Our first opportunity to be introduced, in real life, to our local community came through Nationwide’s Black History Month market, an initiative created to spotlight Black owned local independent businesses and initiatives. Just weeks after opening the doors to our new Northamptonshire fragrance boutique, the market gave us the chance to meet the people who may one day walk through those same doors. To tell them what we do, why we do it and, perhaps most importantly, that we are here.
Reverie is somewhere to spend an afternoon together, whether that is a date with someone special, a winter birthday celebration with friends or simply doing something creative. It’s a place to step away from the ordinary and make something that is entirely your own. So there’s no better way to explain that than by letting people experience our products for themselves.
One of our favourite parts of taking Reverie out into the community is watching people encounter our candles for the first time, discovering something that looks almost too beautiful to burn. During the festive season in particular, we heard the same reaction time and time again: “They look like drinks.”
Our candles are designed to be beautiful enough to become part of your home before they are ever lit, but the experience does not end with how they look. Fragrance is at the heart of everything we do. The scent of a candle can alter the atmosphere of a room, evoke a memory or simply make an ordinary evening feel a little more special.
The market also gave us an opportunity to talk about something that matters deeply to us: making fragrance education accessible. There are understandably growing questions around what we burn in our homes, particularly for households with children and pets. At Reverie, we use soy wax and toxin free fragrance oils, and we believe consumers should feel informed about the products they bring into their homes and how to enjoy them responsibly. Luxury should never have to come at the expense of consideration.
What made Nationwide's support particularly meaningful was not simply the opportunity to have a presence at the market. It was the decision to amplify that support beyond the room. Nationwide shared the involvement of the businesses featured at the market through a company wide email, meaning people outside the immediate Northampton community were also introduced to Reverie and the other independent businesses taking part.
That matters, as independent businesses often grow through a combination of community support, word of mouth and the willingness of people and organisations to give them a platform. When a larger institution chooses to use its own reach to shine a light on smaller businesses, it creates visibility that a growing brand may not yet have the resources to generate independently.
And visibility can become opportunity. A person who discovers a business at a local market might book an experience. Someone who sees it in an internal email might recommend it to a colleague. A conversation might become a collaboration. A first introduction might eventually become a long term customer.
This is how local economies grow: one introduction, one purchase, one recommendation and one opportunity at a time. For Black women owned businesses in particular, entrepreneurship can represent both opportunity and a route to greater economic independence. But equality cannot be achieved by individual ambition alone. It is accelerated when institutions actively create opportunities for underrepresented founders to participate, grow and be seen. That is why initiatives such as Nationwide's market matter.
When larger organisations support independent businesses, they are not simply helping a founder sell a product for an afternoon. They are contributing to the infrastructure around that business.
A local purchase helps a business grow.
Growth creates the capacity to employ, collaborate and reinvest.
Reinvestment strengthens the local community.
And a business that is given room to grow locally can ultimately take its story much further.