Fans of my
jewellery and this blog may remember that a couple of years ago I was asked to
design a collection for Manchester’s Royal Exchange theatre, to be sold in
their gift shop in the run-up to Christmas. Well I’m thrilled to say that they
have asked me to work with them again, this time to create a collection to be
sold over Valentine’s Day.
Naturally
I’m thrilled, but I was very aware that I wanted to create pieces especially
for them, and with the romance of Valentine’s Day in mind. I’ve started
building a Pinterest board to help me research the collection. It contains
images of my major, regular inspirations – including ballet dancers and classic
1940s and 50s styling. I have added some images from the recent film version of
Anna Karenina, which has really caught my imagination, but I’m not sure yet if
I will use them for this collection, or for a winter collection on my website.
What I
really wanted to avoid were the clichéd “Valentines” images – the occasional
discreet love heart is all very well, but all those cupids and roses so prevalent
of the late 19th century make me nauseous. The more I’m researching,
the trickier I’m realising it will be to incorporate any of those “traditional”
Valentines images without making something no-one would actually want to wear.
In fact,
the only Victorian-era card I’ve found that could be of use is this one, which
features birds (another of my favourites) and some really interesting shapes in
the gold scrollwork:
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