shining star

November 1, 2019

This strap means a lot to me as a nearly 30 year old. Growing up where I did, everyone collected something when we were younger, sometimes turning it into a craze at school, normally because a friend that went abroad for the holidays brought back the “next big thing”, or someone knew the toy shop assistants that worked the weekend shifts and they mentioned that “ x was coming in next week, it’s cool, check it out”. Me and my best friend were those kids, having the “insiders knowledge” from various sources and started collections of things we thought were amazing and awesome. Even when we started to become “too old to play with toys” and had to go to work we still kept up with the latest fads, getting excited by most that “they’re coming back around!”, “finally it’s coming to the UK!”, or “oh I wish we had them whilst we were in school!” - didn’t stop us starting new collections up though. Unfortunately, he passed nearly 5 years back, and I stopped collecting things and going into toy shops to see what’s new and upcoming. I stopped doing the things I enjoyed the most, because I didn’t have him to collect with. Slowly, over time, I started to want to collect something again - something new, something that reflected how I had grown since then, something that reminded me of him and that he’d also would have wanted to collect, but was unsure what. That’s about the time his older brother introduced me to Zox for the very first time. He showed me the strap he was wearing, mentioned about the “helping to provide clean safe water” cause, and I thought it was a great idea. I didn’t think any more of it until I saw an advert for Zox about a month later, remembered he had shown me his, and asked him for more info when I next saw him. He showed me the website, some straps he really liked and thought I might like as well, which, I since have purchased, and then I saw it. Shining Star. It was my best friend, taking down and reorganising his collection to be put back up in the way he wanted them to be. And the name of the strap being similar to a song from his favourite musical Les Mis - Stars. I knew then it was a sign, and a few months in I can confirm I wasn’t wrong - my collection has grown from 4 straps to a lot more, I get the same excited feeling bi-weekly when there’s new strap designs coming out as I did back collecting with him, and I now twin Shining Star with a few others that also mean a lot to me - such a small wearable item has brought me so much happiness.