Hi - Rebekah Merkle here, founder of Amoretti.
When Americans move to England, they typically react to the new culture in one of two ways. The first is to fling oneself headlong into every BBC inspired caricature of "Englishness" imaginable. This would involve becoming overly particular about tea, wearing tweed, saying "old chap" and "cheerio" as often as possible, faking a British accent, and generally making oneself ridiculous. The other reaction is to ostentatiously embrace your own culture, strutting in your cowboy boots and calling your friends "pardner." I'm afraid I have taken the latter. I tend to flaunt the red bandanna and cowboy boots more than is perhaps strictly necessary.
I'm an Idaho girl, the daughter of a Presbyterian pastor, the wife of an Idaho born Oxford scholar (there aren't many of those around), and the mother of five outrageous kids. (Yes, five - and you can stop feeling sorry for me. I adore it!) We moved from our true blue old Idaho farmhouse, our devastatingly redneck pickup, and our Small Town, USA to Oxford, England. We've traded our farmhouse for the English equivalent - a stone cottage on the grounds of a sixteenth century Manor. Instead of an SUV, we now own a Volvo of all things. And yes, we've learned to love tea and eat our scones with clotted cream. You might even occasionally catch us saying that we're "chuffed" about something or referring to a grocery cart as a trolley. But even though we're picking up traces of "Englishness," our time in England is giving us a renewed appreciation of our home, our family, and our culture. We regularly spend our evenings swing dancing in the kitchen to country and blues.
Amoretti is a company that has grown as an extension of my life. It began with the clothes I design and sew for my own three lovely daughters. I believe that you shouldn't have to choose between beautiful clothes and practical clothes. That dressing up should be easy. That being a lady isn't old fashioned. And that "ladylike" most emphatically does not mean "fussy." And since Amoretti is so tied to my life, you could sum up the design philosophy as good old, down-home, American... but with just a touch of an English accent.
