And no I am not just being optimistic - I firmly believe that this year will be a great success. We're currently working hard in the background on new collections and on updating our website as well as still designing fantastic pieces for our customers. Oh and we're busy preparing for the National Wedding Show at Olympia in February. It's just so exciting here that it's hard to contain all the excitement!
So before we launch headlong into the New Year I thought it would be nice if I did a review of 2009 so that you can see some of the exciting things we did last year that we will be building on in 2010 (I must warn you - you may require several cups of coffee and packet of Jaffa Cakes to get through this!).
That was the year that was.....2009
January
January saw the birth of one of our most popular designs of last year - Danielle. It was designed for a bride with a pale gold gown which had a heavily textured bodice and so I used a blend of golden toned crystals, crystal and crystal ab, pale gold freshwater pearls, cream pearls and diamante to create a lovely textured effect within a simple wide headband style. The beauty of this design is its simplicity and its ability to be customised to suit the bride's requirements. And because of its success in 2009 we will be introducing it in various forms into our 2010 collections.
So here is Danielle and one of many customised versions of the design
February
The snow arrived in February and our new garden provided some wonderful snow covered inspiration for one of our 2010 winter collections - the aptly named Snow collection which is full of beautifully structured and textured pieces made from pearl. The only additional adornments are wire wrapping and silver lined seed beads which represent ice crystals in the snow. It wasn't just the snow that inspired me to design this collection. In the past I have had comments from customers that they have found it hard to find dramatic all pearl hair accessories for winter weddings and the snow on the branches of our trees and the undulating snow blanket that covered the garden spurred me on to begin designing this collection.
Here are some of the main pieces in the collection
March
March saw the birth of a concept design called Raquel (why Racquel?....who can forget Racquel and Curly) which has also led to a number of similar spin off designs. This particular design was created using strands of silver interspersed with sterling silver beads, Swarovski helix crystals and freshwater pearls combinations and then twisted to give a random, free flowing feel but within a structured shape. This technique will be used again in some of our new 2010 collections.
Here is the original Racquel design
April
For me April represents the start of my busy summer season. And April 2009 was no exception. As well as my commissioned designs, 4 designs seemed to dominate our customisations in this month.
So in ascending order we have
4.Our Donna comb
,3.Our Danielle headband- see images in January,
2.Our Sarah tiara
1.And finally our perfectly simple and elegant Maria headband
But our favourite commission of the month was this lovely diamante and crystal tiara which was designed with the theme of a wild flower garden in mind to reflect the rustic nature of my client's wedding. Incredibly striking yet delicate!
May
May was incredibly busy for us. Not only was the summer season in full swing but I was also preparing for my first photoshoot of the year. One of the things that has frustrated me in the past has been that due to the dramatic nature of many of my designs it is very difficult to get across the full impact of the design. And I knew that in order to start showing off what Tiararama is all about, I needed to get my designs on heads. So together with Vikki the designer at Liliia and Sarah at Assassynation we headed into the Cotswolds for a photoshoot on a gloriously sunny day.
Some of my favourite images from this shoot are:
June
By June we were right in the middle of our busiest time but one of the best things about the majority of my work being commissions is that I get to work in fabulous and unusual materials and fantastic colours. And each year one colour seems to dominate and in 2009 the colour of choice seemed to be black. And June saw the start of many black (Swarovski jet) based commissions. Here is the first
This stunning piece uses beautiful Swarovski jet diamante with black diamond and crystal cluster accents on black wire. It is an incredibly striking design made all the more special by wonderful Swarovski magic.
July
July is usually the month for existing customers to add to their orders with jewellery and bridesmaid accessories and 2009 was no exception. I like July because there is usually a lull in commission designing (I love it but I do need to let the grey cells recuperate sometimes!)so as well as creating customer pieces I can concentrate on concept pieces which will in some way or another form the basis of the following year's collection.
July was quite interesting for me because I was invited to submit pieces for a photoshoot at Chiswick House - my lovely Jadis design
and the incredibly stunning Philomena.
Philomena is the biggest design I have ever designed not in terms of height but in sheer weight and intricacy. Essentially it is a wire structure made out of abstract twists of wire which are then draped with crystal and freshwater pearl so that you can still see the wire structure in the background but it all melds (now is that a word or is something we have to blame Star Trek for?)into one. This is then bound in thinner wire. It is a lovely warm and sparkling piece that has a deceptively light quality to it. The number of times it has been picked up by unsuspecting customers who think it will be quite light only to nearly drop it because it is much heavier than it looks! Maybe I should put a warning sign on it!
Alas Philomena's size and intricate textures are incredibly hard to photograph but here are a couple of images which I hope will go some way to showing her off. This really is a case of the pictures doing no justice whatsoever
August
Is that light I can see at the end of the tunnel? This is the question that I always ask in August. The summer season is nearly over and although I am busy all year the intensity of work begins to ease slightly. This August was a little different because not only did I get a lot of last minute orders but I was also working on pieces for a family wedding. It is bad enough when you work with clients to ensure that you meet and exceed their expectations but family - enough to give you a nervous breakdown!
August also saw the return of an old design friend - my simple Lillia design which had a resurgence in customisation requests this month. The beauty was that I was allowed to update the design using seed beads and metallic mesh ribbon in one case which maked revisiting the design much more exciting. Here is the pin combination created for a client using these materials consisting of a Grande Lillia and 2 simple Lillias.
September
The family wedding was upon us in September and whilst our normal work continued in the background this was what was occupying most of my time in the first week of September.
Gemma's gown was designed by my Mum and was a rich creamy champagne colour. The overall look was that of contemporary vintage and I needed to design a hair accessory to incorporate this theme. Knowing that she wanted a flower with a few trailing sections and that she was not going to wear a veil and was wearing her hair in french pleat led me to one conclusion - a hair vine which incorporated the floral theme and the delicate trailing sections. She also wanted a simple pearl bracelet and studs and a 3 strand pearl collarette. Whilst looking through my portfolio she immediately fell in love with my Lillia flower and we worked on combining different textures to give the piece more depth. But the hardest part of this piece was the colour matching. Although the gown and bolero were this rich creamy champagne colour, gold wire didn't suit it all. So I needed to use warm creamy freshwater pearls with hints of gold provided by pale gold metallic mesh ribbon and Swarovski crystal golden shadow beads on silver to achieve the right blend of colour. So here are a couple of images from the wedding of the hair accessory.
It is always amazing to see your work in real life but it is also great to see it on the television and September saw some of our pieces on Celebrity Four Weddings. We designed the headchain and bracelet for Terry Coldwell's (of East 17 fame) bride to be, Faye. The gorgeous Swarovski helix crystal headchain looked beautiful and suited her so well. Was really pleased with the results.
September also saw us travel to France on holiday (yes we did manage to escape for a few days) and it was here in the Loire Valley that I gained some wonderful inspiration for a new beaded collection which will be available in the summer of 2010.
October
October saw me exploring new techniques for my work. 2010 I feel will be the year simple but intricate designs. There will always be those who want the dramatic and the large sparkly tiara but the move towards simplicity began in 2009 and will continue throughout 2010. One of the new techniques that started exploring in October in more detail was beaded work (see September for where the inspiration came from) and my first dip into this medium came with this design
.Using a mix of silver lined seed beads and Swarovski crystal sewn onto fine fabric this piece has a lovely texture and subtle sparkle and gives an elegant finish. Although it is laborious to make the results are worth it.
October also saw my second photoshoot of the year which featured my Snow Collection. Many of these images can be seen in our new and exciting advertising and the images from that shoot can be found here here
November
November traditionally sees the rise of the last minute Christmas/New Year bride and although we had a few of those our main focus was on sorting images from our last photoshoot, advertising (our latest ads can be viewed here and preparation for the National Wedding Show in February. Stock was ordered, logistics have been planned, purchases made and designing and creating in earnest began. And this process is continuing as we speak! It is a long process but very worth it!
And our popular customisation of the month was Marcia with her simple freshwater pearl and crystal decoration.
December
It was an unusual December for me this year. As well as all the preparation for Christmas and New Year (and the obligatory stinking cold and virus of some description) there was also show preparation going on. But one of my final commission pieces of the year will be seen on your television screens on the Four Weddings show sometime in 2010 (if you have Living TV that is! We don't and no longer have the ancient video recorder so can't even watch it on tape if someone recorded it for me!). This is the second piece of ours to be worn by a participant on this show. The first, a simple strand of Swarovski helix crystals, was worn by Faye who married East 17's Terry Coldwell last July and was seen in the celebrity special.
The piece in question is an asymmetric tiara created in sterling silver and using freshwater pearls and Swarovski crystal, silver shade, black diamond and jet crystals. The use of layers of curled wire are finished with a pearl or crystal bead in various shapes and the colour graduates up through from jet to crystal from the base to the centre of the piece. This stunning rosette is then encircled with wire finished with cube shaped crystal bead and placed on an encrusted band. An unusual piece but one which although it has dramatic colours and shapes is still quite subtle and elegant in many respects. Unfortunately like so many pieces of this kind it is very hard to photograph so please forgive my amateurish attempts but they give you an idea at least
Are you still with me? If you are you deserve a medal but I hope you can see that 2009 was a year of foundation building for us and on that foundation we are moving forward to a very exciting and hopefully successful 2010.
I look forward to being able to share more news from Tiararama Towers over 2010 and hope that you all have a very prosperous and healthy year.
So until next time.....
