Well hello, welcome back to the Varoshe blog! After five months off from writing these monthly posts, I thought it was time to get back to it, and this month I am going behind the scenes of making a jewellery collection.
When we were told to shut our shop back in March, I realised how dependent we were on people being able to visit us in person, and although selling online was always part of our future plan we weren’t quite ready to do so. During my time at home in lockdown, I began designing and honing collections for us to start making (in between all the customer commissions obviously, which I will be eternally grateful for). Fast forward a few months and the Varoshe collections are coming together nicely, ready to launch later in the year.
Introducing our first collection - Triplicity
This collection has been a long time coming and actually started life back in 2004 when I made a ring. At college I was always intrigued by playful jewellery and the addition of the little moving rings made for a piece that you could interact with. I loved wearing it and often found myself fiddling with the little rings when I was deep in thought or worried about something.
It fast became my favourite piece of jewellery, which meant that when I met Paul, he made me a matching bangle for my next birthday. Although I tend to switch my rings now (or not wear any at all due to all the hand washing and anti-bac’ing) I have worn my bangle every day since I was given it; which you may have noticed if you’ve ever met me!
Over the next few years, I continued to think about matching pieces to go with the ring and bangle until I had designed a whole collection. My Mum kindly offered to ‘try them out’ and for a while she and I were the only people to have a piece of Triplicity, but this will soon change!
Since lockdown has lifted, we have made prototypes of all the pieces and honed the details of each one. It’s been a laborious task as half a millimetre here or there can completely throw the balance or overall look, especially as each piece is completely handmade from scratch!
The Triplicity collection contains a ring, a bangle, a pendant and two pairs of earrings.
It has certainly been a labour of love and one that has been entwined through my career as a jewellery designer. It just goes to show that when you buy a piece of jewellery made by an independent maker you’re not just buying the finished piece; you’re also buying the hours of designing, development, prototyping, testing, manufacturing and refining, as well as all the love and stories which gets poured in to every part of the collection.
If you would like to be amongst the first to know when the collection is available to purchase, then make sure to sign up to our monthly newsletter. There may even be an exclusive discount to celebrate the launch 😉
I look forward to seeing you in West Malling soon!