We launched our 'Young Hearts' collaboration necklace earlier this year, and to our surprise and delight it sold out in 2 days!!
In anticipation of the re-launch, with the second drop going live TONIGHT at 7pm BST, I wanted to take a moment to look back at the journey of how it came to be.....
DISCOVERING SLOW LOVE
I first came across Slow Love Knitwear on Instagram when both of our brands were being tagged in the same posts. It didn't take long for me to become a fan and at the same time I started following Holly the founder of Slow Love. I reached out to her last summer to see if I could gift her a piece of jewellery, I saw that she often championed small brands, vintage finds and does weekly 'Vinted Edits'. I knew she would be a great person to wear my jewellery and share with her followers. She chose the Large Lioness Coin pendant from my collection and from then on I saw on Instagram that she pretty much wore it everyday.
MEETING HOLLY
Then one weekend in September (2024) Holly got in touch and proposed the idea of an SL X ML collaboration. We were both very excited and chatted all weekend on Instagram about it. Within a week we had arranged to meet in Cheltenham at Sorrel Stores for lunch and to talk more about how we could make the idea come to life.
Holly and I hit it off straight away, I knew that she would be a really inspiring and nice person to collaborate with. I love how Holly works, she has really strong ideas and is very directional. As-well as being considered and happy to take things slowly to make sure that they are 100% right. We were on the same wave length from the start and it has made this whole process very easy. Slow Love's ethos and the way they work felt very aligned to the way I work on my brand.
DESIGN PROCESS
We decided that to be truly collaborative the design needed incorporate the signature of both brands. Holly wanted the piece to be an ode to their best selling 'Young Hearts' jumper. The jumper was inspired by Baz Luhrmann's Romeo & Juliet film from the 90's (I remember a school trip to the Cinema to see it as we were studying it at the time). The films rich Mexicana motifs, the timeless arrow-pierced heart, and the soulful anthem of Candi Staton’s Young Hearts Run Free all inspired the Young Hearts jumper and in turn the Slow Love Cherub became a key feature of the necklace.
My signature piece is a Lioness, inspired by my family name 'Lyons' and not giving it up when I got married. I wanted to create a symbol of strength, beauty and equality. A Lioness typically doesn't have a mane so I gave her a floral head-dress. We wanted to use both of these motifs and bring them together, so we gave the Cherub a matching head-dress.
Holly set up a shared Pinterest Board, pulling together lots of amazing vintage jewellery for inspiration. We also drew from one of my other pendants that Holly liked from my collection and we used the same rope detailing to give it that vintage and chunky feel. We added extra detailing on the end of the T-Bar with the same flowers that features in the floral head-dress from the Lioness and Cherub.
FINALISING THE DESIGN
Once we were happy with the initial design and the 3D models were made. I went over to the SL office to meet with Holly and the rest of the team. Holly, Isobel and I poured over countless chain options, and chain lengths to find the perfect match for our design. As with both of our brands it is so important that it felt right when worn. We had to consider how it looked against the jumper, we needed a chunky chain to stand out. It also needed to be easy to put on, feel nice when worn everyday and to be the perfect length so that it would sit on top of the knits neckline. After a full morning of deliberation between the three of us, we celebrated the final choice with lunch and coffee in their local Deli.
LAUNCH & SELL OUT FIRST BATCH
Once the design was finalised I set about making the first batch of pieces which took around 2 months from start to finish. Part 2 of this Blog Post will cover the finer details of the making process.
I hand delivered the first batch of stock to the SL office during April half term. Aside from feeling nervous about posting such a valuable parcel, my Son and I wanted to do a day trip to the Corinuim Museum in Cirencester which is very close to the Slow Office. It was a fun day which included, bakery treats, pizza and book shops.
With the piece being an investment item, we really had no idea how well or how quickly it would sell. Holly and I managed our expectations and hoped that a hand-full would sell when it first launched and then we would be promoting it in the following weeks, to show people how special it was. Little did we know that it would completely sell out in the first weekend. Holly was keeping me updated along the way and we were both completely blown away by how much people loved it. A couple of people even buying it in both gold and silver.
RE-LAUNCH
Holly, Isobel and I had a phone call post sell-out weekend to discuss whats next, they know that I am a one person business and wanted to check-in to see if I could take on another batch. And without doubt I was totally up for it. It has been such a pleasure to work with the Slow Love team, truly the easiest people to work with and I am so excited to be working with them again for this second launch of the sell out 'Young Hearts' necklace. Thank you so much to everyone who has bought one, has one on their wish-list and for all the love and well wishes, Get those alarms set for tonight...
Mikaela x
Our second drop launches this Friday 27th June 7PM BST exclusively at....
Slow Love Knitwear
Photography by Morgan Barfield