Award-winning designer Katie Rowland integrates graphics with typography in both ready-to-wear and high-end jewellery collections. Designed for the stylish urban dweller, Katie Rowland jewellery is worn as adornment, an object d’art that in time will become a timeless, contemporary classic. In 2007, Katie Rowland released unisex collections ‘Love & Faith’, ‘Heartbreaker’ and ‘Point Break’: a decadent clash of handmade rings, necklaces, knuckledusters and cuffs. The collections were inspired by traditional and intricate typesetting techniques and made available in a variety of finishes. Precious stones and pearls decorate necklaces inscribed with brazen messages such as ‘Ring Me’ and ‘Love Hate’. In 2009, she was awarded the Coutts New Designer Award 2009, the Sonoma-Cutrer Design Award and the Lonmin Design Innovation Award for Platinum.
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| Custom pearl necklace | Smokey quartz knuckle duster ring |
As part of our London Jewellery Week special, we are delighted to bring you an exclusive interview with Katie Rowland.
Juliet: Katie, you design jewellery under different categories – Ready to Wear, High Street Jewellery, Couture Jewellery and Catwalk Jewellery. Within each of these you have different collections. Is there any common ground between the four groups?
Katie: The styling and design elements of each collection links them together: like a story or conversation, the collections are a progressive work. I am a firm believer that you should be able to mix and match your jewellery to create your own individual style and so I design pieces that will happily stand on their own or look great when combined with a piece or pieces from other collections. The look book created with Chloe Kerman and photographer, Julia Kennedy, is amazing as it shows how you can wear your jewellery, as well as showcasing pieces from the collections. I also think that each collection I design should be unique and different from the previous ones. My collections are inspired by little things that have happened, snippets of conversation that I’ve heard on the bus, something I’ve seen that has triggered a thought process and so on. My head is like a scrapbook of thoughts and ideas! So, new designs and collections just kind of pop out! I like luxury things with edge, so there is always that element. I love combining the concepts of sensuality, hedonism, female forms, playfulness and pleasure, which I think is apparent in all my work, as is my fine art and graphic design background. In quite a few of my collections you can see my obsession with typography and also with clean lines, forms and attention to details and finishes… it’s the strange combo of artist-slash-designer in me!
Juliet: What was in the inspiration behind the jewellery you designed for Gemma Slack’s Autumn/Winter 2011 Catwalk show?
Katie: I have to say, working with Gemma Slack was amazing and she is so much fun. We met at Machine-A in Soho and are both fans of eachother’s work, so it was natural to collaborate on Slack’s AW10 collection. The inspiration stemmed from infamous tales of doomed love, trapped souls, fragile minds and Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Both Slack’s RTW collection and my jewellery arean ode to the creatures of the night. We were fascinated by the ideas of escapism and romance and I have a tendency to play with the ideas of hedonistic pleasures, which really complements the hard and dark edge of Slack’s work. Multitudes of refined gold chains connect these hammered and formed brass plates that I designed to complement and distort the natural silhouettes of the body. These themes I have become quite attached to and have explored them further in my collection for SS11, ‘Lilith’.
Juliet: Your RTW jewellery is know for its cutting-edge style – could you tell us more about the influence of graphics and typography on your jewellery?
Katie: I trained in fine art and graphic design, before turning my attentions to jewellery. Actually, for me, I think it’s quite a natural progression as it combines my favourite things, fashion, art and design! I think my work shows the graphic design and art influences in the use of smooth forms, lines, colour combinations and shapes. My jewellery is also very ‘story-’ and ‘concept-’led and I try to communicate a sense of this and to evoke feelings and emotions for the wearer, which is quite a graphic design ‘approach’ to things. For example, the ‘St. Tropez’ collection is all about making a statement, about empowering the wearer, about making an entrance… as well as an exit. The jewellery celebrates this. Whereas the ‘Juanita’ collection was inspired by a pair of nipple tassels I’d created and I wanted to explore these ideas of feminity, sensuality, playfulness further. I like to make beautiful pieces which also say something.
Juliet: What is your favourite piece of jewellery?
Katie: This is a hard one! The piece which I always wear is my smoky quartz knuckle duster in red gold: I love it! It’s amazing to have on. It screams ‘don’t mess with me, baby’ but in a refined manner. It’s quite a juxtaposition: I mean it’s beautiful, but fierce at the same time.
Juliet: If you could choose between statement neckwear, bangle stacks or knuckle duster… what would it be?
Katie: Although I love the look of bangle stacks, I personally hate rattling around with millions of skinny bracelets. For me, I want bangles that have edge (which is what I have created with the bangles in my new SS11 collection… you will have to have a sneaky peek soon!) so I’d have to go with either statement neckwear or the knuckle duster. Probably both… hey, why not?!
Juliet: Who would you love to see wearing a piece of Katie Rowland jewellery?
Katie: Who wouldn’t I want to see wearing my jewellery?! I’d love to see Florence Welch (from ‘Florence and the Machine’) wearing my jewellery and I’d also love to see it on the red carpets at the Oscars or Emmys – how amazing would that be?! It would be great to create pieces for a Gaga music video too – you’d be able to make some really out-there pieces, which would be so much fun. We have chosen Katie’s quartz knuckle duster ring as our ‘item on the week‘ and it has our ‘must-have’ stamp of approval on the homepage.
