My life as a student in Southampton has finished for another year and I cannot believe how quickly the time has gone. Projects, essays and sketchbooks are finally out of the way until October when the real work starts for my final year studying for a degree in Fashion Promotion and Communication. The day after our final hand in, we were given a lecture on what to expect in the third year and I am already terrified. Along with what seems like a thousand other projects, we are expected to present the work experience placements we have carried out during the summer. Luckily I managed to secure my placement with Tatty Devine in February, so here, I plan to keep a log of how my internship works out and to record what I have learnt throughout the process.
My First day
The first day of many things is daunting, whether it be a fully paid job, an internship or just a week's work experience. I tend to try and not think about it until I'm actually there, however, the 40 minute bus journey from my boyfriends house to the studio didn't really help, a much longer stretch from Goldie London, which was a mere 15 minute journey. However, I arrived early and prepared for a full day of working for free, yay.
Tatty Devine was started in 1999 by Harriet Vine and Rosie Wolfenden and the pair still run the business completely independently today. Harriet and Rosie design every piece, and 99% of the jewellery is made by hand in Tatty Devine's own workshops (one in London and one in Kent). Each year, two main collections are launched at London Fashion Week, and there's a permanent collection of popular classics and regular new launches. The jewellery in beautiful, almost resembling pieces of artwork. Unsurprisingly because of Harriet and Rosie's degree in Fine Art, (how they met). Together they found some bags of leather samples on the street one night, and after graduating used the leather to create wrist cuffs which soon sold out every week at Portobello and Spitalfields markets. Harvey Nichols and Browns began to stock Tatty Devine, and Vogue shot their first collection on Erin O'Connor and John Galliano for the Millennium issue.
Their studio is almost as beautiful as their jewellery. White walls and flooring contrast with the masses of necklaces, earrings, brooches, bracelets, belts and cufflinks all stacked neatly into boxes along one side of the room. I was met by Lucy, who had also recently joined the team and she showed me around. I was then set the job of packaging for the majority of the day, which I cannot glamorise in any way atall. But, hopefully as time goes on I start to gain some responsibility within the team.
It's interesting how different Tatty Devine is to Goldie London, Goldie works on a fast fashion basis that focuses very much on the client, (Topshop) and delivering as much merchandise as possible to them on a daily basis. Already I can see that Tatty Devine spend a lot of time considering their jewellery for the collections and pay an extreme amount of attention to detail.
Goldie also run their business almost entirely through interns, apart from two employees there were around ten of us working at Goldie for free. However, I was surprised to learn at Tatty Devine that I was currently the only intern working upstairs, along with a couple who were downstairs in manufacturing.
Here is their website and a Tiger necklace I have now fallen in love with.
Love them! I have one of their glasses necklaces. So cute!
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