Having the opportunity to collaborate with other businesses is something which we really enjoy at Helen Round. It gives us the opportunity to experiment with new designs, fabrics and prints. It is often an enjoyable problem solving opportunity, working with the business to come up with the best design and idea to suit their needs.
One such collaboration started with an email from the team at Alex Monroe in the late autumn of 2022.
Alex Monroe is a UK jewellery maker, like us, inspired by nature. They create beautiful, iconic, handmade jewellery which is well made, designed to be worn, loved, and treasured by those who own it.
“Alex Monroe Jewellery is synonymous with a very British sense of style – slightly quirky but intended to be worn and loved for a lifetime. Inspired by the natural world, our pieces are delicate, detailed, and always handmade in England.”
Alex Monroe, founder and designer
The team at Alex Monroe were in the process of planning an alternative to offering discounts on Black Friday. They had the idea of providing each customer with a beautiful travel pouch for holding their jewellery (worth £45).
We spent some time looking at and discussing a variety of ideas and sent them our linen bee pouch and purse as a starting point for inspiration.
Originally, we discussed a screen-printed linen pouch. After talking it through Alex Monroe asked to use the blue velvet that we line our bee pouch and bee coin purse with, lined with our blue striped linen. To this, we added our signature brass zip to create a wonderful jewellery travel pouch. We put together some samples and sent them off to the team in London.
They came back with the idea of changing the opening of the purse slightly, so we quickly sourced a different sized brass zip. They also suggested involving Emma Giacalone, a Gloucestershire based textile artist, to embroider a beautiful signature Alex Monroe bumble bee and logo in gold thread onto each purse.
Within two weeks, we had moved from the initial introductions through to a firm plan and schedule for us all to work to.
After cutting the velvet for the first 100 pouches, we sent them to Emma to be embroidered and within a week received a parcel from her. Opening the box, was a lovely moment. It was wonderful to see how she had so skilfully embellished our lovely velvet with her gold embroidered bee and logo.
The team took the embroidered velvet and made it up into the pouches that we had agreed with the Alex Monroe team. The final product is a 15cm x 13cm, blue velvet pouch, lined with a fine blue striped natural linen, embroidered with a signature Alex Monroe bee and logo, finished with a brass zip with a blue velvet ribbon pull.
We were all super happy with our end product and really enjoyed working with Emma and the Alex Monroe team to create such a beautiful travel pouch.
The first pouches were ready for sending out to clients within two months from the original discussion. It's a great example of how creative people, working together can produce beautiful things.
We really enjoy collaborations with other businesses, so if you are running a business and think that we can add some value to a project that you are working on we’d love to hear from you.
For more information on Alex Monroe and their beautiful jewellery, follow the link here.
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