Margaux Clavel, a french jewellery designer based in London, has created WWAN(1) along with working for another jewellery brand. Versatile, audacious and passionate, Margaux tells us about her background and her love for jewellery.
Could you please introduce yourself in a few words?
I am Margaux Clavel and I am 27. I grew up in Paris in the 13th district. I have been living, breathing, working and designing in London for 5 years. I live in Stoke Newington with my boyfriend and Marcel the cat.
How would you define your universe?
Opulent, quirky, geometric but organic, bold but elegant.
Where does your brand name come from?
WWAN(1) stands for We Will Always Need and you can pronounce it ONE. WWAN(1) plays with the concepts of needs- what is necessary, what is unnecessary- and uniqueness (what is unique WWAN(1)’s pieces and the people wearing them).
We don’t NEED jewellery pieces. However we often cherish them, they have special powers, they carry strong meanings and tell stories. Yes, a piece of jewellery is pretty unnecessary. Yet seeking beauty and adorning yourself with meaningful jewels is a very human thing to do.
I thought of this name and the ideas it plays with when I was still in college. I wrote it in a notebook thinking I could use it one day. When I started thinking of selling my work and building a brand and an identity, I realized that I didn’t want to turn myself and my name into a brand. The story I wanted to tell was slightly different. I didn’t want to link my name and a specific type and style of products forever.
Then I remembered WWAN(1) and thought it was the perfect name to launch my brand. I first created WWAN(1) as a platform to promote my work, a platform meant to grow and open to collaborations.
When and how have you decided to launch your brand?
I have been making and selling jewellery to family, friends, and strangers for a long time. I started selling the pieces I was making when I was in high-school. My uncle and my aunt had just opened a restaurant (Zoé Bouillon) in the 19th district in Paris and I had displayed my pieces at the back of the room. After I graduated from the RCA, I kept working on a more commercial jewellery line inspired the very sculptural, ornamental and more conceptual pieces I had designed and made for my final degree show. I also kept presenting my work and selling it to the people I knew, as well as occasionally show at some designer’s markets, but it wasn’t very consistent in terms of identity and branding. In early 2015, I decided to finally build a proper business.
I worked on a new collection for almost a year. Then, I finally launched WWAN(1) in Paris in December 2015. It took me another 6 months to build my website and online shop and it got live at the end of June 2016. WWAN(1)’s debut collection is gradually released in 7 different chapters. Each chapter is named after a weekday and has between 10 and 12 pieces. MONDAY and TUESDAY are already available on the website and the rest of the week should be added up til Christmas.
What have been your background before this launch?
After a baccalaureate in Literature and a year of Hypokhâgne course, I entered a jewellery course in the BJOP school in Paris. After two years of excellent technical training, I moved to Lyon where I passed a BA in jewellery making and design after another two years. In Lyon I started approaching jewellery in a more conceptual way. This is where I learned how to «think» the jewellery piece, how to link conceptual thoughts to what I was making.
During these two years, I interned with two designers-makers based in London (Maya Selway and Caren Hartley). I was already interested in applying for a Master’s degree at the RCA or at Central St Martins but these internships really made me realized I wanted to study and live in London where the art world felt so dynamic and open.
In London my work evolved and changed scale. I really focused on materials and started making bigger pieces. After two years spent in the amazing creative bubble of the RCA, I completed a Master’s degree.
After graduating, I did some production work for other jewellery designers (Alyssa Norton, Charlotte Valkeniers,…). Over the past two years I have been managing the studio and in charge of the production work at Comfort Station (another London jewellery brand based in Shoreditch). I started WWAN(1) while working at Comfort Station.
How did your passion for jewelry start?
I think I have always loved jewellery and I have always loved making things. When I was a child I was attending all the creative workshops run in my primary school and I loved it: mosaic, ceramics, drawing, … Without being part of the art world, my parents are both quite creative and crafty. My mother was sewing a lot when I was younger and my dad can almost build anything.
It probably partly helped building my deep interest in craftsmen, technical knowledge, people able to design and make things. I have always found it quite magical. Jewellery making is a little bit like alchemy, materials get turned into something else, you use fire to anneal, to weld.
I have a keen interest in materials, accumulation and a definite affinity for bling. I didn’t receive any religious instruction but I love churches and religious buildings in general, overloaded altars, objects covered in gold, sculptures everywhere, the beeswax candles, the smell of burnt wax and incense. Actually the connections between adornment, the sacred and rituals is something I have researched into when I was studying in London.
I have also always loved reading. Literature, drama and art history have always been really important to me. I like stories and the objects with a story you can pass on, the kind of objects that become precious beyond their inherent value. Jewellery pieces often tell stories, really meaningful stories. In a way, making jewellery has become the way I tell stories.
When have you created your first jewel and which kind of jewel was it ? How was it ? How did you feel?
I must have compulsively started making jewellery when I was 12-13 years old. I was buying findings, wire and beads and was spending hours, sitting on the floor in my bedroom, assembling everything I could find to make it into something wearable. Being able to make things myself, to combine shapes and colors, and to improve my technical skills made me really satisfied. I was also proud to wear my designs or to see them worn by others and get complimented on them.
I was making in a really intuitive way, I was experimenting a lot, I was buying a few craft’s books but I was mostly improvising. When I entered a jewellery school in Paris, I spent the first year completely stuck and scarred by the level of precision and technical skills required. It is only when I arrived in Lyon that I really started using the techniques I had learned to make jewellery pieces I was designing. With time and experience I learned how to put things in perspective and I understood that there was not only one way to do things. Every craftsman has its own tricks, techniques and making habits.
How do you organize your creation process ?
I don’t really draw. I sometimes scribble a shape or an idea to remember it but it doesn’t go much further. I write my ideas and describe them with words more than I draw them. I also have boxes full of materials, old samples and semi-precious stones. I get crazy whenever I visit a finding or precious stone supplier. I was exactly the same when I was younger and I was going to a craft store.
I almost always directly make what will be the final piece or a sample that I will adjust. I work a lot with wax. I carve shapes and I get them cast in metal. I am quite hands-on, I do experiment with materials, I display shapes and materials around me, I put them together, I make. My style is not really minimal, I usually make things bigger and busier than simpler. I also often make different versions of one piece. When I like a shape, I play with it a little bit more, I add to it or use it with different stones or different elements. I don’t always like making choices, I often end up with too many pieces, too many variations, rather than not enough.
I have many inspirations: roman jewellery, Victorian cut steel jewellery, Art Deco shapes and tribal adornments…. I like weighty and present pieces, even if I also design and make really delicate pieces.
I have been lucky to travel a lot with my family, and I always try to travel when I can. These trips are always really inspiring.
Fashion, architecture, design, food, colors, materials, textures, shapes, smells… I immerse myself in what I am surrounded by, I process it, and I design my own version of the pieces I would like to wear daily or in a dreamed life.
To read the next part : WWAN(1) – 2/3 Know-how
Photos : © ÄPLÄ Studio. Photographies fournies par Margaux Clavel et publiées avec son autorisation.
