Tatty Devine is a small independent jewellery brand with more wit and invention than a thousand high street jewellery chains put together. Jackie Modlinger meets its charismatic creators..
“We were 20 when we started up and at first we went a bit bonkers,” says Rosie Wolfenden, looking back at the early days of Tatty Devine - the jewellery company she established in 1999 with her friend Harriet Vine.
And as the company’s new spring collection clearly demonstrates, a bit bonkers they most definitely remain. Paper doilies, Chinese cocktail parasols topped with glace cherries, anchors and chains, scallop-edge love hearts in bright reds and pinks, pearly queen pendants, ice cream sundaes – this may be jewellery, but not as we know it.
The company’s inventive, quirky, witty, kitsch brand of art costume jewellery and accessories is hand-made in London and found in two signature shops in the capital - the first in Brick Lane, the latest baby in Covent Garden’s Monmouth Street, which, with its distinctive rock-candy-pink exterior, looks like an accessory sweetshop.
Rosie and Harriet, both 32, met at Chelsea College of Art, where they were both studying fine art. Neither has any formal jewellery design training, but then Tatty Devine isn’t formal jewellery design. They began by scavenging bags of leather samples from skips, then using their findings to make wrist cuffs which they sold at London’s vintage clothes markets. They ended up selling out every week.
Fate intervened one Friday afternoon, in the guise of a Vogue stylist, in the basement of Steinberg & Tolkein, the now sadly defunct vintage fashion shop where Rosie worked during the week. The stylist admired Rosie’s bright pink rhinestoned alice band, customised with ribbons. “This will be great for my Millennium shoot,” she enthused.
“It’s by my company, Tatty Devine,” said Rosie. “We can bring you the whole collection if you like.”
“Can you come on Monday?” asked the stylist.
“Of course,” replied Rosie.
A weekend of working around the clock to prepare the promised “collection” proved the turning point in the girls’ career. The Millennium issue of Vogue saw the girls’ accessories modeled by the likes of Erin O’Connor and John Galliano. Six months later their designs were in Browns Focus, Whistles and Harvey Nichols. A year later they were showing at London Fashion Week.
A decade on, Tatty Devine has built a cult following and has enjoyed collaborations with the likes of the V&A, Tate and Chicks on Speed. Hattie and Rosie have come a long way since their market days, but they have never compromised their playful spirit and their sense of invention.
Harriet now sports a wonderful Louise Brooks bob, courtesy Anna at Vidal Sassoon. “I thought that they would be trustworthy with my hair, as it’s difficult to cut,” she says. “I had had long hair for a long time and meant to cut it off for ages. I quite like the French-ness of it.” She hails from Rochester in Kent and now lives in an old, converted veneer shop in Bethnal Green with her guitarist husband Daniel and their 20-month-old daughter Bebe. Daniel is currently a house-husband. “He is fundamental to the whole operation,” she says. “It was a natural time for him to have a break from music. It isn’t forever.”
Rosie grew up on the Isle of Wight. She shares a flat in a turn-of-the- century block in Stoke Newington with her film editor partner, Tony. Both women share a love of music, especially live gigs, a fact which is reflected in their design ethos. Their much loved Best of Perspex collection features plectrums, dangling musical notes, white piano keys, a volume button brooch and a vinyl record necklace, while black Swarowski crystal music notes embellish a silver chain link bracelet. Hattie is currently learning to play the ukulele she bought from The Duke of Uke shop in East London’s Hanbury Street.
Tatty Devine is modern jewellery, but it has more than a touch of old-style rock n roll.
So how did it all start?
Harriet Vine: Through us meeting at college – the moment that Rosie moved in with me in Brixton, we realised that we were into the same sort of things.
Rosie Wolfenden: Harriet worked in the restaurant at the V&A, where you could touch everything – we catered some of the events and we’d be serving canapés to the king and queen of Sweden. It got us through college. You could eat what you liked, so I just ate on Wednesdays and at weekends. We left college in 1999. Before we left, Harriet found loads of leather strips waiting for the bin-men - we were always into skip-rummaging – and she knew that they were too good to miss.
We both came out of college and weren’t going to get conventional jobs. The snowball started to roll. We never had a set plan, but I always knew that I wanted to create something, so we created Tatty Devine. Our parents have all been self-employed. I never imagined having a boss or having to get a job.
HV: We decided we would try and set up a studio in Rosie’s bedroom in Brixton.
RW: Harriet made an old leather belt into a wrist-cuff, held together with a hairclip.
HV: My dad worked as a carpenter. We had all the materials and he really helped us. On our first market stall - Camden on a Tuesday in July 99 - we took £50.
What inspires your design themes?
RW: For 10 years, we have been led by our own whims and fancies. Our one big inspiration is our friends – artists, photographers and film-makers. What we have in common is not being very conventional. We just have a love of old-fashioned dreams. Before the word “vintage” was coined, we were into it. Most of our wardrobes are second-hand.
HV: We have never had enough money to buy expensive clothes and we have never wanted to look like everyone else. Neither of us particularly like shopping on the high street. We have an ethical, moral aesthetic. We want off-the-wall pieces, not off-the-peg .
Why did you choose Covent Garden for your second boutique?
HV: Monmouth Street has a lot of independent boutiques. We wanted to be in a boutique area that wasn’t quite so “destination” as our previous one in Brewer Street, Soho. We looked at Marylebone, Upper Street, Islington, but in the end Covent Garden felt like the best – everyone in the world has heard of Covent Garden. It’s famous as a tourist destination - and we feel that as a British company we have something to offer them. We are getting more and more well-known world-wide, across the globe there are like-minded people who love what we do. Seven Dials has got an old-fashioned feel to it – Neal’s Yard, the cheese shop - you have the sensation that you can get anything that you want, any kind of food. Everything is very compact and it has a Parisian feel to it with the cobbled streets and the monument.
Who is the Tatty Devine woman?
RW: A mixture of us both as we evolve –people who we admire and respect, like a girl or woman with individuality and a desire to look different.
Where do you see your niche in the market?
HV: Our strength is that it is made in England. So much stuff is made in China now, but we are small, independent, design-led and hand-made in Britain. That’s the niche. People really want pieces which are special, not just mass-produced. We use one company in Nottingham to source our materials.
You seem to have quite a famous following
HV: We have never been into mainstream celebrity, rather people who like vintage. We hold on to our values. But that said, we get quite a few fashion folk in here, also singers – Katie Perry, Kelly Osbourne, Beth Ditto, Chicks on Speed, Kate Moss. Claudia Schiffer rang up and ordered a “name” necklace for herself.
How do you see the future?
HV: We don’t really know. We have this business established which we have worked really hard at. Now this year we are 10, but the day-to-day running of the business is so frantic that it’s hard to stop and think. It would be quite nice to open more shops. This shop may become a nice template for opening in other places like Brighton and Glasgow.
Tags: Accessories, Boutiques, Jewellery, Monmouth Street, Tatty Devine
