Vigour & Skills - Meet the Maker: Rosanna Clare
Vigour and Skills is a platform where designers and collaborators are invited to showcase their talent and time by creating beautiful, purposeful products everyone needs and wants.
Experience what goes into making the products, and meet the people that make them through a thoughtful class. Vigour and Skills is here to advocate the conscious consumers of unique and sought after products for long term use and sustainability.
With a year long residency at Thyme, we meet the makers and artisans behind the wonderfully, eclectic array of unique workshops and masterclasses hosted at Thyme, throughout 2023.
Ahead of her leather craft workshop at Thyme on Thursday 13th April, we caught up with Rosanna, to learn little more about her creative process, inspirations and advice as a designer.
What 3 words best describe your style and collections?
Contemporary, Art Deco, Affordable
You are busy either writing books, appearing on TV or teaching workshops. What is your biggest achievement to date as a maker?
I’d say writing my book was a huge achievement and although it was nearly 5 years ago when it was published, I’d say it’s still my biggest achievement since I started the business. Having a regular appearance on the BBC TV show ‘Money for Nothing’ comes a close second though! (TV show where Artisans are asked to upcyled items rescued from the skip in order to sell them for profit and save them from landfill). I have really enjoyed doing these projects as they take me out of my comfort zone. Each project is very different from the one before and I can be very creative and sometimes need to be very inventive with what I create. The trickiest one so far I think was taking some very thick and old horse bridlery and turning it into useable items. After a lot of blood, sweat and (almost a few) tears, I came up with a bag using elements of the tack including brass buckles, and an adjustable plant hanger! They need to be seen to be believed!
What is the most enjoyable part of the creative process for you?
Taking an idea that has been in my head and imagination and turning it into an actual item, knowing it is the only one of it’s kind. I also like to see how something evolves from an idea and changes during the making process, usually for the better but not always (these become valuable learning ‘mistakes’ although they don’t always feel like it at the time!)
Who or what inspires you?
Companies like Elvis and Kresse who have an amazing eco ethos, taking decommissioned fire hose and making it into luxury bags with half the profits going to charity.
Can you tell us a bit about how you became interested in working with leather and your passion for repurposing?
Leather works have been mainly self-taught. My family is creative (a painter and picture framer for a mother and carpenter for a father) so there was always a sense of inevitability about ending up in a creative career. I discovered leather 20 years ago whilst browsing Spitalfields Market. As a recent graduate in graphic design I immediately looked for ways to create leather bags with my own leather and on a budget. After buying two pieces of leather and a quick sewing lesson from my mum I never looked back. I started my journey as a designer and maker full time, making leather bags and accessories, teaching workshops and writing books! A huge focus for me is repurposing leather that is in need of a new life and can be brought back with a new look and form to it.
Do you have any work rituals when you are making?
Listening to a good book or podcast.
The process of repurposing must lead to some rather sentimental and wonderful requests, what has been the weirdest transformation to date?
I started off, in the very early days when I was a poor graduate, by buying old bags from charity shops for a couple of pounds and taking them apart to retrieve the hardware. This process of disassembly also helped me see how bags were made and so aided me in terms of creating my own patterns and the making process as a whole. I then realised I could buy leather jackets at charity shops for maybe £10 (depending where the shop was!) and get much more leather and would turn these into bags using the pockets and seams as features of the bags. Several years later, these are some of my favourite things to make and have taken on a whole new meaning as I often get asked to transform a jacket of a loved one who has now passed away. These projects naturally have much sentimental value and I love to know that I have helped, in a small way, to keep a part of that person alive (in some way) for the client.
It’s not that weird - but one jacket I worked on didn’t become a bag but a teddy bear for the deceased’s granddaughter! For that I did buy a pattern to follow! It was rather fiddly with all the limbs and eyes etc but turned out pretty well, the granddaughter was happy anyway!
What have been some of your biggest obstacles as a maker and designer?
Overheads, pricing work correctly and marketing!
What advice would you give anyone thinking of starting out as a leather makers?
Just get started. Spend a nominal amount on a few tools and just start, you can only improve over time. Start to sell your work sooner rather than later to see what sells and then refine those items. When I look back at my first market stall contents and layout, I see how far I’ve come but you only learn by starting and making mistakes/improvements as you go.
