Monday morning and I’m feeling like I could do with a week-end.
I’m Alex from Alex Monroe (the jewellery makers) by the way.
My family and I spent the week-end in our cottage in the middle of a forest in Suffolk, scraping and painting walls. I made an eight foot long dining table for the kitchen out of salvaged bits of timber. The dog spent her week-end trying to dig out the Adders which live in the wood pile, if she gets to them they’ll bite her. I must look up what to do about dog-snake-bites.
Kids to school, tidy the house, wash up and into work by 9. And I’m already feeling like I could do with a week-end.
And on my To-do list for today it says in big letters Do LJW blog. I’m not sure what is expected of me. First thing I looked up the LJW web-site and checked out what is already there. It says…
Here you will find the latest news, gossip about London Jewellery Week and insights from industry guest bloggers … all preparing for the biggest jewellery event of the year…. insights from jewellery designers working on new collections to launch in the week, to their inspirations and observations of trends on the ….. providing an exciting glimpse into the rich and varied London jewellery scene and the build up to the one jewellery event you don’t want to miss!
Uh oh…. I’m in trouble. Firstly I don’t ever really have any gossip (except that I saw our jewellery on a preview for a new cop show on t.v. last night… bit dull eh?). Secondly I’ve got to admit that preparations for LJW aren’t really in full stream yet. We tend to operate a system of triage here; Attend to the desperately urgent, do what you can, anything over a week away can wait.
Actually perhaps that’s not 100% true. We do have some exciting plans for LJW. We did have even more exciting plans but they involved our new building, Completion has been delayed so we’ve had to change everything.
But right now I have other things on my mind…..
- Germany tomorrow… I’m meeting our agents in Dusseldorf and we’re doing a little event in Bonn.
- Japan soon; very complicated… I cancelled the trip because of events in Japan but now think I should go. (We’re launching this fab new wedding ring collection).
- Our new shop opening… Aargh! We’re so near completion but a crappy subcontractor let us down and the whole thing is delayed! Need to find a new subcontractor and get things going again, but for now we’re all crammed into my lovely little studios at Elephant (and Castle). I quite like it here really. It’s just that the new building is so exciting! (here’s a peek)
- And then there is London Jewellery Week. At first I was concerned that it lacked a clear message. None of us here really knew what it was so we never considered taking part. But this year we decided to look into it and actually it turns out to be a bunch of really lovely people trying to make a celebration out of this wonderful industry. So we decided to join in and try to help it along, rather than idly ignoring it all. I’ve long since thought that we have so much talent and gorgeousness here it is a shame it’s so hard to access it all.
And they asked yours truly to be an ambassador. Appealing to my vanity I said yes. (no diplomatic plates and not even a Ferrero Rocher so far.)
I still think LJW has a way to go; I think the web-site needs smartening up, the message needs to be more concise, and I really want to get some of the big high street players to join in. We need John Lewis and Grazia, Oxford Street and the week-end glossies. Let’s really make a splash, more like Fashion Week, or the RIBA Open House London.
I would love to get any thoughts from readers. Does anyone not in the biz read these blogs? Do let me know. The LJW team are really responsive to feedback.
One step at a time though I suppose.
Ah ha! I just looked further down my list. It says LJW Ambassador’s supper at Benares (posh curry) tonight. I promise I’ll try and get some decent gossip.
I’ll report back soon,
But for now I remain,
Gossipless from the Elephant (Alex).
P.S. Blogs are boring without pics. Here’s what we’re launching in Liberty during LJW
Chrysanthemum collection