From Ian Snow to Daisy Snow

After almost a lifetime of operating under the Ian Snow umbrella, we’ve changed our name to Daisy Snow.

We’re a multi-generational, family business that started off on a market stall in mid Wales 49 years ago. Over the years, the name has evolved to include not only Ian’s shop in Wales but a wholesale business founded by my mum, Jakki and this online brand which I started when I left school, 14 years ago.

The story began with my dad Ian, importing handicrafts from India on his travels that began at age 18. After multiple trips back and forth, hitchhiking via land and crossing all terrains, he decided to stay there for a while in his 20s. After a year and a half living in Varanasi, the spiritual epicentre of India, a lifelong love of the country was embedded into the brand that exists to this very day, passing along to all generations that have been a part of this family business.

Ian opened various different shops across Mid Wales over the years and still has his gift shop on Machynlleth today, though it has changed a lot since those early days. Back then, a bohemian store filled with one-off Indian handicrafts and Nepalese clothing, and now, an independent gift shop filled with brands from the UK and beyond.

The second chapter unfolded when Ian met Jakki, my mum. A farmer’s daughter from Devon, who ran a very successful business called Scrap Scrap, making clothing out of waste fabric. She supplied shops all over the world, while living out of a house made from pallets in her factory.

It was during this time she met Ian who was a customer of hers. Jakki ran Scrap Scrap between 1990 & 1995, until she eventually decided to close the business down, after feeling burnt out from the pressure of scaling a business that she never envisaged being as successful as it was. When she fell pregnant with me, their first child, they decided to move to North Devon to be closer to her parents. At this point, Jakki founded the wholesale division of Ian Snow, which really formed the basis of what the online brand has evolved to become today.

My sister India and I, spent our childhood immersed within our family business, often taking time out of school for buying trips to India, and accompanying our mum to trade shows around the world, buying and selling from an early age. It was in the blood, and by the age of 15, I had dropped out of school and was working full time alongside my mum, after what had already felt like a lifetime in training! A year later, I launched an online retail website, and this is where the next chapter commenced under my lead.

My mum continued with the wholesale business until she retired in 2019. At this point, Ian Snow had undergone a lot of changes under my influence as I continued to grow the online business into a brand that reflected my values, passions and style.

My mum’s passion for recycling and minimal waste, teamed with a simplistic upbringing on a rural farm here in North Devon has filtered into the fundamental values I have been brought up to hold dear. Since leaving school, I knew I wanted to build a brand that truly reflected the way in which we lived, and this meant delving deep into our supply chain and removing every trace of synthetic materials within it. In 2019, we officially were plastic free, right down to the zips and threads used in our products. These decisions were not purely based on an ‘anti-plastic’ mindset and were equally fuelled by a love for natural raw materials, ones that can be easily mended, are hard wearing and that one day will just go back to the soil.

As years went by, and the world continued to change in ways I never possibly could have imagined, it became clear to me that this business had another purpose, one I had taken for granted out of normality, but one that is probably the most important of all. Every product I design is made by lots of hands, using laborious, time-consuming techniques. If our business model was about high volume and low prices, we’d make hundreds of perfect products on machines, each and every one the same – but it’s not. Over 30 pairs of hands are involved in the making of one quilt, through a community based, local infrastructure, the same as it would have been many years ago. This way of manufacturing is a silent protest against centralisation and globalisation, it provides jobs, supports community, and keeps ancient techniques alive and thriving.

This online business has always been a reflection of my personal passions. Ian’s physical gift shop in Wales operates under different principles and after 14 years of building this brand to reflect my deep routed values, it is finally time to step out from the mask of a name I naturally adopted and celebrate who we truly are: a proudly female-led business. We’re changing our name to Daisy Snow.

I feel this transition represents a complete alignment of identity, history, and a future rooted in natural materials and community empowerment. Our loyal customer base is the backbone of this business, and we hope that this change will bring a more personal element into our platforms, allowing us to tell our story transparently and whole heartedly.

Welcome to the next chapter.