Posts Tagged ‘Paris’

After a busy month of trade shows, and preparing for them, we are well and truly back in the office….and dare I say it, bracing ourselves for the run up to Christmas! So it seems strange that two weeks ago, we were baking in Paris…..

Every March and October Alex goes off to Paris with our new collections to take part in Premiere Classe, which is an amazing accessories trade show. This time, Alex had handed the job over to Suzy.A and myself, which we were really excited about…..although having done the show once before, I knew what hard work it was……!

But when we arrived the weather was glorious, so we quickly set up our stand, then headed out into the City and off to Le Marais…..

Arriving on Thursday Afternoon.

Attracted by the Swallows on the wall (very Alex Monroe!) we had a quick coffee at Comme A Lisbonne……

Comme A Lisbonne.

Then it was just up the road (Rue du Roi de Sicile) to visit Valentina in her lovely boutique Joy…..

Suzy chats to Valentina....

Valentina takes great pride in creating such cute displays!

We loved how our pieces were displayed on props Valentina had found.

This was a favourite little touch found sitting on the floor!

Me and Valentina outside the store.

We really wanted to visit all of our stockists in Paris, but sadly ran out of time……but if you are in Paris you can also find Alex Monroe in Saïki Bijoux and Avril Gau. If we’d had more time, we would have also visited Merci Merci – which is a charity shop with a difference…..they pick a different charity each year which they ask the designers they stock to donate their profits to. We’d heard so many great things about the store and their displays…..

One of Merci Merci's infamous displays.

But then it was time for a beer.....

Friday was the first day of the show, so we were up very bright & early!

Busy at the stand.....sharing out our breakfast pastries!!

We had lots of lovely visitors, including some of the gang from HP France in Japan…..

Suzy.A and some of the HP gang!

HP France have been doing very well with our ‘Heritage’ collection of wedding rings, and Misato told us that lots of couples in Japan decided to get married after the tsunami, including herself, which was very touching. If you’re ok with Japanese, you can read Misato’s blog here.

The weather was amazing, but it was sooooooo hot in the show! It was lovely to have a break and try and get some air in the Jardins Tuileries, but then very difficult to step back inside the show!

Lunch in the park.

We were also very happy to spend some time with the lovely girls from Laura Lee Jewellery, Dominique and Rea…..

Dominique, Suzy and Rea.

We had especially great fun at the designer’s party, which was held on a boat on the Sunday night……

So after all of that, we were pretty tired, but very sad to leave Paris!

Emma x

Soooo sorry I haven’t written for ages. Too much going on as usual. But I’m just back from Paris Fashion Week and I feel like I can catch my breath (before things start to hot up for Christmas!)

So once again, looking back on what’s been going on, I think I’ll do a little list. Just a little reminder of my late-summer. Lots of mucking around and some fun worky stuff too.

I had a brilliant Summer; the cycling I already wrote about, then we popped over to Majorca for that party, then we had a lovely week in France. In the Loire Valley in my uncles house. I love it there. It’s a huge rambling place near Bourgueil, so there’s lovely grub and loads of wine tasting. My Mum and Dad were there, and my sister and her family so it was a proper get together. I love playing Boules with my Dad and it was great when the kids joined in…

Then a week in Suffolk in the cottage we take every summer. Nice to see some old friends and do a bit of cycling with mates. I spend the days cycling, cooking and pottering around in my little boat. We picked so many wild plums and made gallons of lovely Suffolk Plum Jam. Ah… it’s the good life alright.

Summer over and it’s back to school. My middle one, Connie, started at big school. All very grown up. And of course I had to get on with some work as well…

Back to work means lots of hard graft of course, but there was a nice little treat when we were declared a ‘Trend Setter’ in Professional Jeweller’s ‘Hot 100′ list. So we duly attended the knees-up. I left early but the girls partied away.

Back to reality, my friend Dave needed an expert hand to help chop down a blooming great tree in his garden. Action man to the rescue. Dave is a fantastic photographer and film maker so watch out for us working together in the future.

We have struck a deal with my eldest, Verity. Bread for itunes. She bakes a loaf and we buy her two songs from itunes. Not a bad deal I reckon, especially since I love bread and butter almost more than anything!

Very nice for me that I’ve had so many commissions on that I’ve had to spend at least two days a week on the bench (my idea of heaven). Can’t even remember all the projects, exclusives for John Lewis, HP in Tokyo, 18 carat for Liberty, the Midomo charity bracelet, Astley Clarke, Burt’s Bees, British Bee keeping association, and of course new collections for London, Paris and Tokyo!

The Midomo bracelet came out great. It’s a really nice project, you may remember seeing the water purifying rolly thing on Dragon’s Den. Check out the bracelet on the Red Button website.

Then Connie got her Rabbit for being so clever. Look out for it’s influence in the collection!

We had great fun launching the exclusives at John Lewis (that’s Emma holding my glass while I photograph)

Very exciting to be working with Burt’s Bees and the British Bee Keeping Association. We’ve great ideas for raising money for bee research so watch this space!

Most fun for me has been working on the new collection. It’ll be out in the shops in Spring but here’s a sneaky peaky..

During London Fashion Week I managed the odd lunch with clients. Here I am with the girls from HP at the good old Anchor and Hope.

Oh yes, and noodles at Koya with Katsu and Kaori from Baycrews. Lovely place and the best for Soba in town.

Then off to Paris for the shows, nice to catch up with my Japanese distributor again………….

………….. and time for the odd snack as well.

More soon.

Alex

We were very surprised and of course thrilled, to hear on Monday that we have been shortlisted – by public vote – in Sheerluxe’s first ever Online Shopping Awards!

Sheerluxe is a fantastic interactive shopping guide, so we feel really honoured that their subscribers have voted for us – a great big THANK YOU if you voted for us!

And now for the favour…….!  It would obviously be great if we could sit this trophy next to our ‘E-Tailer of the Year’ award, so we would LOVE it if you could vote for us in our category of ‘Best Fine Jewellery Online’…..To do so, just click this link! There are a lot of categories, but you can just vote for ours if you like!!

You will need to sign up to Sheerluxe, but you can opt in or out of their newsletters, which often contain great offers or discounts, infact, we have previously offered 15% off at alexmonroe.com with Sheerluxe.

In other news, Alex has readjusted to life back on his feet after two weeks on his bicycle, and is in the workshop as I type making new pieces…….  We have got lots of exciting projects on the go at the moment, so as always, watch this space for news!

We are constantly sending out Jewellery at the moment, and have new stockists in: Aberdeen, Eindhoven, Glasgow, Liege, Munich, Paris and Waterford – amongst others!  We try and keep the stockists page of the site as up to date as possible, so don’t forget to check for your nearest store selling Alex Monroe!  Overseas customers just need to click on the little globe.

We have to confess that our Trunk Show page has been looking a little bit sad over the last couple of weeks – we just couldn’t keep up with demand for the Fruity pieces – but I am now very excited to say that we are going TROPICAL!! Check out this little beauty……

Stunning Dragonfly & Rhodolite Ring with a tiny Diamond.

And our next actual Trunk Show is at Bloomsbury in Bristol, to celebrate their 2nd Birthday. The date for your diary is Saturday the 25th of September, and I will be in-store to offer advice and an insight into life at Alex Monroe HQ!

Thanks again for your support!

Emma x

Phew! Time to catch my breath!
It’s all been a bit of a whirlwind this autumn. London fashion week, the sale afterwards, then over to Paris, and preparing for our exhibition in Tokyo!
We made a lovely selection of new pieces and fed-exed them off to Japan on Monday, so I managed to take a little breather and thought I’d catch up with my blog….
We had a brilliant London show! (or should I say Emma did). I hated the venue so got in a bad mood so Emma sent me packing and left on her own she did better than ever! I’m sure she’ll update her blog and give you all the news.
After the trade show we opened to the public and had an amazingly busy sale.

But….I do feel bad because I sent out an invitation and didn’t mention the entrance fee, so a few people were disappointed. Apologies all.

But don’t worry, our studio sale will be better than ever this year. No entrance charges here! (first weekend in December, will give you all the info soon).
So then we took the show over to Paris, where we do our export business. We do Premiere Classe, it’s such a great show. The show looked great with a new layout and was really busy again. Lots of Japanese and European orders.

Our stand at Premiere Classe

A little treat from the organizers

One of my favourite things about Paris (apart from the show) is the food. I rented a gorgeous apartment from Hiromi (check out her web-site) and she recommended her favourite restaurants.

Hiromi and Emma in the appartment

A local is this Michelin starred Japanese place with a French influence. Yummy! The head chef is a Japanese man from London so handy if your Japanese is a bit rusty! www.yanase.fr

mmmmm. sashimi

But no time to rest, back on Eurostar and we all got on with preparing the samples for our show in Tokyo. They looked fab. Sorry though, you’ll have to wait a bit to see them here!

Anyway, all done and shipped so now onto the next thing. I’m off to Australia in November! I’m doing a whistle-stop tour of our shops down under. Very exciting. Will tell you all about it soon!
Back soon
Alex