YOUR VIEWS
VOICE ON THE HIGH STREET
TATTY DEVINE
Voice on the High Street
1 Name: Tatty Devine
2 Location: 236 Brick Lane, London or Covent garden, London
3 Year established: 1999
4 Number of staff: 35
5 Website: www.tattydevine.com
How did Tatty Devine start?
Tatty Devine is run by myself and Harriet Vine.
We met at Chelsea College of Arts and after we
graduated in June 1999 we came across lots of
leather and started making leather wristbands,
which we sold on Portobello Market. People
became quite excited by them and so we
started to develop the product a bit more by
embellishing it and such. By Christmas that
year we were selling in Harvey Nichols, Urban
Outfitters and Whistles. We were also getting a
lot of great press featuring in magazines such as
the ‘Millennial issue’ of Vogue.
How do you come up with your designs?
Harriet designs everything now but in the early
days we worked very much together on designs,
we would have conversations about what we
were interested in such as music, films and
books. It’s about engaging in culture - that’s what
inspires us.
How did you decide to start working with
materials like perspex and wood?
Perspex is our signature material and that comes
from a research trip in 2001 to New York where
we came across Canal Plastics, a shop selling
shop signs. We brought these little shapes back
to London and made them into jewellery which
we found everybody loved. We then started
experimenting using a laser-cutter at our local
architectural model makers who were the
only people using them back then. We then
found somebody to start cutting out the shapes
that we designed. It was just a brilliant way to
manufacture especially for us who loved making
plastic jewellery.
quality to our work that we like to ensure. We
also like to think we are leading the way in the
niche we have created.
What are your goals for the future?
Our goal for 2019 is to have a 20th birthday
with a bang. We are looking to publish a book
that focuses on the 20 years of the contribution
to design and all the developmental processes
that have happened in Tatty Devine’s history. We
don’t have an archive of our work so it will be
the first documentation of the archive.
What has been your biggest achievement
to date?
I guess it would be receiving our MBEs in
2013 which was great to be recognised and
acknowledged for our work. Also we will be 20
years old next year and keeping the business
going for that long is an achievement in itself.
Even though our jewellery is laser-cut it is
handmade and we have a studio in Kent where
we create everything. It is all manufactured in this
country which is an achievement as there is a
50 JEWELLERY FOCUS
April 2018 | jewelleryfocus.co.uk