loose Woman anchor Jane Moore at our online zoom event. 

We indulged ourselves as chocolate coins arrived in our orders for our hidden treasure theme. We celebrated Easter with new shades of Mini D, Lily and Fluffy pompoms.

May had us feeling suave in suede as we launched all new Bows, Libra Straps and Ivy’s in some pastel spring colours, as well as new circle deco strips finding their way into a SHoops or two. National wine day saw us donning our Merlot Dahlia’s and enjoying a glass of red (or a bottle!)

As the Chelsea Flower Show took place, many of you shared your green thumbed tips in the BOJ and we all enjoyed seeing everyone’s blossoming spring gardens, many of which were prepared for quite the momentous occasion…

 Queen Elizabeth’s Platinum Jubilee was the event of the summer. As people up and down the country celebrated Her Majesty with street parties and garden soiree’s our bag of choice was the Jewel Dahlia, and everyone accessorised with their red, white and blue Jubilee tassels.

 Jessica joined us in some hot new hues alongside some webbing straps to create the perfect airport look and our vintage car theme saw many of you taking to Facebook to show us your own! We held a start of summer sale where you all managed to bag a bargain SHoops, and as we enjoyed some strawberries and cream for Wimbledon week, we managed to spot some of our lovely ladies sitting courtside with their Wimbledon white SH bags.

The SHoops tote was a popular addition to SH collections everywhere. The Q3 bag came just in time for summer galivanting as she was quite the hit with beachgoers and market-shoppers alike. Our Q3 event featured Scottish TV presenter Jean Johanssen, who inspired us all with her incredible career story. 

We saw the arrival of the Marigold Travel Bag, who saw many a city as you all set off on your summer breaks, and the lime leopard collection was an instant hit as you all looked for a bright and fun print to add to your summer outfits.

With so many wonderful customers joining us, it was time to expand our team once again welcoming Jennifer and Megan to the Joy HQ. We also said hello to Hyacinth in Lagoon, Submarine, Red and Berry, she looked just gorgeous with our new bows for a cute day-look. 

Our weekly themes had us shaking with Elvis, doing the Hula in Hawaii and taking a trip down to Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory, where some golden tickets found their way into some lucky ladies boxes of joy!

We re-launched our blog under a new name- The SHcoop! We know so many of you love to read, and of course you love handbags and SH too! Now we have a place for all sorts of handbag articles and styling tips. In our first post we upped our photography skills with a crash course from our very own photography genius Bryony, who taught us all the basics of photographing our handbags at home. 

We reignited our Women Who Inspire segment on the SHcoop, a feature where the BOJ ladies could share their stories so we could all get to know each other that little bit better. Our first lovely lady on the blog was HR whiz Moira Brown, and we all loved hearing about her successful career and her love for SH bags! 

 We surprised everyone with a huge announcement in September- we were moving Joy HQ out of Sarah’s house and into our new, loft-style offices! This is the biggest milestone we have reached so far, and we couldn’t have done it without each and every member of our BOJ community. The team were so excited to get into our gorgeous offices, and now we have lots of space to store even more beautiful handbags!

 Many of you bagged a SHoops or two in our SHuper moving sale and after many of you asking, we launched our Faux Fluffy collection with deco strips and tassels to keep your handbags cosy over the winter months.

 To launch Q4 we were joined by the wonderful Liz Earle MBE on our zoom event to get the down low on all things skincare, gut health and aging gracefully. The Holly bag proved popular, with many of you eager to get your hands on our gorgeous Christmas bag.

 

 There wasn’t much time to unpack all our moving boxes before our sell-out success Millie bag was launched. The adorable Baby Millie earned her keep modelling her new bag and pouch in the cutest photoshoot in SH history. Thanks to the Joy Squad, Millie was our greatest bag launch of all time!

 With no time to spare, we jumped straight into our birthday celebrations! Turning 5 was a huge moment for us all, and our new surroundings echoed just how far we have come in the past 5 years- from Sarah making the bags by herself- to now having a full team and a 4000 strong Joy Squad who we couldn’t love more!

 We launched our Birthday collection with 5 spectacular metallic Ivy’s, and got you all involved in the celebrations with our party bags making their way to you all. Sharon Hunt won our #birthdaydahlia competition with her Jewel Dahlia combos.

 The real showstopper of the month was our Bronzed Glamour Mini D! You loved the Bronzed Glamour so much that we had no choice but to do a second run!

 There was a bustle around HQ as we held not one, but two photoshoots! We had wonderful content creator Susie Bruce and presenter Zara Janjua model, giving us plenty of beautiful photographs to update our website and social media with. Followed by our very first product photography shoot where we let our bags take centre stage, and we must say they looked just gorgeous.

 On the SHcoop we learned how to style our blues, pinks, neutrals and blacks and were inSHpired by the amazing BOJ ladies Andree Graham and Alison Davis! And our SHalloween competition was won by Kathy Sinclair.

 In November we boycotted Black Friday once again in favour of Bright Friday. We had 3 weeks of flash offers which you all took advantage of and we loved seeing all of your joyful posts as you received your boxes.

 You all got involved as we lit up November with our #brightfridaycombo’s, which was won by Fiona Jarvis with her Bow-tiful combos.

 Our delayed delivery finally arrived and after you all being so understanding and patient with us, we shipped all of your pre-orders out to you. We had all new Ferns, Poppys, Jasmines, Ivys, Bows, Deco Strips, Gemini Straps, Pompoms and more which caused quite the stir! We launched Tulip in Chocolate Silk and Snow Shimmer, and she’s been sighted at quite a few festive events already.

 We did our spring cleaning in autumn, making the decision to discontinue both Iris and Marie to make way for lots of new stock in the new year. While we’re sad to see some of our favourite handbags go, we are so excited for what’s to come!

 We hosted professional stylist Anita Feron Clark on the SHcoop. Anita gave us some great styling tips for the cooler months, as well as how to style yourself to promote confidence. For our Women Who Inspire segment, we had the bow queen herself, Lindsey Russel who inspired us all to be our authentic selves and embrace our quirks.

 

 And finally, it’s December once again! Our Naughty Gnomes got a Christmassy gonk makeover as they launched our Christmas Countdown. We enjoyed our advent calendar of offers to give us some festive cheer and the BOJ done an incredible job at our #12daysofchristmas competition, where we challenged you to dress up one handbag 12 ways! Our winner was Gillian Ritchie with Deanne Etson and Juli Moss our fabulous runners up.

 We completed our JOY candle collections and kept our brains working with a festive quiz.

 It was an Instagram-worthy month on the SHcoop as we got style advice from influencers Marie Louise Pumfrey, Kelley McCoy and Marie Baines, who we loved getting style advice from, as well as finding out how they wear their own SH bags.

 But by far the best part of December was getting to meet so many of our lovely Joy Squad at our Christmas parties in London and at HQ. The lovely ladies from house of colour treated us to a gorgeous collaboration, teaching us all how to choose the perfect colour of handbag for our skin tones. For the first time ever, we let you decide which limited edition leathers you want for next year, and we must say, you chose very well indeed!

  

 Before we knew it, the year was complete! We have absolutely loved spending time with you all both online and, finally, in-person. It’s been quite the exciting year for the brand and we can’t wait to see what shenanigans we’ll get up to in 2023!