"Everything is Awesome"

Raise your hand if you've seen The Lego Movie.

Actually it's quite good and worth a watch. Of course I was sitting on an 11 hour flight sharing a communal TV- there was not much choice in the matter.

There's a fun song with lyrics that go....
"Everything is awesome! Everything is cool when you're part of a team. Everything is awesome, when we're living our dream."

Do NOT listen to it. It will get stuck in your head and you'll find yourself belting out "Everything is awesome" even when it is inappropriate to do so. Worse yet, when something is not actually awesome and the whole situation becomes misconstrued.

Although it is nice to be part of a team.

Extremely Good Customer Service- Equuleus Designs

I jumped on COTH for a second today and ran across a recent thread about a consumer who was disappointed in the Ogilvy customer service experience. And it had three hundred and fifteen responses!

Holy smokes! Certainly a good reminder about the power of web publicity! In my personal opinion, I would almost always rather shop from a retailer rather than directly from the manufacturer. The cost is the same,  it keeps the independents in business, plus there's a middle man to deal with any service issues for me.

Speaking of customer service, I recently had a lovely experience with Equuleus Designs. As you may recall I won a custom pillow from them in a Horse & Style Magazine contest over Holiday where I may or may not have run around my house shouting "I won, I won."

They asked me to send a photo in January that they could use for the design and I didn't manage to actually decide on anything until the middle of March. The pillow had crossed my mind a few times since but as it was a free gift I didn't want to be a bug.

When I returned from my vacation I opened the box and found not one but two pillows, the second au gratis for the time it took them! What a treat!

Ferragamo Shoes

Get excited girls! The Hunter Green Show Coat is on its way for Spring 2015!

In other, rather less exciting news, Ellie had her shoes put on today by our new farrier. Kelly made the switch when said well known shoe-er recently relocated back to Cali from the East Coast. Ells was one of the last horses in the string for his first cycle and I had heard from others that he's been doing a fabulous job- spending a lot of time with each horse and making sure the fit is perfect.

I had the chance to meet him this afternoon and he commented on how nice Ellie was and her good feet (thank the lord). Then he pulled out a bunch of horse leg bones (coffin bone all the way up) and made me quite nervous about how delicate and tiny they all are (poor thing was really trying to show me the important of balance and evenness in the hoof).

Now we all know that horse shoes are not inexpensive. But even I was a little disconcerted when Kelly asked, "Is that Ellie over there getting her Ferragamo Shoes on?" Ummm Kelly? You know Ferragamo's are like $500 bucks right? Couldn't you call them Sam Edelman's as a compromise?
#squintatthebill and it won't look so bad.

Ellie shows off her new front feet!

Jet Lag Kicking In: What Would You Wear?

Phew- jet lag is finally kicking in! And the timing, of course, is not ideal. The apparel team is "sequestered" in a nearby hotel for the Spring '15 Apparel Sales Meeting- kicking off English & Western apparel product for the upcoming Spring.

I've got a mountain of email, some major fires upon return, and a line of Western product that I double starred in my catalog. Note to self- set aside 1 million dollars for January 1 2015 when all this stuff starts shipping.

Despite the pure exhaustion I'm still super excited to review English product and round up on trends in the market.

Since I am not exactly buzzing about the shows right now- do share- what trends are you all seeing out there?
Rust colored breeches? Hunter green coats? Tek tops in neon colors?
Don't be shy & share your wishlist items!

Dogs of Ariat Sales Meeting- Louie!

Home Sweet Home

Just back from the grand European adventure- which was totally fabulous! I'll be posting over at Em is a Gem should anyone like to follow along!

Truth be told- I did not see many horses hanging about in any of the cities we visited. There was a pair spotted at the Changing of the Guards at Buckingham Palace and carriage rides in Bruges, Belgium.

Needless to say, I was VERY happy to see Ellie today!

My biggest horse related hurdle of the trip? I had REALLY been looking forward to catching up on my horse blogs on the loonnnggg travel days but sadly wifi was not available on either flight!
Paul had a pretty quick turnaround and left today for a work trip in Baltimore- so I know what I'll be doing with my evenings!

Guards at Buckingham Palace