Tuesday 26 October 2010

Meet the maker .... Nicola De Cruz

Nicola De Cruz studied Textile design specialising in embroidery & graduated in 2005. She then went on to become an accessory designer at the beginning of 2007, designing and producing handmade, high quality, exquisite purses & handbags.

From the third generation of embroiderers in her family this Surrey based designer creates accessory collections from her log cabin studio. The collections are based on vintage images, fairy tales and Victorian tea parties creating an elegant appearance with a chic, British style.


The accessories are made from a range of recycled, vintage and new fabrics such as leather, suede, cotton and silk.

Using a mixture of hand embroidery and hand guided machine embroidery techniques as well as digital printing techniques produce distinctively embellished accessory designs. The designs are then adorned with a mix of recycled, new and vintage buttons, ribbon and lace.

Passionate about British design and with focus on embroidery in the UK all purses and handbags are made individually in England.

Nicola De Cruz accessories collections have recently won a Silver award in The Craft and Design awards for Textiles and Needlecraft 2010.


I sell my work around the country at various exhibitions; I also sell my work in galleries and shops around the UK as well as online. Visit Nicola's website here.

Nicola is inspired by antique objects, vintage imagery from 1800’s-1950’s, flowers and natural objects and historical buildings.



We also asked Nicola a few more questions:
What’s the best piece of advice you would give to other makers starting out? Do a short business course to help you with your pricing for trade and industry as well as selling direct to the customer.

Have you got any current projects/new stock you’re working on that you want to tell us about?Working in new colours and making and designing larger handbags.

Do you have any favourite online sellers or handmade websites that you can recommend? Handmade web sites: Dawanda, Joolia and Me myself and I.

1 comments:

Sue said...

Thank you for showing us these beautifully made items and a very interesting post xx