Creator Sarah Boddy ‘excited’ by classic characters’ new home at Cherry Orchard
Artist Sarah Boddy is over the moon that her Camilla & Rose characters will still be fruity into their old age as she moves the Henry Cole Classic brand from now-closed Peartree Heybridge to a new home with Cherry Orchard Publishing.
It’s the next chapter in the history of the gentle humour brand that originally came about after Sarah lost a Christmas bet with a pal, and has been prompted by the retirement decision of founders and brothers Mike and John Partridge and fellow director Louise Martin, with Peartree Heybridge having stopped taking orders from Monday, 31 October.
“I have loved working with them all these years,” Sarah told PG Buzz, “and was extremely sad when I received a phone call from Louise to say they’d decided to cease trading at the end of October, although I totally understood.
“I thought the girls and I were going to retire with them, but then I was approached by Jackie Collins and Beverley Fisher – owner and creative director of Cherry Orchard – and, after a meeting, they offered to dust the girls down, give them a little facelift and send them back out to hopefully deck the spinners of many card shops to come.
“I’m so excited to have been given this opportunity to work with Cherry Orchard and hopefully continue to have fun with the two girls. They’ve been such a huge part of my life, I am so happy to be able to continue working with them.”
Sarah explained she first met Louise and Mike at Spring Fair in 2006 as a “very green around the gills newbie to the card industry”, having taken a last-minute stand at the show “because I lost a bet with a friend”!
The pal had seen Sarah’s “it takes a long time to grow an old friend” card she’d made for a birthday and asked her to design more around friendships between two women to sell at a Christmas fair.
“I wasn’t convinced,” Sarah said, “but my friend said if they sold out I was to do a show to get them out to a wider audience. The Christmas fair was two days long and, after the first day, she rang me up to say she’d sold out and that I’d better book a stand asap!”
Admitting she had no idea what she was doing at the trade show, Sarah was bowled over by the camaraderie in the greeting card sector. “I’d come from the fashion industry where everyone was quite guarded about everything to this lovely environment where everyone was so helpful and encouraging,” she said.
She made friends with the Peartree Heybridge team, which led to them becoming sole greeting card licensees for Sarah’s work a couple of years later, and they have worked together on many ranges since with Camilla & Rose growing into gifting too, notably through a licensing agreement with Lesser & Pavey and winning The Henry Cole Classic Award last year, “to say we were excited is an understatement”!
Sarah added: “They say fruit is good for you so it’s only fitting the girls have gone from a Peartree to a Cherry Orchard. I’d like to thank Peartree Heybridge for the wonderful years we have shared, and I look forward very much to working alongside Cherry Orchard in the future.”
