Meet the Makers #2... Black Agnes

Welcome to the second installment of 'Meet the Makers'!
This time we put a few questions to Christine, the super talented and lovely lady behind jewellery range, Black Agnes
Her work varies from the ever popular and very feminine petite pendulum crystal earrings to harder edged militaria style brooches and necklaces (these ones have quite a steam punk feel to them).
We love it all!

Where do you call home and make your jewellery e.g.garden shed, kitchen table?

My home is an industrial-style house in Jville, built in the 1940s/50s which looks like no other house on the street! It is also a large renovation project...

I have a studio which I have nicknamed‘The Lightbox’due to it being glass on 3 sides, but confess that
my materials and my making often overflow into other parts of the house.

Tell us about your latest collection and the inspiration behind it.  

I love combining metal and textile in my jewellery and am particularly drawn to aesthetics that hint at another era. 

In my latest collection ‘Everyday Hero’ the pieces take on a medal-like quality with the inclusion of boldly-striped tapes anchoring each medallion.

What is your favorite piece from this season/collection and why?

Anyone who knows me knows that I am a necklace girl through and through, but this season I am loving these tiny Accolade medal brooches which also look great in tandem and can be worn on anything from a t-shirt to a dress or tailored jacket. 

I like to have a little arsenal of stories at the ready for when someone asks me what I have done to be worthy of my medals ;-)

If you had to choose three words to sum up the spirit of your label what would they be?

Fearless, quirky, 21st century Victoriana!

Mixing modern and historic references is something we love to do at emma too with each season taking inspiration from beloved clothing, objects, music & people from bygone eras. 
Must be why we like Black Agnes as we do. Thanks Christine, always exciting to see what you will create next! 

Meet the makers #1.... Shh by Sadie

Today is the first of what is to become a regular slot on the emma blog!
We ask a few questions of the designers/ makers/ general clever crafty types whose wares we stock in our emma boutiques.
There'll be fashion designers, jewellery makers, card printers, scarf knitters and more!
First up is the lovely Sadie whose nothing but bones necklaces have been a best seller since we first started stocking her jewellery brand Shh By Sadie back in March this year.

Where do you call home and make your jewellery? 
 I’m lucky enough to call two places ‘home’ – here in Wellington and south Wales in the UK.
In NZ I make my jewellery at my kitchen table in Oriental Bay, with a pretty awesome view of the harbour in front of me. I take a lot of my beads with me to Wales when I visit (I’m yet to learn the art of travelling lightly!). When I’m there and making necklaces my mum kindly acts as my ‘dummy’. She loves jewellery as much as I do, but doesn’t understand my obsession with skull beads! I call my dad my bead scout. When I recently visited Wales he took me on daytrips so that I could visit the bead shops he’d found. It was a LOT of fun!

 Tell us about your latest collection/pieces and the inspiration behind it. 
I love attention-seeking jewellery and I’ve recently become a big fan of layering necklaces. My latest pieces are chains and necklaces that can be mixed and matched - worn alone or layered together to make a statement. I want people to have fun with the pieces.

What is your favorite piece and why?
 My favourite piece is my Chunky Chain, in Barbie pink. I find myself wearing it way too often, but I do love a splash of pink!

If you had to choose three words to sum up the spirit of your label what would they be?
Fun, colourful and playful.  

Thanks Sadie, we love your fun and playful jewellery and think it's great teamed up with our new summer collection too.

Summer 2012 shoot - Mimosa Sundays

Had such a great shoot for our latest collection Mimosa Sundays 
(check out our collections page for all the pics) and really enjoyed the day spent with an awesome team of  crazily creative and clever Wellingtonians.

We were shooting in the middle of winter and didn't want to battle the Wellington wind/rain/cold so set up racks of summer samples, shoes, accessories and the major prop
(peacock chair, yep it's a beauty:) at Boxtale Studio.
Photographer Louise Hatton found us some sunshine with sultry yellow and lavender backdrops (genius:)  and Emma M from Red 11  looked oh so beautiful as she drifted into a sultry Mimosa Sunday circa 1950, somewhere exotic perhaps a very secluded Asian hideaway:)
We wanted the look of the shoot to be part resort glam/ part holiday ease with relaxed styling and it was really nice to work with stylist Sopheak Seng for the first time to achieve that. He had the best finds, like the gorgeous gem brooch and 'cats eye' sunglasses from Emporium Vintage, shoes from Ultra and much more.

Of course,  Lisa Ussher of The Powder Room came to the party and worked her magic with the hair  and there was stunning, sunkissed make-up by Hayley Nees.
I grabbed some brightly coloured Shh by Sadie necklaces off a display in-store on my way out the door and they fitted in so well with some of the lookbook shots, as did one of my grandmother Airini's glass bead necklaces from some exotic location she had travelled to.
It all added up to a create our very own emma look for summer and with production underway styles will be in-store soon.
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