2016 has arrived and, like many of you, we're looking ahead to a new year and new possibilities here at Crewroom. Similarly, we've taken time to reflect on the year gone by which has seen some huge developments which have been both incredibly exciting and, if we¹re honest, incredibly hard work.
As many of you know, Crewroom originally opened its doors as a juice bar selling JL Rowing kit from its basement. Over the years we've worked closely with JL and our customers to continually design new products, specifically for our northern European climate, and it's something we do to this day. 2016 is going to be a particularly exciting year for us in the run up to Rio and, along with JL, we'll be supporting our elite athletes all the way.
2013 was a turning point for Crewroom when we took the plunge and embarked on our vision of creating our own Crewroom retail brand. The day before the annual Boat Race we moved to new premises on the banks of the river in Putney and recreated the early days of the juice bar but, thankfully, without the headache of fixing broken juice machines! Our little riverside store started to see not only rowers coming in to buy kit, but also joggers, walkers and people who generally enjoyed the outdoors.
So we began to wonder - would people who don't wear wellies with spandex like to buy our product? The next step was forging a relationship with the London College of Fashion and taking on our first design team who got stuck into designing our first retail range.
After much deliberation we decided to test a pop-up on the high street. Late one night in October 2014 we fitted-out the old Fat Face store in Putney using scaffolding from the original juice bar, displayed our new products and opened doors to the public the next morning. To our relief the answer was yes, people did want to buy our products! So we took all the invaluable experience, feedback and knowledge to make one giant leap and, in summer 2015, Crewroom finally arrived on the high street in not one, but two retail stores!
2015 has been a huge year for us. We're passionate about our heritage and our vision so we're looking forward to 2016 and all the exciting opportunities and challenges ahead.
We'd like to take this opportunity to thank all of our customers who've joined us on the journey so far. Your enthusiasm for the brand and support really has been instrumental in getting us to where we are today. We hope you'll stay with us for the next chapter in our adventure and wish you all the very best for 2016!