Gift Focus inc Attire Accessories - January / February 2021

90 from large ceramic pieces. A tiny canvas representing a small investment of time and materials on which I could try out almost anything. I sent a small card of them to Country Living Magazine where they appeared in the then Emporium section. The response to this was sufficient to tell me that there was a market out there. From this I took part in the Country Living Fair, which I have continued to do from time to time over the years. The biggest break for my company came when I was asked to make buttons to go in the V&A shop to run alongside their Surrealist Exhibition in 2007. This led to many further requests for products when we expanded our offering into jewellery too. What prompted you to launch the business? I don’t think I could say that I ever really launched the business. It was just an idea that grew and evolved gradually generating enough business to employ a steadily increasing workforce. We have remained small. A collection of half a dozen young designers who work with me, together with a handful of outworkers, to produce a wide range of ceramic buttons, brooches, earrings, necklaces, cufflinks and hanging decorations. Everything is painstakingly handmade in our small workshop with everyone sharing their ideas. I think the real launch came when I was able to access government funding to attend marketing seminars and my first two trade shows. I would not have had either the confidence or the financial backing to have done this alone. I was amazed by the positive response and firm orders I received on my first visit to Spring Fair at the NEC. Trade Fairs from then on became a regular feature of the Stockwell Ceramics’ year. What challenges have you overcome since the company’s launch? We have experienced many challenges over the years. It is always difficult in a small company to create the right level of staffing then to maintain it. I would say that this has and probably always will be an ongoing challenge. We have always been fortunate in finding funding, much of it from government scheme, although this can be quite a challenge to achieve. We used D.I.T. Match funding to develop our current website as well as funding to attend trade shows and for business advice generally. This has contributed greatly to overcoming the challenge of new investment. An invitation to attend The British Fair at Hankyu Department Store in Osak, Japan to demonstrate our craft was a big challenge at the time but we decided to go ahead and were rewarded with two more successful visits to Japan over a two-year period. Tell us about your product offering? We now produce many ranges of buttons together with brooches, earrings – both stud and drop – necklaces, cufflinks and hanging decorations. We currently major on the bespoke side of our business and have created many bespoke ranges for major museums, National Trust houses, galleries, artists and makers. In order to produce bespoke items, we are privileged to work with many beautiful original copyright designs, which would not otherwise be available to us. This is the part of our work that I personally enjoy most. What are your most popular designs? It would be difficult to say what are our most popular designs, although some have remained popular over many years, particularly the designs in our Heritage Ranges of buttons, jewellery and decorations. However, we have a wide variety of designs on offer and they all have many followers. Our animals and birds never fail to attract new customers and reliably withstand the test of time. Have any styles taken you by surprise with their popularity? I think our very first bird brooch depicting a flying bird loosely based on the birds in Braque’s paintings, designed and made for the V&A Museum, was a very big surprise in its popularity and has continued to surprise us ever since. How do you keep your designs fresh and current? Do you follow trends? We keep our designs fresh and current