FASHION 13
GUESTLIST
2016 / ISSUE 88
ISABELLE
VALENTINE
‘There’s too much shit in the world, so i try to reuse and recycle instead of producing more.’ we chat to izzi valentine,
founder of mosh
Eva | Guestlist
Isabelle Valentine, aka Izzi Valentine, is an
adorable 24 year-old with a singular edgy
style. When I meet her, she is wearing
baggy patterned trousers and a great
brown tied up mane; she could easily have
stepped out of the ’60s; a hippie fashion
icon.
She’s always had a natural inclination
towards the arts from jewellery, making
and customising clothes, to creating
pieces from scratch, or transforming an old
object into something brand new. In her
childhood, her and a friend even set up a
market selling their creations on the street
or beach.
Izzi just recently started making jewellery
out of recycled materials. After receiving
compliments from several people on
her pieces, she thought: “Let’s take this
seriously and see what it leads to…” and
so her new brand, MOSH was born. The
name itself was inspired by a series of
events: “mish-mosh” is the name her greatgrandma gave to the random and lovely
small gifts she would give her as a child,
and a mosh pit is a place where everything
is energetically smashed together.
Coincidentally Mosh is also the name of
someone who sometimes provides her with
acrylic off-cuts.
And the recycling philosophy runs all the
way through her life: she has mostly second
hand clothing, furniture and books; even
her sofa came from FreeCycle!
We stopped by for cup of tea and a chat
about work and life.
How did you learn to make jewellery?
Nobody taught me to make jewellery, I
learnt by playing around with materials,
and dismantling broken things. Although
saying that I did learn a lot when briefly
assisting the inspirational Miles Chapman
(xxmiles.com).
necessarily in a sexual way, but in terms of
identity. What you wear sends a message
about who you are, how you think, and
often how you want to be treated. In a
city like London, with a fast pace and high
population density, people make very
quick judgements based on appearance
“I’m not interested in ‘vintage’ - that’s just a
way to market old stuff, but it is good to keep
existing clothing in circulation not landfill. There’s
too much shit in the world, so I try to reuse and
recycle instead of producing more.”
What do you use to make your jewellery?
Mostly found materials - though I use
new clasps and findings so I can be sure
they’ll be durable and good quality. Then
these materials dictate what I make. My
ideas come through messing around with
objects, exploring potential uses other
than the purpose they were created for.
At the moment I work a lot with rubber
from bike inner tubes, offcuts from
laser-cutting acrylic, and various found
objects. In a market recently I bought these
grotesque/amazing ’60s fridge magnets of
cannibalistic pigs in aprons