Exhibitor Insights: Glass Oyster

Posted on March 26, 2014 at 10:27 pm. by kiki. Categories - Accessories, Advice, Exhibitor Insights. Total of no comments in the discussion.

For the latest edition in our exhibitor insights series Im so humbled and proud to welcome Gail Jones to our little blog - a lady who quite simply is, well, lovely, accommodating, understanding and quite frankly a pleasure to work with.

Gail started Glass Oyster back in 2007 and has been organically growing the business ever since. Design obsessed, she lives and breathes bridal headdresses and is at her happiest, needle in hand, embroidering tiny beads onto a piece of vintage lace.

Her one off bridal headdresses or “Unique Treats” as she likes to call them, have been regularly featured in the bridal press over the years. She designs and makes every piece herself in her studio, located in the South Downs National Park…. Over to you Gail…xo

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When did you start creating / designing?

I’ve always been creative, ever since I was little - always making things, drawing and painting. I was also very musical and played piano and percussion although I’m very bad at that now!

I ended up working in the corporate world but always dreamed of giving that all up and moving to a remote part of the country, living in a little cottage and designing my days away. Well, I am designing but not quite in the way I had envisaged!

Even when I was in an office job, I still kept experimenting and tried my hand at crafts such as glass fusing, silver smithing and silver clay. In the evening I would sit and make jewellery for myself and my friends. My father in law who used to own Condici www.condici.com a mother of the bride fashion label, asked if I would design some jewellery for their 2007 collection brochure. Well I jumped at the chance and haven’t looked back since.

The response to the jewellery was so good that I decided to start up on my own. I got my website up and running and went for it!

What was your inspiration to start designing wedding accessories?

A local bridal boutique asked me to design some jewellery for them. It went down well and following on from that they asked me to design some hair accessories. I found my calling! I absolutely loved the variety and the freedom to design so many different styles of headdresses.

What do you like about working within the wedding industry?

I love the wealth of creativity that there is in the industry. There are so many talented people pushing the boundaries, all extremely dedicated to what they do. It’s quite a small industry too and I’ve made some really lovely friends. Unlike a lot of people, I look forward to a Monday morning!

How long does it take you to work on a bespoke piece and whats involved in the creation of a design?

It depends on the complexity of the design but a bespoke piece can take anywhere between a few days to several weeks. Generally I will meet with a bride either face to face or over the telephone or email. I will discuss the look she wants for her day ie romantic, relaxed, conventional, vintage etc and the style of the wedding overall. We also discuss her dress of course, how she is wearing her hair, colour themes. We talk about the practical side ie what kind of accessory she would prefer and what would work with her type of hair for example a hair band, comb, hair vine, pins etc. We’ll also look at materials and talk about what she likes and definitely does not like!

I then go away and come up with a couple of initial design mock ups. This normally gives us a good starting point and then the piece really develops from there until the final design is agreed upon.

Is there a piece that you particularly are fond of that you’ve created for someone?

I’m just finishing a piece at the moment for a bride who is getting married in the Scilly Isles. She wanted a fairly delicate yet striking piece that involved lots of different textures and tones to reflect the place where they are getting married. It gave me carte blanche to use lots of different hand embroidery styles with different tonal colours to create the piece she wanted. It is going to look amazing!