Complicated Co. Shortlisted at the Stratford Herald Business & Tourism Awards 2026

We're honoured to say Complicated Co. has been shortlisted in two categories at the Stratford Herald Business & Tourism Awards 2026 for Best Business Innovation and Best Green Business. We sat with the email for a minute before telling anyone. This isn't the kind of news we take for granted.

So here's the longer version. What each category means. What the awards are. And underneath all of that, what Complicated Co. is trying to achieve, because a shortlisting is as good an excuse as any to say that properly.

What are the Stratford Herald Business & Tourism Awards?

The Stratford Herald Business & Tourism Awards celebrate the businesses, independent shops, and hospitality venues shaping Stratford-upon-Avon and the wider Warwickshire area. They're judged locally, by people who know these businesses and the community around them.

That's part of why this feels different to us. It isn't a stranger reading a submission somewhere. It's local judges looking at an independent business and deciding the substance is there, and that means something on a day when it's easy to only hear your own doubts.

Best Green Business, and Best Business Innovation

We've been shortlisted for Best Green Business and Best Business Innovation.

Best Business Innovation — for the Complicated Co ecosystem.
We're building an ecosystem designed to support you through the messy, demanding, and overstimulated realities of modern life and business.

Best Green Business — for Complicated Co Clothing, organic cotton statement tees for the days that prove it. Made properly. Said quietly. Because nobody has it all figured out.

What we stand for

Life is rarely simple, and we got tired of brands (clothing brands, coaching, all of it) pretending otherwise. Early starts, full diaries, notifications that don't stop, priorities that shift before you've finished the last one. That's not a phase you push through before “real life” calms down. For most of us, that is real life. We built Complicated Co. for that, not for the tidier version most brands sell to.

A few things we try to hold onto, on the easy days and the harder ones:

•  Honesty over performance. We'd rather tell you the true version of something than the polished one.
• Complexity is welcome. You don't need to have it figured out before you're allowed to show up here.
• Self-defined success. We won't tell you what a good life or a good business looks like from the outside.
• Support, not fixing. We're not here to fix you, your business, or your wardrobe. We're here to be useful alongside whatever you're dealing with.
• Presence over perfection. Showing up matters more than showing up perfectly.
• Clarity through naming. Say the thing. Don't dress it up until it stops meaning anything.

Those show up a bit differently depending on where you meet us. Through Complicated Conversations, our podcast, it's honest conversation: a place to think something through before you've decided what you believe about it. Through The Complicated Coach, it's grounded, straight-talking support for people navigating change in their business or their leadership, without the performance a lot of coaching comes wrapped in. Through Complicated Co. Clothing, it's organic cotton statement pieces designed around how life feels to be in, not just how an outfit looks in a photo. Nobody has it all figured out, and we'd rather say that on a t-shirt than pretend otherwise on a homepage.

Three doors. Same house.

Good company to be in

Whatever happens on the night, congratulations to the other businesses shortlisted alongside us. Awards like this say as much about a place as they do about any one business, and it says something good about Stratford-upon-Avon that there's this much honest, independent work happening here to be judged in the first place.

Winners are announced at the ceremony later this year.

We'll let you know how it goes either way.

And if you'd rather see what we mean than read us saying it, here is the place to look.