For generations, sewing and other domestic crafts were dismissed as "women's work," undervalued skills that confined women to the home or, in many cases, the exploitative conditions of sweatshops during the 19th and early 20th centuries. Although Western society has evolved, these associations with subjugation persist.
Charlotte Smith, a Birmingham School of Jewellery graduate and a part-time teacher, is reclaiming this traditional craft through her intricate, unapologetically feminine jewellery that incorporates sewn elements. By transforming sewing into a medium for self-expression, innovation, and historical reflection, she redefines its significance.
From her workspace in a historic cottage in the heart of the Black Country - once home to a working-class mother and nail maker - Charlotte has pioneered a signature technique: recreating sequins in precious metals, layering enamel, and sewing embellishments onto a perforated backplate. This process pays tribute to the past while embracing modern craftsmanship, and has earned Charlotte a place on Shine 2024, the Goldsmiths’ Centre annual exhibition dedicated to promising new talent.
Not Just a Hobby After All: The Path to Jewellery-Making
I've always been quite creative, and that's probably true of most people that make jewellery. I can remember playing a game with Barbie dolls as a child, where I'd line them up and pretend that the crown jewels had been stolen. I didn't think about making jewellery until I was about to start my A-Levels and was wandering around my hometown of Doncaster. I went into this little art shop, and I thought I should probably get some paints and a sketchbook. The intention was to buy some art supplies, but I came out with jewellery findings, dried flowers and beads. I went home and made a pair of earrings. They were probably a bit naff, to be honest, but I was absolutely hooked.
I spent the next month just making stuff. I had no tools or equipment, so I was using tweezers to wrap pieces of wire. It hooked me and got me inspired and interested, but at the time, I was in a grammar school, and I didn't really know much about how to get into jewellery-making. Whenever I mentioned it to anyone, it was always “That's just a hobby”. So I ended up doing an engineering degree at the University of Nottingham. Once I’d graduated, I went into my first engineering job and after three weeks, I thought: “No, no, I can't do this for the rest of my life!”
I had kept making all that time, selling jewellery on eBay, but I’d reached a point where I was getting bored of doing beads and wire, and wanted to learn how to make more accomplished work. Fortunately, my parents were living near Sheffield, and I knew there was a metalwork and jewellery degree course at Sheffield Hallam University, so I started studying there.
Design Style: The Intricate Art of Texture and Pattern
My design style is very intricate. I'm very interested in texture and pattern. That's quite unusual for people who work with enamel - most are more fixated on colour. That’s not really my focus, I love all the range of textures you can get with enamel and how it interacts with the light. I use very small pieces to build up more of a 3D texture in the work.
When I originally started, I did traditional Champlevé work. It was beautiful, but once I'd figured out how to do it, I got bored. I'm always wanting to push myself, to figure out what I can do next. So my MA work was very different - it was experimental, but I can still see links with my current collection, because it was also very intricate. It was about textures, repetitive elements, and small patterns. So I built up of all these tiny elements of silver, which I've enamelled on both sides. They're tactile, I've sewn them onto a back plate so that they move slightly, although they're not really free-moving, it's quite subtle. I really like that tactile quality to them, that's what drives them forward, I suppose.
I also use embellishments such as pearls on some pieces. It visually breaks up the piece, drawing your attention to different parts. It adds visual interest. I think the pearls add a lovely luster next to the enamel, especially the opaque enamel, because it has a similar surface. I really like including little glints of gold that are almost hidden. It’s like a little secret.
From Sequin Inspiration to Floral Creations: The Bloom Collection
The process behind the current collection was initially inspired by one of those mundane, out-of-the-blue moments where you're doing something completely unrelated, and you get a little spark. A few years ago, I was washing my daughter's T-shirt, and it had those sequins on it that change colour when you move them. I thought, You know what? I could make that in enamel. So it started from there.
The collection is also very floral. I've probably been subconsciously influenced by my garden - I love plants, I love growing. I go out into the garden every single day and have a cup of tea, surrounded by plants. I particularly love dahlias, and I can see that the structure of some of the pieces is very, very similar.
The collection has a set of pieces that are made with opaque blue enamel, with lots of identical parts and a few embellishments. The first piece I made like this won the Goldsmiths’ Craft & Design Council (GC&DC) award last year. They’re very beautiful, and I love making them, but they take a long time to make. I can make maybe three of the sequins in an hour, which is obviously a lot of hours when you add up the number of sequins sewn in the pieces. So I was thinking: “Okay, if I'm going to build a business out of this, how am I going to make this work? I need to do this a bit faster.”
I realised I could cheat a little bit, and use opaque enamels, which are a little bit less temperamental, and I can apply the enamel a lot faster. Then I decided that I needed a range of pieces that fit together as a collection, but that meet different needs. I was basically looking at it from a logical point of view. That's the mark of a collection that's ready to go to market. In some ways, it has reinforced the need that I have to keep developing and keep changing. I've made the collection, but that thought process is still ongoing: “How can I do these faster? Do I need to do it in enamel? Can I change the shapes?”
Sewing Through Time: The Legacy of Craftsmanship
It’s important to me to be using a technique like sewing. Sometimes there's this sense that sewing, being a traditional female craft, is somehow lesser, that to be using it means I’m not moving on or embracing feminism, but women back then were expressing their creativity through the only mediums that they were allowed to. They were still being innovative and using advanced techniques. I feel a kinship with female makers from the past through using sewing techniques.
My family lives in the Black Country in the West Midlands, so there's industry all around us, it’s an area that’s historic for craft and making. I'm working in this very old building that used to be a nail maker's cottage. We looked at an old census and could see that two hundred years ago, there was a man and there was a woman with their children working in my lounge, probably in quite appalling conditions. So the man went off to the local bucket factory and made buckets, and the woman stayed at home and made the nails with the children. I appreciate this aspect of women having to work around family life, I have a small child and I'm still having to do that. I find those parallels fascinating. I like that thread of history - that for centuries, women were working in metal and making small objects in this building. I like that link.
The Creative Process
I'm not much of a sketcher. I do have a sketchbook, but largely it's filled with rough sketches that I have done to remind myself of an idea I had in my head. So generally speaking, I'll look at the work that I've done before, and I will think about it, and it will naturally lead on to the next idea I want to explore. So I'll probably just do a quick sketch to jot that down, and then move into modeling quite quickly. When I first started making these pieces, it was really difficult to figure out how to get them to do what they do, and how to set them so that the messy bit would be hidden. It did take quite a lot of experimentation to figure out how to do that in a relatively successful way.
I do quite a bit of modelling, so first modelling in card, and then in copper. If that works out, I then do lots of enamel samples to get the colours right, to see what will withstand the firing. The pieces consist of such tiny elements on very thin silver, so it’s difficult to enamel them. There isn’t a huge volume of silver to withstand the heat. They've got three layers on both sides, and there's a finishing firing. So the enamel has to withstand going in and out of the kiln at least seven times, and not all colours will withstand that. The pieces are also double-sided, so you have to be careful about the enamel touching the back, otherwise, it sticks to what you're supporting it on. I have to do quite a bit of sampling and experiment with different ways to support the piece.
Designing for Detail-Oriented Jewellery Lovers
I'm still figuring out who my ideal customer is. My jewellery tends to attract people who appreciate small, intricate details. They're quite unusual pieces, and it's finding somebody who is comfortable with that and appreciates the time and processes that have gone into the work.
Every one of the little petals is sewn on, and I enjoy that sewing process, and always have since I was a small child. I remember being in primary school and you had to bring in a toy to play with. I brought my sewing kit. My nan taught me to sew, and my mum used to sew before her eyes went bad, and it just reminds me of that. When I go back through my family history, I had ancestors working in texture mills in the Derbyshire area, and it just feels a little bit like a link through time to that.
I use a silver strand that's nine strands of silver twisted together, and then they're coated in nylon. It's very, very strong and flexible. It's for stringing beads, but it works really well to sew the pieces on. I find it partly therapeutic. Every stage of making these pieces is very laborious and slow, and it sometimes feels like I’m never going to get to the end piece, but when I’m sewing and building up the elements, it suddenly all comes together.
On Being Selected for Shine and Looking Ahead
I’m absolutely thrilled to be chosen for Shine, it suggests that I'm on the right track with the work that I'm doing. Sometimes it can be difficult when you're on your own - after I finished my master's degree, I had a little girl, so I felt a little bit separated from the industry and my contacts. So being selected feels like a validation that I'm on the right path.
I'm most looking forward to the pop-up event because it'll be really interesting to be around all the other Shine makers, to see how they're presenting their work, how they're talking about their work, and be part of a little community.
Looking ahead, I need to develop my website a bit more and focus on the business side of things. I've done quite a few events this year, which have been really valuable and helpful, but I feel like I need to just step back for a second, get the website all sorted, and figure out how I'm going to move forward. I want to make a lot more one-off pieces again, and I miss making my engraved ones. So those things are definitely on the list.