Exclusive Interview with Emi Jewellery Creator
Freemans love the Emi range of Jewellery, and so do our customers! There is more than meets the eye with the Emi brand, which makes it so unique and enchanting. We followed the journey of the products to discover the ethical, charming craftsmanship that goes into perfecting every individual item.
We met with Xander, the owner of Emi, to find out more about the range. He tells us about himself, his brand and his plans for the future…
Can you tell us a bit about you and your story as a designer?
My name is Xander Kostroma. I am 28 years old and I now live in The South of Switzerland. I am originally from a working-class family from Swansea in South Wales. I started my label Emi Jewellery back in 2010 when I was still living in the UK. I’ve always worked in fashion starting when I was 16 years old working in store for M&S as a visual merchandiser.
I worked my way up into head office working for brands such as JD Sports in their merchandising department before crossing over into buying, working at a start up online fashion company in Manchester before my story lead me here to Switzerland where I was head hunted to work at Vans HQ. Later on I crossed brands within the company moving into a luxury fashion brand called 7 For All Mankind. After 1.5 years at 7FAM I became the online buyer for all categories (Womens, Mens, Kids, Accessories, Jewellery, Footwear & Marciano) for Guess.
It was after working at Guess and realizing that my brand was suffering (basically I couldn’t dedicate enough of my time to it) I made the decision to leave the corporate world and started working full time on Emi Jewellery in 2014. Now fast forward 1.5 years later, I’ve got a great team around me all over Europe. My showroom is based just outside of London; my design team is based in Asia and a warehouse location in the UK not just that, I also hold the license to produce jewellery, scarves & non-leather goods for another brand called Ruby Rocks, but that is a story for another time.
Can you give us an overview of your range?
Emi Jewellery is about being playful and fun. The name comes from Japan, Emi is a girls name when translated into English means beautiful or smile, and that’s the way I see the world.
The brand produces small accessories aimed at well, anyone who loves us! We tend not to follow trends, but go by what inspires us at the time. I remember, I sold a necklace to an 83 year old lady at one of our trade shows just because she liked the colour. (It was a big silver plated collar necklace, with a round purple stone in the middle).
Our current season is all about gifting. We’ve gone really tiny. The collection is devoid of colour silver, gold and rose gold tones and features little starfish, The Eifel Tower, a cute bear, an abstract swallow pendant just to name a few. 17 styles will be featured on your website and we’ve got great accessible price points too!
What inspires you when creating your designs?
I have always been fascinated by spirituality and the science of nature and how being positive can affect your environment.
If you look at the water experiment by Dr Masaru Emoto, he exposed music, and words such as I love you, or thank you to water, after it was crystalized, he looked at the structural make up under a microscope and had found that the properties of the water had changed into beautiful symmetrical shapes. On the other hand, when he said I hate you, die or other horrible things like this and tested the experiment again, the shapes were all distorted and the structures almost as if they had exploded.
My inspiration comes from directly from my environment. The world is in harmony and you have the ability to change your surroundings around you. If you are in a mindset where you are constantly angry, shouting hurtful things and so on, you need to look at your body…you are made up of around 60% water. Referring back to Emoto’s experiment your own bodys structural make up is going to become distorted affecting your positivity and limiting your spiritual growth.
As humans, we need to be in line with nature and the world around us. I have learnt that we are all interconnected. Nature affects us and us nature.
You can see that this is then reflected our jewellery. From the use of geometry, colour and animals that are usually are associated with healing or peace such as the swallow, doves or little butterflies. Our roots are connected in nature; it’s really what is the driving force behind the label.
What do you think is unique about your products?
One of the unique aspects we have is that our critical patch can be traced back to the source. The factories that we use have been outside audited and pass our strict working guidelines for things such as: the use of child labour in not acceptable. Equal pay for men and women is a given, a 45hr working week is the maximum the workers may work; fair pay is paid and so on.
With this we create conscious collections that reflect the people behind the brand. We make fair margins that are passed onto our factories too.
Can you give us any exclusive info about what’s to come for future seasons?
FW15 (our second collection with is due to launch) will be continuing on from the small gifting collection that has just gone live. We’ve got Hamsa hand inspired pendants, triangle droplets and gold leaf collars all coming soon. All of these will be in gold and silver tones, which are ideal Christmas gifts.
Pre-spring 2016 we will be embracing all things colour and have developed a statement necklace collection. We’ve just finished our final samples, and we are readying them for production as we speak. 10 styles will be featured on your website and we’re hoping to have these launching around January 2016.
Shop the Emi range, and wear more than ‘just a necklace’…