Tatty Devine – a handmade digital jewellery company of twenty years

HIGHLIGHTS

Making iconic laser cut acrylic (plastic) jewellery since 2001
Using laser cutters Tatty Devine’s personalised name necklaces become their bestseller
Promoting products across all major social media including Instagram and Facebook
Producing around 300 designs each year, and have a cult following

BRIEF INTRODUCTION

Figure 1: Tatty Devine’s store and jewellery

Tatty Devine is the world’s go-to brand for original and fun statement jewellery. Born in 1999 in the heart of East London by founders Harriet and Rosie, their jewellery soon achieved a cult following with fans. All Tatty Devine jewellery is designed and handmade in house by a small, skilled team of ten makers with a passion for art jewellery, and Laser cutting technology is widely used in their making process. Alongside the Classic, limited edition and seasonal ‘capsule’ collections, Tatty Devine love to collaborate with artists, designers, charitable institutions and their favourite cultural spaces.

Tatty Devine have two stores in London (one is in Brick Lane, the other is in Covent Garden) and two workshops in Kent. With social media such as Instagram and Facebook, Tatty Devine promote their jewellery and interact with their followers all over the world.

DIGITAL ‘TOUCH POINTS’

Use of Digital equipment

Tatty Devine have four Laser cutting machines, two smaller ones in the stores and two larger ones in their workshops in Kent. Almost everyone in Tatty Devine has a computer, expect for the makers and sales assistants.

“The detail we can achieve with a laser cutter is so much higher that what we would achieve by like sawing it by hand. I think it’s a very good medium to use – it’s fast, it’s relatively low waste, and you can use lots of different colours and patterns and stuff”, said by Tatty Devine’s design assistant, Hollie Melding.

Figure 2: Laser cutting machines of Tatty Devine

Use of Digital technologies

Laser cutting technology has been used in making acrylic jewellery since the founders Harriet and Rosie discovered laser cut acrylic when they visited New York in 2001. All the pieces of Tatty Devine’s jewellery are cut by laser cutters. However, it should be noted that Laser cutting is a relatively small part of their craftwork’s journey. Harriet, their Co-Founder and designer, will draw the design in her sketchbook first, and then this will be redrawn on the computer before sending it to laser cutting machines. After laser cutting out the shapes, makers will hand-make everything together. There is also an iterative process involved in to go over the different details such as shapes and colour before final production. Finally, the quality of products will be checked by hand before packing and sending to the stores.

Figure 3: Laser cut acrylic of Tatty Devine

“So obviously the laser cutter cuts things we don’t cut things by hand, but everything kind of comes out like flat and in separate pieces and then it’s all made by hand so that we bend things and we drill things and glue things and pin things together, so… It all looks very different when it comes out of the laser cutter.” Hollie Melding.

Use of Social Media

“Social media is key to what we do and how we market our jewellery. We’re across all major platforms, and we maintain these daily…so we don’t post the same imagery or graphics as is at the same time on every channel, everything is different, it takes a lot of time and a lot of planning, but I work very closely with our graphic designer to ensure that we have enough material to be able to do that because we just don’t want people to get tired or bored and leave the site or our social media platforms, that’s very important,” shared by their Marketing and Events Executive, Charlotte Prichard.

Figure 4: Tatty Devine’s Instagram screenshot

Figure 5: Tatty Devine’s Facebook home page and shop page

Social media, especially Instagram and Facebook, have been become an indispensable part of Tatty Devine’s marketing platform. Instagram is perfect for them to communicate with customers as it is visual, focussing on pictures, and Facebook is convenient for Tatty Devine translating into sales as it enables customers to click right through to purchase items. In order to better plan and manage multi social media platforms, Tatty Devine have business accounts across social channels, and they pay for a social media scheduling program, i.e., Hootsuite.

“Instagram is such a great platform for liking something and your scrolling, you’re not even looking at it 2 seconds later, whereas with Facebook you have the ability to click right through. And you do have the ability to do that on our Instagram now, where you can tap the product … it’s quite a lengthy process still so… if we’re pushing a product that’s not the easiest to communicate, Facebook is amazing because it takes you right to that product page” said Charlotte. She also noted that “it might be that but it might be that the age demographic of Facebook is very different to the age demographic on Instagram. So what you might find is, it’s potentially an older community on Facebook, when I say older that would be like 30 or 40.”

An almost unbelievable thing is that all their social media is managed by one member of staff. Regarding the negative comments on social media, Tatty Devine believe it would be wonderful to address them rather than delete and hide them. As Charlotte said, “People essentially can get a greater understanding of you as a brand and the way that you handle negative comments… It’s a really great way to kind of show who you really are.”

Use of website presence

Tatty Devine’s jewellery is sold all over the world in shops they supply or online through their website. As their brand manager Amy said, “we do get a phenomenal amount of orders worldwide, so if you can’t come to our stores, it just opens us up to people in America, Asia, India, it really just encapsulates everyone who wants to a part of our story but just can’t make it in the store”. In other words, ecommerce has greatly promoted Tatty Devine’s business worldwide.

Podcast

Besides social media, podcasts also play an important role in promoting Tatty Devine’s business. A recent (14 Oct 2019) podcast about Tatty Devine appears in one of Holly Tucker’s “Conversations of Inspiration’s[1]” episodes, where the founders – Rosie & Harriet – share their journey from market stall to the pages of Vogue, their approach to sustainability, and how they found their signature style. Through these different interviews on podcasts, customers can learn more about Tatty Devine. More importantly, podcasts could attract potential customers that other social media may not cover.

Figure 6: The screenshot of Tatty Devine’s website

Use of digital software

There are two types of digital software used in Tatty Devine: Illustrator and CorelDraw. Illustrator is used to translate design ideas into electronic version and CorelDraw is used to run the laser cutters. The use of digital software is an integral part of the design process as illustrated in figure 7.

Figure 7: The digital platforms involved in Tatty Devine’s making and marketing

ABOUT IP

Tatty Devine are pioneers in laser cutting jewellery and proud of their creative designs and collections. They have a lawyer who is responsible for sending IP letters to prevent copying of Tatty Devine’s designs and to date they have never had to go to court because of an IP issue. All the designs of Tatty Devine are registered to them. To ensure a clear record of design origin, Harriet, the Co-Founder, will always stamp a mark and note the date on ideas in her sketchbook when they are finished. Despite this there are still people who may copy Tatty Devine’s work.

MORE DESCRIPTIONS

This year is Tatty Devine’s 20-year birthday and they celebrate it through touring exhibitions and publishing a book ‘Misshapes: The Making of Tatty Devine’. In this way, they explore entrepreneurship, innovative British making and the power of creativity.

SUMMARY

Tatty Devine is a well-known hand-made jewellery brand, which was founded by two friends Rosie Wolfenden and Harriet Vine in 1999. Now, it has two stores (one in Covent Garden, the other is in Brick Lane) and two making workshops in Kent. There are about 35 employees in Tatty Devine. The founders, Rosie who responsible for the business side and Harriet, who in charge of designs. One of their popular products is the personalised named jewellery (They said, “Everybody in the world should have a Tatty Devine Name Necklace, they’re personalised, there are hundreds of options, they’re so easy to wear over and over, they’re a bestseller for a reason!”). Tatty Devine is the first brand to create name jewellery by laser cutting, and their fonts are unique, which are designed by themselves. In the future, they would like to explore more possibilities to make jewellery such as using new materials and new technologies. All pieces of jewellery are designed by Harriet and drawn by hand, and then the design assistant digitalises them and makes samples.

Social media is Tatty Devine’s major platform to promote their products. They use all the major social media platforms, and also find that podcasts are a useful way for them to share and improve their work. Furthermore, they post different contents to different platforms in order to attract more people.