I recently heard a rumour that I didn’t exist. This was mildly disconcerting so I thought that I should set the record straight.

Boden isn’t a figment of a marketer’s imagination. 17 years ago, having failed miserably as a stockbroker and realising that I wasn’t particularly suited to having a proper job, I started my own company.

I began with just me and 8 menswear products in my flat in west London, doing things the way I’d want them done if I were a customer.

It hasn’t always been easy. We’ve had five burglaries, one office dog, twelve nights spent in the warehouse, one consignment of refugees in a delivery, about twenty fantastically annoying customers (more than half of them related to me), two false breasts in a returns parcel, four office moves, and far too many anchovy pizzas to be considered healthy.

The range may have grown a little since then, but my values haven’t changed one bit. I’m still as passionate about what we do now as I was then, and am more than a little bit proud of what we do. I do hope you find yourself equally taken by our beautifully colourful clothes.

ps. If you want to know more, I’ve compiled a scrapbook of some of the more unusual letters we’ve received, a gallery of how we’ve changed and what we’ve been up to, and some things that I just really, really like.