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Coronation (High) Street It’s been a right royal affair over the past few weeks with Coronation fever fully kicking in as soon as greeting card retailers got Mother’s Day and Easter ticked off. PG shares some of the wonderful windows as well as some ‘crown jewels’ of comments from around the industry.
Royal seal of approval Have you noticed the front cover of this issue of PG? Think the pic of Paper Salad cofounder Claire Williams and the King is Photoshopped? Absolutely not! The photograph proves Paper Salad received the royal seal of approval even before the company officially started, with Claire and business partner Karen Wilson giving the then Prince Charles one of their first ever birthday card designs. “It was back in 2003, two years before we launched Paper Salad, but we were designing greeting cards within the industry.” Karen explained, “We were lucky enough to be one of two businesses, of around 70 in total within our first premises, to have the chance to meet him. We were based in an old cotton mill in Stockport which had undergone a massive renovation, a project he’d been very much involved with. He spent quite a bit of time with us and was interested in what we were doing. As it was his birthday a couple of days later, Claire presented him with one of our designs and told him to “put it on his mantlepiece” - so that explains the photo on the front cover! As we have PG’s front cover in the month of King Charles’ coronation, we couldn’t not use it. We have also designed a special card as a promotion to honour the occasion, and we’ve sent it out to customers to use as they wish, whether to send to their customers or make bunting for their window displays.” Left and above: Claire Williams with the then Prince Charles and PG’s May front cover.
Right: The special card Paper Salad has sent to customers.
Sun shone on Milford The Sun has been shining on indie retailers Kayleigh and Sinan Hisim’s coronation efforts as their Milford Cards & Gifts shop has been featured in the national newspaper’s coverage of the big event and how people were starting to celebrate. Snapper Chris Balcombe was commissioned by The Sun newspaper to find a shop for the feature, which ran in the 20 April issue of the paper, and having noticed the magnificent amount and variety of coronation stock their shop had after seeing photos Kayleigh had taken and posted on Facebook, he got in touch. “The Sun was over the moon with the pictures, which had to be organised and shot within a few hours of the picture desk ringing me. The family was only too happy to help and were fantastic to work with. Their business deserves every success.” Kayleigh added: “It’s been really good, we were featured in The Sun and we’re hoping to be featured in our local paper too so that really helps with the unexpected advertising - and it’s free! “We got in £1,500 worth of stock and the way it’s going we’ll sell out. It was the same with the jubilee, when it was hard to find items. It’s a gamble though as to what’s people go for. It’s definitely the bunting that’s the most popular, but I have bought a lot.” Above right: National coverage for Kayleigh, Sinan, Arif, 10, and Yusuf, six. (Picture credit: www.chrisbalcombe.com) PROGRESSIVE GREETINGS WORLDWIDE 25