By Molly Goddard

The Dempsey bit of D&D

THE MAGIC OF COLLABORATION

I am no good at secrets. Never have been. Tell me something you want nobody to know, and the chances are I will probably forget and blurt it out in one burst of excitement. So, after we exchanged NDAs with the Natural History Museum two years ago, my approach was to try as hard as possible to forget that it was going to happen, lest I spill the beans. That was two years ago. One year ago, we sat down with the wonderful NHM team and agreed on the print direction. And finally, after all this anticipation, we launched our collaboration with the Natural History Museum on Sunday, and I get to talk about it.

 Collaborations have and will always be an important part of our business. We take them and the work from both parties seriously. They are a moment to let the creativity flow and enjoy learning an entirely new language. Not to get corny, but since I love a rom-com, it’s a little bit like learning someone’s love language in a relationship. Internally, they shake up our business as usual and make us think, act and work differently. They teach us things that are so out of our everyday life, that they have honestly never crossed our minds. For example, the correct grammatical way to spell scientific dinosaur names. The dinosaur noobies that we were 1 year ago would say T-Rex. But no! Not today. Now, we know things like Dinosaur names need to follow the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature. So it’s T.rex. You can thank us later if that ever comes up at the pub quiz or during your annual family Trivial Pursuit shenanigans in a few months.  

Collaborations bring new energy to D&D. Sometimes it’s slow, sometimes it’s fast. Sometimes it’s a bit of both. Deciding to choose dinosaurs as the main feature of the collaboration? Kinda slow. The research and the drawings. Deliberately slow. Pulling off the photoshoot? Incredibly fast. Too fast.

It was a Wednesday night and we were in Australia when Iska told us she was shooting in the Natural History Museum the following Tuesday. The Museum was opening back up to the public after being closed for so long due to COVID-19 restrictions. If we wanted to shoot in there, it would have to be before then. After the initial feeling of green-eyed envy passed (I was so looking forward to seeing the collection come to life on set IN the Museum), panic slowly crept in. Now, it’s fair to say sometimes we are a little bit last minute. D&D has gotten together shoots in a week or less before, but how were we going to get this EPIC shoot together in a WEEK?!  

But in safe hands it was, and Iska and her team set about pulling it off. And in the coolest of ways. Three families, all with close ties to D&D. (Zee is part of the D&D team, Issy is a talented freelance stylist who we’ve worked with on D&D shoots before, and the Brown family, are close friends of Pete, who shot our Lowland Forest Collection (and lots more). Iska says the day was totally chaotic in the greatest of ways, and I think you can feel that come across in the photos and video. And did we mention that the music for those videos was made especially for us by another excited relation of a D&Der? Talk about dreamy.

If you hadn’t guessed, it was a pretty big deal for us. After two years of planning and talking, seeing it come to life on Sunday and the responses from our beautiful customers, is one of those, ‘oh yeah, this is what it is all about’ moments. Going into work on Monday and seeing everyone so excited by the response of the Natural History Museum collaboration was everything.  

Orders of matching pyjamas for entire families () were being screenshotted and sent around. Comments from excited customers (and our own mothers) were highlighted on Instagram. There are so many people that bring their creativity and energy into this, it’s truly a huge privilege and the best reward to see our customers, and our entire team enjoy the final result.

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Molly x