Bucket List Week - A letter from our COO and Co-Founder, Betsy Nunez
This has been such a special week! Since we started @swordandplough (8 years ago this January - whoaa) it has been on my @swordandplough bucket list for us to collaborate with one of the top American handbag companies. On Monday, while celebrating the 100th Anniversary of Veterans Day, we launched a limited-edition collection with women-founded company Vera Bradley and pledged a $10,000 donation to The Mission Continues to support their women veteran leadership initiatives!
This week is also very unique and special because it is our mom's birthday today! If you know us, you know that our mom is the most creative person we know. She was a fine arts major, worked at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and is an artisan who works with various mediums from ceramics to metals to glass blowing, you name it! She has made everything from beautiful Halloween costumes (Emily's hand oil painted magic carpet costume when she was 5) for us at a young age to sewing our first Sword & Plough prototype in 2012. Our mom and our grandmothers have been incredibly strong and talented women role models for us.
Our incredible women family members, our dad and his impactful military service, and growing up in a military family are three things that have shaped our lives and contributed to the founding mission and values of Sword & Plough. They have also been a big source of inspiration and support throughout Sword & Plough's early years and the wild journey of running a business.
We sold out of these Vera Bradley x Sword & Plough collaboration bags in just a few hours on Monday before I could even post about it! We luckily restocked a very limited amount and there are just a few hours left to own one of these special Sword & Plough + Vera Bradley collab products. Sword & Plough is also running 20% off through Sunday so you can save 20% at checkout with code: VETERAN20
This collaboration has been a year in the making after we met Vera Bradley's CEO Rob Wallstrom and Founder Barbara Bradley Baekgaar, but I feel as though it really started when we were kids. Emily's and my first interaction with handbags and totes as children were Vera Bradley bags! Our Mom sold Vera Bradley in her shop at West Point when our dad was a U.S. Army officer and professor at USMA.
Showing our Mom the collaboration bags while visiting Yosemite Valley this fall and while looking up at El Cap, one of the most iconic challenges in rock climbing, felt so symbolic and full circle to me. It reminded me of three things:1. Doing hard things changes the way you think about your ability to do hard things
2. If you think you can, you can
3. Remember and savor the big little moments
Happy Birthday, mom! Thank you for being the best mom ever, passing along your great sense of style to us, starting our love for bags at an early age, and for being an incredible inspiration to us in every way!
With love,
Betsy
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