Sustainable jewelry brand a global hit
After a slow start, Vancouver-based sustainable jewelry brand has become a huge success
When Danielle and Wade Papin started their company Pyrrha in 1995, there wasn’t much of a “maker’s culture” going on in Vancouver.
In fact, there wasn’t one at all. “It was very different than today with the whole maker culture,” Wade says. “Now, it seems almost obvious for someone to start making something.”
“It wasn’t like that then,” Danielle agrees.
“Back then, you were either someone who had a hobby, or were a real company,” Wade recalls.
“Especially in jewelry,” Danielle adds. “There were bench jewellers, then there were fine jewellers and then there was costume jewelry that was made in a factory overseas. There wasn’t really a lot of options in this category, which is fine fashion jewelry, where it’s sterling silver or 14-karat, but it’s not Birks. There’s a lot of that now.”
The pair says that uncharted territory left them in a difficult position when it came to both sourcing supplies and creating their line, which they were producing out of their “tiny ” apartment, all on their own funding.
“We financed this all ourselves and we had no money. We were truly broke, truly hand to mouth,” Wade recalls of the early days of the brand, when they would craft the jewelry pieces while seated at their kitchen table. “We did things like, we had a (Hudson’s) Bay card, and we would go to The Bay to buy food at the deli because it was the only credit card we had, and all of our cash just kept getting pumped back into the business to buy more supplies.”
As they scrimped and saved in order to create their line, Danielle recalls working to get Pyrrha pieces accepted on consignment in local boutiques, while Wade sold records from his beloved collection in order to help further finance their young business.
“We just wanted to do something for ourselves. At the time, I don’t know if we ever had this grand vision, I just know that we really didn’t want to work for anybody else. We wanted to be independent,” Danielle explains of the motivation behind the brand.
“And every time we sold something, it gave us a boost. It was like, OK, this is really exciting.
“Someone wanted something that we created — and it would be just enough to get us over the next hump.”
But, funding wasn’t the only issue the husband-and-wife duo came up against in the early days of the brand. At the supply level, the pair says they came up against resistance from people who were skeptical of their high-low ambitions for their designs.
“Supply stores were always trying to sell us base-metal wire,” Danielle recalls. “And we said, ‘ We don’t want to do that.’ We want to use sterling.”
“People were saying our stuff was too heavy and that we should hollow it out and make it cheaper,” Wade adds.
Unwilling to lower their standards for suppliers, the Papins forged on, handcrafting their pieces out of “proper” precious metals.
The Pyrrha creators also dabbled with setting diamonds in their sterling silver creations, but no one, the pair admits, believed they could be using genuine stones.
“It was a bit of a difficult sell,” Wade admits with a laugh. “Back then, you didn’t put diamonds into sterling silver. Now everybody does.
“We never followed the rules of jewelry making. We just followed our hearts and what we wanted to do and thought, well, if we do what we love, it might just work out for us.”
And work out, it most certainly has.
Today, Pyrrha boasts an international following for its talismans — including more than a few celebrities such as Reese Witherspoon, Julia Roberts and Chris Hemsworth — with retail partners around the world, as well as its own ecommerce platform and a free-standing retail store in Los Angeles.
The success took only about, oh, 10 years to get there.
“Some things do take time, for sure. We are pretty patient,” Danielle says.
“Our overnight success took a decade,” Wade chimes in with a laugh. And, for those wondering, Wade laughingly admits he has “been able to amass a collection” of records again over the past few decades.
A visit to the current Pyrrha studio in Mount Pleasant is to understand just how hands-on the creation process truly is for this Canadian company. In the multiroom space, stylish 20-somethings sit at benches, each one working diligently on a separate step in the lengthy production process that is creating each handmade talisman.
“We do everything from casting all the way to shipping from our studio,” Danielle says. “Even when people know the business, they’re amazed by how much we do in-house.”
Earning that full “Made in Canada” moniker was something the Papins say they have always felt passionately about.
“We are a certified carbon-neutral company and we’re also a BCorp,” Wade explains. “It’s really important to us, and the people who work for us, and hopefully, to the people who buy from us. It’s kind of a reflection of Danielle and myself ’s personal beliefs that we should tread lightly on the Earth.”
The Papins are acutely aware of the “havoc” the jewelry industry in which they participate — what with its appetite for precious metals and even more precious gemstones — creates on the planet. But they’re
hoping they can help to ease that toll, even if only a little bit. As of 2014, Pyrrha received its B Corporation status, making it one of only 150 businesses in Canada to do so, and 2,100 in the world.
“We want to inspire other companies to be accountable,” Wade says. “Accountability is one of the most important things right now.”
He also hopes their efforts at “social sustainability” inspire their customers.
“I think as consumers, we need to demand certain things from the people we buy from,” he says. “For a customer, if you look at something and you think it’s pretty, you go to the website, buy it and it’s done. And that’s fine. But, I think, the more that you can invest in supporting the right companies and you can really get a sense of what they’re trying to achieve … in the world.
“We’re buying stuff, we might as well buy stuff that inspires us.”
In recent years, the Papins have extended the Pyrrha offering to include partnerships with select brands, creators, and, yes, even a television show.
“Whoever we choose to work with, it seems to make sense,” Danielle says of the partnership process.
While the pair’s most wellknown collaboration is likely the one that resulted from a phone call
from the creators of the hit show Game of Thrones, the brand has also recently had popular collaborations with designer Paul Smith and Instagram poet Atticus, with sales benefiting To Write Love on Her Arms, a youth charity focusing on mental health and harm reduction.
Now, the Papins are in the process of building a new studio in Vancouver that will allow the designers to do “other things” to complement the continuing Pyrrha designs, hinting at expanding their offering of accessories or perhaps even introducing select home goods.
“It will be a space for experimentation,” Wade says of the new studio. “Things that will keep us, as designers, satisfied and excited.”
The pair purchased a 100-yearold home right in the neighbourhood where they had their first studio. Working with the city’s heritage society, they’re looking to get the residence designated as a heritage building first, then they plan turn it into a combined workshop and studio space.
“We’ll have the juxtaposition of the old and the modern, just like our jewelry is now,” Wade explains.
“It’s going to be really awesome,” Danielle says.
And it’s going to be a long way from their kitchen table.