A question as the owner of Gray Equestrian I always get asked… how did you start? And more importantly why?
Mine & Lilly's first shoot...
Our most recent shoot...
Both of those questions aren’t easy to reply to quickly, so I thought I would give you all a bit of insight into the person behind the brand!
You have probably already seen a bit about us on our “About Us” page. We started in December 2020 while still navigating through the strange pandemic world we were living through. Gray Equestrian was a bit of a ‘COVID baby’. I had always worked in the marketing world, and was made redundant at the beginning of the pandemic like many others. I decided I wanted to create something for myself, and be able to bring a product to market that I genuinely thought was needed and believed in.
We had all been spending a lot more time with our horses when there wasn’t much else to do, and I quickly realised how my current riding clothing just wasn’t up to scratch. It would stretch, go see through (not naming any brands!) and eventually after not very long wear out. This was usually for quite a high price tag too. Which made me end up wearing non riding clothes such as gym-wear to the yard instead which seemed to last longer? I quickly realised it wasn’t an impossible task to create riding clothing which was high quality, long lasting, practical but also looked good and best of all, not at a ridiculous price tag.
This is where the start of Gray Equestrian began. I then spent a few months working on designing the products, and getting lots and lots of samples to make sure they were the best they possibly could be. I started off with just 3 colours of base layers and leggings. These were my 3 original colours, and are still some of our best sellers now. These were navy, grey and burgundy.
Then it came to the branding. I had always worked for other people, so when it came to my own brand I found this really hard. The name wasn’t chosen until the last possible minute. I wanted the brand name to have real meaning behind it, but how I did that I wasn’t sure. In the end, it was obvious. We have two grey horses, who had been the whole reason behind me starting this brand, and if it wasn’t for them, and for spending so much time with them throughout COVID I probably would never have started the brand. So the name Gray Equestrian was born!
I then created the word of GE. The website, social media and content. I didn’t have a massive amount of money to start with, so this meant I really had to do everything myself. I took most of the images, I was in most of the images. I uploaded every product to the website, sent out every order (you get the idea!)
The brand then very quickly grew. Not that I ever doubted it, as I always really believed in the product, but it was a really amazing feeling, and still is, to see other people also think the same.
Since our launch, we have had 3 other launches including our special edition black collection, SS21 and newest collection AW21. Each collection is a long time in the making, and we really do not bring something out unless we believe in it and believe it works for our customers.
It is now not only me working for GE, but I still have that same passion as when I started, and am so excited for the future. Not only for new products we have In the pipeline but also to connect with our amazing community even further.
Thank you for being with us on our journey and thank you for your continued support…
Jess @ GE xxx
P.S want to see my day in the life? Check our video out:
On Instagram HERE
On TikTok HERE
