In 2019, we decided that as a brand we wanted to launch a pride collection specifically for the LGBTQ+. You may already be aware that we are a company whose products are handmade in Poland, and so our brand represents handmade luxury polish artisan products. Now, we do not want to turn this into a boring history lesson, but Poland is undergoing radical changes to its socio-political system by the new government that have been voted into power, PIS. In fact, they based their entire political campaign around demonising and ostracising the LGBTQ+ community in Poland and even more shockingly were thus, voted into power.
We realised that as a polish brand we disagree with such prejudice and will always believe that love is love. The current situation in Poland is extremely sad and worrying, but in 2019 we decided that rather than sitting around and just doing nothing about it, we wanted to help raise awareness in any way we possibly could. June 2019 saw the launch of our Rainbow collection especially created for the LGBTQ+ community.
Our Rainbow Sheepers and Rainbow Mule Sheepers have been one of our top bestsellers over the past few years and we are so glad, due to the significant message we have tried to convey through this design. Later followed our Mens Rainbow Sheepers and then our Childrens Rainbow Sheepers, which grew so popular that we began thinking about designing our ranges as matching sets. If you would like to shop our beautiful pastel rainbow collection, we also sell family sets of matching rainbow sheepers here. But still, we felt that as the situation was progressively getting worse, we needed to do more than this.
For the past 3 years we have spent the entirety of June, which is globally known as ‘pride month’ celebrating pride and promoting as much awareness as we possibly can. However, last year in 2022 once the rollout of anti LGBT zones took place, occupying 1/3 of Poland, we decided that we really wanted to show our audience the awful situation developing in a country not too far away.
We proceeded to have beautiful graphics designed filled with political facts and quotes with the purpose of informing our audience. We thought that if even a fraction of our following on Instagram came away from Pride month finding out something knew about the terrible situation in Poland, that this was at least something. We wanted to show people actual facts, such as Polish Officials describing pride as a “rainbow plague”.
We were shocked to see the amount of people who had no idea that this was even happening. Our audience could not actually believe that anti-LGBT zones were being marked all around Poland. We finally felt like we were getting somewhere in spreading as much awareness as possible, but we did not stop here. We worked with numerous LGBTQ+ influencers globally to come together and support the LGBTQ+ cause in Poland.
. We worked with numerous LGBTQ+ influencers globally to come together and support the LGBTQ+ cause in Poland. We worked with Tiktok’s LGBTQ+ stars Grace and Kelly, a Polish drag queen and the infamous Canadian LGBTQ+ couple @jessie and claud.
We shipped out our Rainbow Sheepers globally, and were delighted to receive images of international LGBT members wearing our Sheepers using the hashtag we created #Jestemlgbt (which translates to: I am LGBT.)
Alas, pride month began, and we could not believe the reaction towards our posts and stories. Conversations were starting to begin being had, our comment section was being filled with our shocked customers reactions to the figures and laws being introduced in Poland. We launched our special sale on our beautiful rainbow collection and decided to go a step further but this time using a different platform, one we were not so used to, Tiktok.
We took the leap and uploaded video footage of the anti LGBTQ+ protestors that pride celebrators were met with trying to celebrate pride. Anti- protestors were made up of hooligans who were doing everything they could, from throwing fireworks pride marchers to stop the march from happening on Polish soil. We could not believe the response from this one video we had put out, we received over 2 and half thousand likes, hundreds of comments and over 20,000 views. We realised the power that social media holds and plan to do more like this in the coming years.
The fight against these radical changes is far from over, but we will continue to do our bit to support the LGBTQ+ community in Poland who require our help more than ever. We hope that our pride campaign grows bigger and bigger every year, so that we can create as much awareness as possible.
