Its all about the plastic! Swank is thought of, designed, made and packaged by me, Becky Wignell. And I love plastic and have recently developed an unhealthy love of fake gold! From the start I wanted to create bright, statement jewellery which would stand out. I created Swank in 2005 as an outet for my creativity, as my room was too small to make the sculptures I designed at university, I started creating smaller wearable sculptures. People seemed to like my designs and thankfully a local shop and an independent website took on my wares. I started out making lego jewellery and pieces created from 80s toys like magnetic letter rings, I started making jewels from 80s toys I found at car boot sates and now, unconstrained by what the people of Otley decide to throw out, I am creating my own giant plastic creations in whatever shape I desire. A new passion in laser cutting and has inspired a new range of statement perspex necklaces, I have never been a girly girl, and so I have created collections of laser cut perspex jewellery based on stuff I like. Ill make a necklace from anything I think is a nice shape. Planes- they are a great shape, the 2009 collection is all based on the aesthetic of war, planes bombs and grenades, I hate war, but the shapes of the tools of destruction are pretty cool! This year I became obsessed with having a giant golden lobster necklace as I love the shapes of crustaceans. So its all about shape and plastic. As part of the ethos of Swank all the jewellery is handmade in the UK and all the components are sourced from the UK too. All the laser cutting is done by a small company in England and packaging is bought from and printed by a small company who use all recycled materials. Swank is stocked in boutiques around the world, has been featured in the press internationally, has run recycled jewellery workshops across the country and is going from strength to strength. In the last year Swank has two new team members, Jannet and Phil Wignell- its a family affair! Their efforts have allowed me to travel to Ghana to work on a womens project designing recycled jewellery to fund their micro finance, sexual health and youth projects. The results can be found in the online Swank shop.
