There are loads of new products in our Winter catalogue, and one that everyone in the office has snapped up is the ila Sport Pedometer Alarm (£19.95). The team at The Handpicked Collection is predominantly female, which might explain why we’re so keen on the ila Security range. All their products bring a sense of style to safety, looking great while working hard to keep you feeling secure when you’re out and about.

Creative Director Amanda remembers being issued with a rape alarm while at university, a gadget that looked so utilitarian that she was embarrassed to be seen with it, and swiftly buried it in at the bottom of a chest of drawers. She wishes the ila Dusk Personal Alarm had been available then, because she has about five of them, in different designs to match her very un-student collection of handbags (there have to be some perks to getting older!). The ila Dusk looks so chic that Amanda has it on display as a charm, rather than stuffing it at the bottom of her handbag with her tissues and hairbrush. So should she ever be unlucky enough to come under threat, she can pull the ila Dusk chain to emit the scream-like alarm, and repel the attacker and summon help at the same time. And with the Christmas party season coming up, she hopes that she’ll be taking her ila Dusk out fairly frequently!

It’s the same story with the ila Sport Pedometer Alarm. Many members of the team at The Handpicked Collection are keen joggers. The office is based near Battersea Park, one of London’s best places to go for a car-free run. But now that winter really has drawn in, it can be a bit scary to be out at night, even somewhere well-lit. So the ila Sport is being clipped to T-shirts and helping us keep fit in the run-up (forgive the pun…) to Christmas. The ila Sport incorporates a calorie-counter, pedometer and distance covered, so none of us have any excuse to let the fitness regime disappear in a giant-sized tin of Quality Street.