Blog – Faux Play

Girl Power!

7 March 2021 Lizzy Butterfield

Happy International Women’s Day!I come from a long line of strong independent women. Growing up my Nan and my Mother were always a source of inspiration to me. My Nan came from Deal in Kent and, when she finished school, she made the decision to move to London for work. Her family was not wealthy and could not afford to hop on a train to visit her, there were no telephones and she would not be able to afford to go back to visit them for some months. At that time the only way she could stay in touch was to write to them – so to her, it felt like moving to the other side of the world. It was not a decision that she ever regretted. I remember her telling me about this when I was having a major wobble about going on my GAP year to New…

Reach out to a loved one this Valentine’s Day

29 January 2021 Lizzy Butterfield

“I hate January,” I declared to my husband as I dragged myself out of bed one dark, dingy morning for another day of work. “It’s cold, I get up in the dark, and by the time I’ve finished work it’s dark again”.“I haven’t left the house for three days. I rarely get to walk the dogs, and we’re all broke! “January is the longest, most depressing month of the year.” Valentine’s Day can be a really lovely occasion if you have someone special to share it with. I think it’s been very over-commercialised over the years, but my inner-romantic still loves the concept of having a day to celebrate love.This year I would encourage everyone to celebrate love. It doesn’t have to be love for a partner, it could be love for a family member or friend. I remember when I was a child my Dad gave me a Valentine’s…

The best worst month of the year

19 January 2021 Lizzy Butterfield

“I hate January,” I declared to my husband as I dragged myself out of bed one dark, dingy morning for another day of work. “It’s cold, I get up in the dark, and by the time I’ve finished work it’s dark again”.“I haven’t left the house for three days. I rarely get to walk the dogs, and we’re all broke! “January is the longest, most depressing month of the year.”“Nothing good EVER happens in January,” I barked, as I drew back the curtains to see a dreary, misty day staring back at me.“Well I love January,” was my husband’s slightly bemusing reply. “It’s the best month of the year,” he continued.I looked at him aghast and, before I had a chance to throw something heavy at him for mocking my bleak mood, he started to throw questions at me.“You like daffodils don’t you?”I had to concede that I did.“You like…

2020… What a year!

31 December 2020 Lizzy Butterfield

This time last year when we were raising a glass to the “roaring twenties” I don’t think any of us could have imagined even in our wildest dreams that 12 months down the line we would all be in the middle of an international pandemic!It has certainly been a funny year, a confusing year, a very different year. In January I could hug my friends and family, by the end of March to do so was to risk potential death. But for me it hasn’t been an entirely bad year. One of the things that lockdown taught me was the need to be grateful for what I have got. I’ve learned that it’s very easy to focus on what you cannot do, what you don’t have. I was taught from a young age that if things do not go according to plan then you don’t stew over what didn’t happen,…

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas

18 December 2020 Lizzy Butterfield

Wow! I can’t believe that Christmas is nearly here already! As I write this, we have sent out all of our Christmas orders and the deadline for final posting has now passed, although we will still do e-vouchers right up until the end of Christmas Eve.As with every event that we’ve had this year, I suspect that for many of us Christmas is going to be far from “normal”. I don’t know about you, but in my family we have all sorts of fun (or probably “funny”, to an onlooker) Christmas traditions. Looking back to my childhood I have so many happy memories of Christmas with my family, and when Gareth and I first got together he was welcomed into the fold as well. I will never forget his face that first year he spent Christmas with my family. You never realise just how odd your own Christmas traditions are…

Creating timeless clothing in a throw-away society – it’s what my Nan would have wanted

4 December 2020 Lizzy Butterfield

Some of you might already be familiar with this picture I put up the other day to showcase our medium pile plush faux fur snood which I’ve recently added as a product to our website. What you won’t know is that the coat I’m wearing actually belonged to my grandmother (who would have been 101 a few days ago). This particular coat, I believe, was purchased in the 1960s. This got me thinking about fashion and the throw-away culture that has developed over the last few years. It seems that sometimes the emphasis on fast fashion and the need to have the latest item of clothing “right now” surpasses any sort of requirement for quality. You may remember, shortly after Lockdown One, seeing people queuing outside the likes of Primark so they could race in and grab new clothes. This time around I gather some shops are planning to open…

Shopping is always better with gin!

22 November 2020 Lizzy Butterfield

I was thinking about Christmas shopping and it made me wonder…. How organised are we, really?People often stereotype the man frantically shopping on Christmas Eve, the woman organised months in advance. The reality is that a lot of us probably sit somewhere in the middle.This year I was very organised and bought many Christmas gifts in the January sales, back in those halcyon, pre-COVID days. But I still had several presents to get.I hadn’t really fancied trawling round shops in the summer when things started to open up a bit and I remained very cautious, which meant that I still had presents to get so I turned to online.It might surprise you to know that, as someone who owns an online business, ironically, I struggle with online shopping when it comes to gift-buying.You see, in a real shop I like to browse, and suddenly I’ll see something and have a…

Fake Fur, Real Women

18 November 2020 Lizzy Butterfield

In my previous blog I spoke about my love of animals and one of the things that drew me to fauxPlay was the ethical element of the business, as all of our faux fur is entirely man-made and I could never bear the thought of animals being harmed in the making of real fur products.One of the first things that I did when we bought the business was sit down and think about the values that I wanted this business to have. One of the major things for me was that I wanted it to be a brand that reflected and appealed to real women.In society there is still an awful lot of pressure on women and girls to be a certain weight, act a certain way, dress a certain way, and so on.We often struggle to be accepted if we don’t fit into the “perfect woman” mould that society…

Hi, I’m Lizzy

25 September 2020 Lizzy Butterfield

I’m Lizzy, the proud new managing director of fauxPlay. And welcome to our first blog. I felt it was only right to start my first fauxPlay blog by introducing myself. I know that many of our past customers will be keen to know who the “newbie” is that’s suddenly taken the helm of this much-loved brand, so here goes… Originally from Buckinghamshire, I have now been living in Derbyshire for 13 years which is all the fault of my “ball and chain”; my husband, Gareth. I fell in love with Derbyshire as I fell in love with Gareth and I am proud to now call it my home. Although I do always give a cheer whenever we drive past the official north/south divide, Watford Gap Services, on the M1. I discovered fauxPlay for sale and something immediately drew me to it. While my own “look” can range anywhere from “scruffy…