Recently we caught up with Faridah from Sugar Mouse designs for a quick Q&A about her cool and quirky jewellery designs!

 

Name: Faridah Newman

Age: 21

From: Manchester / Oxford

 

 

1. How did you come up with the concept of Sugar Mouse Vintage Jewellery, an online jewellery shop?

Sugar Mouse was a project of necessity more than anything else, for a number of reasons. Primarily: I have to allow myself time to do something creative for my own sanity. I’m about to enter my fourth year at university studying Psychology, Philosophy and Physiology, and I really enjoy having some artistic project or other on the go to unwind.

Sugar Mouse initially started under another name in 2004 as somewhere to sell the items that I was sewing at quite a prolific rate: I simply couldn’t live in a flat full of plush teeth, fleecy toasts, cuddly cakes, felt brooches etc – and it seemed a sin to throw them away!

Being friends with a lot of musical people involved with bands and indie record labels, I soon got involved in sewing gig poster designs and even ended up sewing a complete forest scene with a man in a wasp suit in the foreground for the cover of a split 7� single.

By the time I got back to university after the summer of my second year, I’d moved back into college accommodation and just couldn’t carry on using a sewing machine at all hours with such thin walls, so I traded a needle and thread for jewellery pliers, files and a saw.

2. Why vintage jewellery?

I was in a market in Oxford one day and came across some beautiful lucite beads from the 1960s that an elderly lady was selling as part of an attic clearout. I knew they’d look great on headpins hanging from earrings. So then, over a period of a few months I was constantly on the prowl for things that I thought would look good incorporated into jewellery. I then read up on the ins and outs of making my own pieces to accompany what I could find online, at markets, and in specialist shops. When I had a big enough selection, I resolved to put them on my online shop for sale.

 

3. What inspires the designs that you create? It would seem that France is a dominant theme...

France is indeed a prevalent theme. My grandparents have lived in a converted water mill in rural southern France since I was four, and most of my childhood memories involve long hot summers jumping between bales of hay, and dancing late into the night at village fetes. As I grew up, I developed a love for French cinema and the romance surrounding Paris. I still go there every summer, and love trawling through ‘marché à la brocante’ in old market towns such as Caussade – my favourite things to collect are old communion cards. I have some stretching back as early as the 19th century. I’m excited to go back this year with a view to finding things for Sugar Mouse.

4. How did the name 'Sugar Mouse' come about?

I chose the name Sugar Mouse as it’s the name I’d like to use for the physical shop I hope to have in the future. I finish my degree at Oxford University next year and have a place from next September to study Patisserie at Le Cordon Bleu in London. My dream is to use this qualification to get a place apprenticing with an artisan patissiere in France for a while, and then use my degree qualification somewhere else to get a decent paying job so that I can save for my own bakery. In an ideal world there would be a gig venue downstairs, comfy chairs and floor to ceiling bookshelves upstairs, and above that I would live with my two cats Arthur and Martha. If I could afford it, I would love there to also be a shop / gallery space for the art and crafts of myself and others: it would be a shame to have to drop the jewellery making!

 

 

5. Recently, two of your necklaces were featured in LOOK magazine. What feelings did you experience seeing your work being appreciated and knowing that a lot of people would see your designs?

Oh gosh, it was lovely! The first I heard of it, a girl emailed me to say she’d seen my designs in the magazine and was sad that I only had a couple of things up in the shop. I’d actually not made any jewellery for a while as I had a lot of exams. I was in the middle of writing an essay in my pyjamas with a facemask on when I got the email, so I rang my Ma at work in Manchester and got her to pop to the nearest newsagent to check that it was true...as soon as I found out that it was, I began frantically making more items to restock the shop.

6. As a student, is it difficult trying to juggle your studies with designing jewellery?

It can be really hard, yes. Studying a triple honours degree can be a bit ghastly sometimes: per week I have on average 3 essays, 3 tutorials, and lectures...and of course I want to build in going to gigs, socialising, and keeping up with extra-curricular clubs and socs. It’s just a matter of finding your groove. I personally like to get up early and be in the library when it opens at 9am. I’ll generally stay there until it closes at about 10pm if I don’t have any other commitments, and then head home to watch TV and make jewellery in my pyjamas!

 

 

7. Does your personal style reflect in the necklaces and rings that you design?

I suppose it inevitably does. The cake rings and tart earrings are a reflection of my obsession with patisserie, the French themed necklaces of my love for France, and the envelopes and postcards of my belief that we have, by and large, lost the great art of the letter. I love to write letters... perhaps that’s why most of my relationships have been long distance.

In another way though, my personal style diverges from the pieces I create. I rarely wear necklaces, and only wear silver every day (a charm bracelet and a silver and turquoise stone ring on each finger). I’m dying to create some silver pieces, but they are harder to source vintage as they’re generally sterling and that would make them much more expensive for me to use and sell. Most silver coloured costume jewellery at the kind of prices I sell at are alloys, or plated brass. Obviously I don’t have the kind of technology to be plating things. I have been building a collection of Tibetan silver trinkets and charms though and am waiting until I have enough to justify loading them on to the shop. So, keep an eye out, I guess!

8. How do you manufacture the different pieces?

There’s a lot of variation from piece to piece. Some findings I buy in and source online, in shops, and at specialist markets. In addition to this I’ve become pretty preoccupied with cold-pressing brass myself, trimming it, filing it, and using a tiny Archimedean drill to add holes from which they can hang. I buy chain 20 metres at a time, cut it to a length suitable to the necklace in question, and use jewellery pliers and jump rings to add eyes and clasps. Cabochons etc are affixed to sterling silver plated adjustable ring bases which I buy in from the craft department of the material shop I used to go to in Manchester when Sugar Mouse was a sewing based venture.

 

9. Is there one design that you would say is your favourite?

My stock changes pretty regularly, often because I have to sell moulds to fund buying more. So, out of what is in the summer collection, I’d say my favourite piece is ‘Alice’s Adventures’: it features a mounted cabochon with an illustration of Alice peering behind a curtain. Below this hangs a brass heart with her name across it in script. Hanging next to this is a tiny glass bottle (which actually opens!) labelled ‘Drink Me’.

10. What does the future hold for you and Sugar Mouse? Do you see it as a viable venture, or just a pastime?

 

Pop around my shop in London in about 5 years time if you fancy somewhere you can eat a cupcake, catch a gig and find some cute indie crafts! Vive la souris!

Check out Sugar Mouse Designs HERE and Faridah can be contacted HERE!