It all started with a throwaway comment from a friend one fine spring day in the dog park. I was complaining I couldn’t find anything to satiate my lifelong scarf obsession.

“Design your own!”, my friend said.

So, after working over 20-years in the corporate world, that throwaway comment is what started this journey.

Telling Stories Through Design™

I’ve always loved how something as simple as a scarf can elevate an outfit. I’m an emotional buyer when it comes to my wardrobe and love things that make me feel good when I wear them.

I’ve always loved a good story. Hearing them, telling them. Therefore, when I started dog&boy, I didn’t just want to make ‘stuff'. We wanted to create something more than just a seasonal fashion piece.

Our designs had to have purpose and meaning. To tell a story, which could be anyone’s story, but a story about a moment in time that has made you stop, enjoy and appreciate; to make you feel good.

What’s in a name?

All our designs are created with incredible detail using textures, photos, and illustrations. Many of them come from personal moments we’ve loved, telling a story we’ve loved.

Connecting with people through thoughtful design is what dog&boy is all about.

Our sophisticated scarf designs surprise and delight with each telling a story, creating emotion, sparking ideas, and capturing moments. But there is one story that embodies what dog&boy is all about. It’s about a lady called Margot. Margot was my beautiful mum.

Just before launching the business, mum was diagnosed with the insidious and indiscriminate disease, brain cancer. She passed away one month to the day of her diagnosis on May 4, 2015.

After her passing, I found out she was actually a frustrated sketch artist, and a pretty good one. She had sketchbook after sketchbook of mostly botanical drawings and muses – a reflection of her love of the simple beauty in everything she saw each and every day.

It was the simplicity of her sketches that spoke to me. We have used many of her original sketches in our designs and, and it is this simple everyday beauty on which we base the stories of our designs for dog&boy.

So, after all this, I hear you ask, but why the name dog&boy?

Well, yes, I do have a dog, Barry the Chocolate Labrador (yes, he is as big a softie as he sounds), and a boy, my son Nicholas, who are both beautiful magical souls and a constant source of inspiration. 

But the name is more than just words; dog&boy is about the unequivocal youthful spirit of imagination, the possibilities of what could be, and the desire to make it happen.

Not quite the fairy-tale story 🎀

Little did I know that on this journey of creating beautiful things, I would write my own story. 

About a week after my 48th birthday in 2022, I became the 1-in-7 women diagnosed with breast cancer; stage-2 HER+ - not quite the fairytale story I was hoping for! But after surgery and adjunct therapy my prognosis is currently excellent.

I’d always had a love-hate relationship with my ‘G-irls’ and it was an odd place be, having something that identified me for most of my life suddenly gone. But oddly, it’s been far more liberating than I had ever expected (not to mentioned it opened a whole new wardrobe for me!) I feel far more confident and at peace with my body now than I ever have before.  It has survived huge trauma and, so far, this disease and I am looking forward to ‘writing’ many more stories in my lifetime.

So why am I sharing my story? The most obvious is that I know it will resonate with so many of you personally, and to also encourage greater awareness that this disease doesn’t discriminate; it’s not just an ‘old lady’ or hereditary disease. Hormone positive cancer accounts for 80% of all breast cancer diagnosis.

But my story is really to give you a sense of who dog&boy is - we are a brand with heart.  We might look all shiny and glitzy on our social pages with beautiful models and styling.  In reality, I am a small -business owner, who has the absolute pleasure of working with a small but mighty team of A-M-A-Z-I-N-G people each day to help take over the world one scarf at a time. 

Just like you, we are mums, wives, girlfriends, daughters, sisters, and friends, who have moments of elation, love, joy, as well as heartache and sorrows, and this is what drives our design stories. 

I hope our designs bring a touch of luxury to your day and you find joy and meaning in every print, every design.

Whether it’s noticing life’s simple beauty, or experiencing a subtle shift in perspective, dog&boy reminds us to enjoy the little moments – because that’s where the magic happens.

Sonya
xx