Briers to showcase HemingwayDesign collection at this year’s Garden & Home Press Event

Briers the specialist gardening gloves and footwear designer, distributer, manufacturer and the licensee behind the GIMA award-winning  Gruffalo® range of children’s gardening clothes and accessories, will be exhibiting the latest additions to their collections at this year’s Garden & Home Press Event on Thursday 13February 2014 at the Barbican Exhibition Centre.  Briers will be present on stand H33.

The Garden & Home Press Event 2014 will showcase Briers latest trends to compliment spring, featuring the new range designed by Wayne and Gerardine Hemingway MBE, formally of Red or Dead, and their award winning HemingwayDesign team. The collection that is exclusive to Briers consists of gardening wellies, gloves and rainmacs.

The HemingwayDesign product ranges comprise of:

• Pop Splash, inspired by the pop art movement that emerged in the UK and the US in the 1950s
• Grid, inspired by the table tops in 1950s caffs and early lino floors
• Tulips, a collection inspired by the wide variety of colours seen in tulips, from mustard and grey to blue and green                               
• Typo, giving some of the HemingwayDesign team’s favourite fonts an airing in the form of words about wellies

Briers believe there has long been a gap in the market for design-led ladies gardening gloves, footwear and accessories. As well as providing excellent functionality and durability, quality products can also be colourful, stylish and contemporary.

Jackie Eades, Founder and Managing Director of Briers commented, “The Garden & Home Press Event is always such a delightful event to attend, we at Briers have no hesitation coming back year on year.” Jackie continued to say, “2014 is set to be a big year for Briers and we feel that the Garden Press & Home Event is the perfect setting to showcase some of our exciting new ranges” 

The exclusive Garden & Home Press Event features most of the top UK gardening companies who use this event as a platform to promote new products and plants to garden media, journalists, broadcasters and press. The one-day show, which provides the media with a perfect opportunity to handle new products and talk to industry experts, raises funds for Greenfingers, the charity which creates magical gardens for children's hospices.

Standing by the motto “We listen, we care, we learn”, The Garden & Home Press Event has proven to be such a success with visitors and exhibitors that the event has now moved to larger venues as it continues to grow and develop.

Briers believes that its willingness to create bespoke ranges for retailers, quality standards and customer care are major contributory factors in its recent growth.

The current Briers product range comprises of:

• Gloves – leather gloves, washable gloves, children’s gloves, ladies’ gloves, all rounder and seedling gloves and workwear gloves
• Footwear – garden clogs, ankle boots, adult and children’s wellington boots, high heeled boots, Boppers and Stardust ankle boots
• The Briers Gruffalo® range – a collection of outdoor clothing, accessories and gardening tools for children. The range includes fleece jacket, pack-away rain mac, wellington boots and wellington boot warmers, gardening kneeler, watering can, umbrella, a hat, glove and scarf set, gardening gloves, gardening rake, fork and trowel. Briers are also committed to the wider gardening industry. Jackie Eades has served on the council of GIMA, the trade association that promotes and protects the interests of UK and EU businesses supplying the UK garden industry.

This year’s Garden & Home Press Event will be held at the Barbican Exhibition Centre, Silk Street, London EC2Y 8DS on Thursday 13February 2014. Briers will be on stand H33.

Briers would like to invite you to come to their stand, H33, to pick up a free pair of Jersey gloves from the Daisy Dot range; the light use gloves are perfect for the home and garden.

Briers products can be found at Wilkinsons, B&Q, Dobbies, The Garden Centre Group, Blue Diamond and Garden and Leisure as well as independent garden centres, DIY stores and fashion retailers. Briers also supplies to major national wholesalers such as Decco.

For more information on Briers products please visit www.briersltd.co.uk.

Like Briers on Facebook http://www.facebook.com/Briersltd

Follow Briers on Twitter @BriersLtd

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Briers Backgrounder

Briers is a specialist gardening gloves and footwear brand. The company is also the licensee behind the GIMA (Gardening Industry Manufacturers’ Association) award-winning Gruffalo® range of children’s gardening clothes and accessories.

In the last three years, Briers has launched Stardust Wellingtons, Floral patterned gloves with matching kneelers, Boppers and High Heeled Boots. This period has coincided with a steady rise in turnover – including a 50% increase in 2012 - despite pressures on consumer spending. Retail customers of Briers have also reported a growing demand for the brand.

A willingness to create bespoke ranges for retailers and unrivalled customer care are major contributory factors in the growth of Briers. Also significant is the influence of Founder and Managing Director, Jackie Eades, who provides a female perspective into what has traditionally been a male-dominated sector. Jackie has led Briers through a series of ground-breaking developments in gardening product retail. The Gruffalo range, for example, has proved a highly successful product licensing initiative, leading the way in its sector. Demand for wellington boots, meanwhile, continues to grow, helped by Briers’ appealing designs and innovative marketing.

Looking ahead, Jackie has also built excellent relationships with manufacturing partners in China to ensure best practice in production in the years ahead.

Briers customers

Briers’ target audience is made up of people typically aged 40 plus and falling within the ABC1 socio-economic group. Customers choose Briers because they want fashionable design without compromising functionality or quality of manufacture. Briers’ products are in the mid-market price range and enjoy broad appeal.

Briers products

The current Briers product range comprises:

Gloves – over 50 SKUs, RRPs (recommended retail prices) from £9.99

Leather gloves, washable gloves, children’s gloves, ladies’ gloves, all rounder and seedling gloves and workwear gloves.

Footwear - over 20 SKUs RRPs from £39.99 - £49.99

Garden clogs, ankle boots, adult and children’s wellington boots, high heeled boots, Boppers and Stardust ankle boots.

The Gruffalo® range for children.

Fleece jacket, pack-away rain mac, wellington boots, wellington boot warmers, gardening kneeler, watering can, umbrella, gardening gloves, gardening rake, fork, trowel and hat, glove and scarf set.

Brand profile

Briers’ flair for retail and merchandising has attracted extensive editorial coverage in several high circulation consumer and trade publications. These include GTN (Garden Trade News), Horticulture Week, FE Magazine (Fashion & Footwear Extras), Daily Mail Weekend Magazine, Garden News and Kitchen Garden. In September 2012, Woman and Home magazine, which has a circulation of 350,000, published a profile on Jackie Eades.

Briers retains the services of the specialist public relations consultancy, redheadPR, whose clients in the gardening sector also include Stewart Garden and John Woods Nurseries. The consultancy is headed up by Sara Tye, an award-winning and top 500 international PR, who has also worked with major consumer brands such as Green & Black’s, Nokia and Frangi Tie Rack. Sara has extensive experience of managing client relationships with celebrities. She has worked closely with many well-known figures, including TV presenter, comedienne and psychologist Ruby Wax and grow your own specialist and regular broadcaster Pippa Greenwood.

Briers’ ethics

Wherever possible, Briers uses manufacturers that are members of Sedex (Supplier Ethical Data Exchange). Sedex is a not-for-profit membership organisation that drives improvements in ethical and responsible business practices in global supply chains. Briers also operates ethical policies on the environment, human rights and animal welfare. 

Briers is a member of the British Boot, Shoe and Allied Trades Research Association (SATRA). SATRA is the world’s leading research and technology centre of its kind and a leading authority on international legislation and testing.

Briers is also committed to the wider gardening industry. Matt Jackson, Sales Director serves on the council of GIMA, the trade association that promotes and protects the interests of UK and EU businesses supplying the UK garden industry.

Briers stockists

Briers products can be found at major outlets across the UK. These include Wilkinsons, B&Q, Dobbies, The Garden Centre Group, Blue Diamond and Garden and Leisure as well as independent garden centres, DIY stores and fashion retailers. Briers also supplies to major national wholesalers such as Decco.

For more information visit www.briersltd.co.uk.