Emi Jewellery ceases trading after 13 years

 

Emi Jewellery website

What a rollercoaster of a ride these last 13(!!) years have been with this brand.

I started Emi Jewellery in 2009 from my bedroom when I was living back in my hometown of Swansea, Wales. I had always wanted to work in fashion, but I had no idea what I would do or how I would get there...

The idea came about for me to start my own label circa 2008 and then finally in 2009, I plucked up the courage to launch putting together a small capsule collection of just 6 necklaces with a few pieces behind each style. I fell in love with the name "Emi" - it is a Japanese girl's name, and it means "beautiful" or "smile" depending on the translation, that's exactly how I saw the world. I wanted people to smile when they wore my pieces, and I wanted to make them feel beautiful.

Fast forward a few more years, I was living and working in Manchester in a job at Head Office in the buying and merchandising department. One of the brands that I used to buy from also worked as a fashion agent, they asked me if I was looking for representation, and of course, I said yes.

Emi Jewellery was picked up by indie retailers up and down the country, eventually getting stocked in around 50 stores across the UK as well as a few locations in the EU. As we grew, so did my confidence. I felt that what I set my mind to, would work. I can't describe what it was, it's always been with me. I would visualise what I wanted and it would eventually manifest, regardless of what it was. I knew that my brand would be a success.

Fast forward again, I applied for a trademark to properly establish myself as a label, then proverbial shite (let's call it) hit the fan. 

E.M.I. Music (as in the record label for the Beatles etc) caught wind of my trademark and issued me a cease and desist order... they were not happy that I was using their name and claimed I was infringing on the copyright of their label. By this point, I had emigrated out the UK and I was living in the Italian-speaking canton called Ticino in the South of Switzerland. I had left corporate and I was working on my own projects, this brand, full time. It was my only source of income!

Truthfully speaking, it scared the hell out of me, but I had to face the music. My options were to:

1. Give in, stop trading and be responsible for paying E.M.I. Music's legal fees.

2. Fight it.

Obviously, I chose the latter.  I chose to fight it. I did, however, decide to stop trading for a while, as a "just in case" kinda thing. You can see by the lack of silence in this blog. I focused my energy on fighting for this brand, planning what my next moves were going to be. It was 8 years of my life that I thought were going up in smoke. I was devastated but I kept on going.

The next thing I did was trademark my own name. I thought you know what, try and take this one away from me... I applied for and got granted a new trademark for my own name "Xander Kostroma". I turned myself into a brand instead.

A good few months had passed by this point,  the trademark case with E.M.I. Music was still ongoing, meanwhile, all my focus was on creating this new label for myself while, at the same time, trying to rescue this one.

SUCCESS - E.M.I. Music backed down, we came to an agreement that I could have the trademark in category 14 (jewellery) and we would each be responsible for our own legal fees. I felt like I had won. It was an incredible feeling. The case was closed and my Emi Jewellery trademark was granted. This was in Nov 2018. By this point, my Xander Kostroma trademark was secured and the launch of my brand was planned however; I now found myself with 2 labels.

The launch of my own name collection completely took me by surprise! The collection was first made available through my amazing concessions at Freemans.com and Lookagain.co.uk and we traded on a few other platforms as well like SilkFred and LittleBlackDress (both of which I have since closed down).

Then the 2020 pandemic hit. I felt like I just couldn't get the opportunity to relaunch this label. After the second wave, I decided to start to supply the bricks and mortar stores with my own name collection. We joined Faire Wholesale and waited for new orders to come in. It was a slow burner to begin with, but once the lockdown eased, the orders just kept on coming. As you can imagine trade had been closed for so long, stores were looking for new products to fill their shelves. My label quickly gained momentum, and within 1.5 years (as of today) we had grown to 482 stockists globally with a core team of 7 people. Putting everything into perspective, I just didn't have the time anymore to re-launch Emi Jewellery.

Taking the time to look back on everything that has happened since the launch of Emi Jewellery in 2009, I am no longer the same person who created this label. Truth be told, I was too shy and I lacked confidence in myself and undervalued my own abilities. I didn't want to put my name (and my face) on my own work which is so crazy. I used Emi jewellery almost like a mask. Me taking on E.M.I. Music gave me the courage to stand up for what I believed in, eventually having no choice but to continue without said mask. Yes, it was tough to do, but my gosh, it was the best thing that could have happened to me.

Thoughts to take away

- I am truly grateful for what happened with the trademark case.

- The timing in which I decided to open my own brand up to bricks and mortar stores was impeccable.

- And finally, I know that I am on the right path, always in my life.

I have amazing memories with this brand, it paved the way for what I am doing today. I am not sad for letting go and for saying goodbye. The value of the name, "Emi" and its meaning, "beautiful" or "smile" I carry through with me always.

If you have made it this far, thank you so much for reading about my journey and my brand as well as for your love and support of my label. I hope my story has inspired you. No matter how tough it may seem at the time, just remember it's always, always, always working out for you and of course: Anything in your life is possible! 

See you on the other side,

Love,

Xander 

Lisbon, Portugal

Xander Kostroma

Founder of Emi Jewellery 2009 - 2022

Rose Gold Necklaces and Geometric Dresses with Lookagin.co.uk

We're well on the way into the summer months and with the new season, comes a new shoot. We've teamed up with Lookagain.co.uk who shot their recent campaign. 

Rose gold accents are such a cute little trend this year. We developed this coil necklace in a beautiful light rose gold colour. It also comes in a pewter, silver and of course gold.

Lookagain.co.uk styled this necklace with a geometric printed dress, wavy hair and of course a cute smile. 

The necklace is online now for just £17 and is delivered direct to you in just a few days.

How would you style it?

We went for a sleeveless vest and bangs as worn here by the ever beautiful, my friend, Vintageena.

You can check out our full range of jewellery online right now.

Floral dresses and geometric necklaces

Florals, florals, florals!

I love anything floral me. I know they’re springy but they’re just so fun and girlie that it doesn’t actually make sense to STOP feeling that feeling, you know?

Be like the spring, full of life bursting and eager to grow.

Live life like spring, and dress like it too. 🌸 🌺 🌹 

Lookagain have styled the geometric necklace with this cute floral dress, what do you think? Is this a YAY or a NAY?

Love, Emi. xXx

It's beginning to look a bit like Christmas with Freemans.com

The Freeman.com gift guide is out now!

We are so lucky to have a pair of our jewellery featured in this beautiful gold coloured gifting page with Freemans.com. 

The jewellery design process for my Matisse "face" earrings now available from Lookagain.co.uk!

Hello again!

Wow - its been a busy few months and I've literally abandoned the blog, sorry about that!

We've had a few things happening here at Emi HQ that took up a bit more of my time that I had hoped, but now that things are getting back to normal again, it's brought me back to my blog.

So I thought it could be quite fun to show you the design process and what happens when you decide to put pen to paper and create some jewellery.

Now, don't panic, you don't have to be a great artist or even have even completed a course in art + design, all that you need to do is to convey your idea. There are 2 options depending on your business model.

Option 1

If you're a designer maker. This means that you design and then you proceed to make what it is that you have designed. You will have a good idea of the design in your head, its enough that you have a rough sketch and away you go. You're the one thats making your product, you know what it is that you like, so who cares what your sketch is like, right? You just use it as a starting point for your idea.

Option 2

If you're like myself and you work with a factory to produce your jewellery, OK yes its great to have a lovely technical sketch which looks perfect on paper, but is that really necessary? No. You just need to make sure that the factory understands your idea and they know what piece goes where.

Its as simple as that. 

So lets put this into practice.

I sketched the below design out of 2 styles of face earrings. The first was a "dropper" and then second "studs". I did a super quick sketch thats all. I knew that I wanted to have some earrings that were inspired by faces, so going from that idea, I did a simple line drawing and jotted down some measurements. I scanned in the piece of paper and sent it off to the factory.

The factory then took my sketch and they began to re-draw it in illustrator their side. They refined my sketch and added some dimension to it ready to create the next step.

Once its had been created on the computer, a plastic mould was created which would allow the silver to be formed and allow it to take on its shape. From this point, you can also roughly work out if your design is going to work or not. I was really happy with mine.

From that point, the mould is put into production and the earrings are made. The silver is set, and the shape is made creating my face earrings as below. The loops for the earrings were created separately and then added on in a kind of production line along with all the backing tags to finish the design, prepping it ready to be shipped to the warehouse.

These were then sent to myself for approval, and then from that point we have 2 options.

1. If using silver, and the design weighs more than 7.78g then it will need to be hallmarked, if your design weighs under this amount, then it doesn't have to be. (fortunately, these didn't).

Hallmarking comes at an extra cost and strict rules and minimums are in place. Theres a really interesting blog post HERE about Hallmarking in the UK if this is something that you are interested in.

2. If under this weight, then they are just stamped S925 and are completed.

Then the fun stuff happens....the styling!

These earrings were then sent to the Lookagain.co.uk photo studio in the UK to be shot in collaboration with their new SS19 range. Check out the model shot below for both the droppers and the studs.

You can shop the full range of jewellery online at Lookagain.co.uk. The dropper earrings are £28 and the studs are £22.

And thats it! That is how a pair of earrings is made from initial sketch - to production - to styling.

Let me know what you think in the comments and don't forget to tag us @emijewellery over on Instagram. 

Bye for now!

Love,
Xander

Emi Jewellery LOVES bloggers! If you've got a killa' blogger account, we'd love to hear from you! Are you vegan? Get in touch!

We've been hot on our blogging game this year. In all honesty, it was and still is, a big part of my marketing strategy for the brand.

I took a few years out to concentrate on my concessions with Freemans + Lookagain. I wanted to build up my brand on these channels first before concentrating on my own website and working directly with bloggers.

What I love about working with the girls is their creativity. As a brand owner, I'm pretty easy going. I'll arrange to have something that you personally would:

A: love to wear

B: genuinely feel passionate about writing a piece on that item.

The styling I leave up to you, and its part of the surprise for me! 

Check out some of my favourite customer images which we've received so far this year below. They are pretty outstanding! Thankyou to everyone who I have collaborated with so far and I welcome all new bloggers/influencers into my life.

Are you a blogger? Are you vegan? Please get in touch with me, I'd love to hear from you. Let me know a bit about you, where are you based, the type of jewellery you like and why you think you'd be a great Emi girl!!

I'm always open to new suggestions and collabs...all you have to do is ask!

Our new, minimalist, vegan friendly jewellery, mini-giraffe necklace is now online

This little guy was a part of my very first collection that I sold through Freemans.com back in 2015 when my brand, Emi Jewellery, first got launched into the UK High Street. It was part of my Christmas gifting collection. Recently, he’s been getting more and more attention so I’ve decided to re-launch the mini giraffe necklace. My jewellery isn’t necessarily season dependent. I don’t follow trends, I just go with what my heart tells me to do. My heart is telling me: relaunch him! Relaunch him! So that’s what I’ve gone ahead and done. @milliemelissab (Insta) sent me this cute pic of her mini giraffe necklace and I wanted to share with you! I’ll let you know in the next few months when the necklace will be back online at Freemans. I’ve got a meeting booked with their buying team & then the necklace will be scheduled and re-launched. Watch this space! In the meantime, I’ve released a few units early through my website, just click the link to shop direct. It’s on special offer now at £12. I can’t guarantee how much it will be rereleased for, so if you’re interested, snap one up today! Lots of love as always! 🦒 💜