Pivot is such an empowering concept! How did it all start and how does it work? 

Thank you! I created Pivot after doing the Year Here fellowship in 2019 which trains you to become a social entrepreneur. My background is in architecture and I’ve always been interested in jewellery making, having done it as a hobby. During my fellowship I did a 5 month placement at a hostel in north London where I was spending a lot of time with people who wanted to get into work. Many of them found the restrictions of hostel life were preventing them even getting to the job centre so I started to think about ways that I could take work to them. The work needed to be flexible, meaningful and part-time so as to not affect their benefits and so creating small-scale items that could be made in a domestic environment became the obvious answer. 

Why jewellery? 

Jewellery is really small and lightweight, and the way the products are designed (partly prefabricated), it can be made without any fire. This means that people can make it from their desks in their bedrooms, creating really flexible working. The work has also proven to be really meaningful - one maker told me a few months ago that it stopped him wanting to fight. To go from a dirty piece of metal to a beautiful set of earrings that someone wants to buy is really rewarding.

The pieces are so beautiful and unique! Where does your design inspiration come from? 

When I started designing jewellery I was really creating pieces that I would like to wear. Of course as an architect, I am on the side of geometric shapes and simple patterns, but have also found that in simplicity there can be a real beauty. Many of the designs (especially the early ones) were based on the idea of connection through rivets (little copper nails which you hammer to keep two pieces of metal together). This meant that early on we were looking at lots of articulated pieces. We’ve tried to incorporate these elements in our new collection as well. 

I was really keen that the jewellery was affordable and provided our makers with a fair wage, which is why we chose to use brass and stainless steel. We’ve had a lot of requests for our pieces in silver, which we are considering doing as one-offs in the future. 

In light of the poor working conditions and pay recently exposed within UK fashion industry, do you feel that brands like Pivot can help to change this trend and, if so, how?

Having not worked in the fashion industry until this point, I found it really fascinating to see the number of brands, campaigners and influencers such as yourself keen to champion slow fashion. There are a lot of amazing brands who are finding innovative ways to create sustainable products which are fair to workers and don’t damage the environment. Pivot is obviously very young, but I hope that as part of a wider movement we will make pathways to changing these negative trends of poor working conditions. I think what’s been really interesting with Covid as well is that there has obviously been a big move towards working from home, and perhaps this will also change the way that we produce fashion - with a greater move towards bespoke or pre-ordered items. 

What are your plans for the future of the brand? 

We are looking at a number of collaborations at the moment: a big dream is to work with some well-known designers to see how they might apply our assembly methods and materials to their ideas. 

In terms of sales, the majority are directly to consumer so as we grow we are keen to wholesale to other businesses. 

We are also in the process of setting up a charity arm for Pivot, which will focus on wellbeing, training and move-on for our makers. As with any social enterprise, the balance between profitability and social impact is integral to the success of our brand and as we grow it will be a major priority to make sure that the wellbeing of our makers past and present remains at the forefront of our work.