Design & Manufacturing Process
The 18-week Jewellery Design & Manufacturing Process.
At Lilywho we design all our own Jewellery. It sounds easy when you say it quickly! But it is a long and tedious process.
Lilywho Jewellery is feminine and elegant. When you buy from us you can rest assured you won’t find that exact Jewellery piece, anywhere else. You may of course see a similar item, but all our weights, dimensions etc are totally unique to Lilywho. We believe that in our price range our finishes are the very best on the market.
We produce Everyday Luxury Jewellery in both Silver and Gold, using the same processes a high-end diamond Jewellery brand would use. Many of our peers buy ready-made items and simply stick their logo on them, but that’s not what Lilywho is about.
Our young all-female, design team create Jewellery for their own age demographic which is quite unique. We design pieces that we would wear ourselves. Led by COO Niamh, the Lilywho design team are extremely particular about what items eventually make the collection.
How does the Lilywho design and manufacturing process look?
Day one is a design meeting at Lilywho HQ. All the team come together with ideas, mood boards, & images. After some heated debate, we progress to various pencil drawings. Those drawings can take several attempts. Within a week, all the drawings are completed and we reconvene and choose which ones we all like best. With the potential designs narrowed down, we go ahead and produce 3D cad drawings. This takes 2 weeks. We are now already 3 weeks into the process.
When the cad drawings arrive, we get together again. At this meeting we discuss the look, the dimensions, the weight, and potential RRP’s based on that days Gold or Silver price. At this point we drop any items we feel don’t fit the collection.
In the following days, our head designer will decide which items are more suitable in whatever metal. (IE in Sterling Silver, Silver with Gold plating, in 9ct Gold, or 18ct Gold) She will then sit with the finance team and diligently go through each price, mould charge, etc The big decision at this point is, if we decide to proceed and produce a sample for further inspection or scrap the idea altogether. We end up choosing about 50% of the cad designs to make samples. We keep all the other designs on file for future reference.
So, at this stage all the new designs, and which metal they will come in, have been narrowed down and we will proceed to make fully finished samples. Sample production takes us 5 weeks so when the samples land in Lilywho HQ, we are now already approx. 8 weeks into the process.
Sample arrival day at Lilywho HQ is without a doubt the most exciting part of working at Lilywho. We are all excited to see our creations, to try all on the pieces etc There is also some time spent admiring ourselves in the mirror, arguing over some tiny details, as well as deciding what we want to buy ourselves in the future etc. It really is super exciting day! But the process is far from over. There are still some hard decisions to be made. Not all samples actually make the cut. Generally, around 80% of the samples will actually be picked to go into production. From that 80%, some samples will always then need minor changes so they need to be re-made. Things that may have looked perfect in a cad drawing, may not be exactly what we wanted. So those samples that require changes get returned to the factory with notes. We can normally turn theses around in 2 weeks. So, before all the final updated samples are in hand, we are 10 weeks into proceedings.
Then the big decision, is what to order. As soon as we have calculated the quantities required, we send an order to our factory and immediately start the 8-week manufacturing process. At the same time recycling all the un-used samples. Don’t forget almost all Lilywho Jewellery is made from certified recycled Sterling Silver and Gold.
When the order eventually arrives in, it is thoroughly checked for any defects, before being photographed. So its another 48 hours or so, before our new pieces go live online.
Before that Newness is actually live and selling on Lilywho, we have already started the 18-week process all over again, with the next new collection drop.
Fashion is an industry that never sleeps, but we love it!
Love Lily x