The little shop of wonders
While most retailers obsess over the trendiest It buys, one tiny jewellery destination has started a quiet revolution, says Charlie Gowans-eglinton
Jewellery trends may come and go, but the earring’s long run of dominance shows no sign of ending. In the last few years, Maria Tash’s diamond huggie hoops, Anissa Kermiche’s paniers dorés and Annie Costello Brown’s oversized mobiles have all proved its desirability and selling potential. Earrings account for roughly 75 per cent of sales at Felt, a mini corner boutique on Godfrey Street, just off the King’s Road in Chelsea, with a big point of difference.
“People would come in and just say, ‘I want that. But I can’t afford it’,” says Felt’s founder, Eliza Poklewski Koziell. “And I’d say, ‘Do you have any jewellery that you don’t wear any more?’ So the recycling element of the business started that way.”
Now, about 50 per cent of the stock – with prices between £15 and £6,000 – comes from clients. It sits alongside new designs bought from little-known jewellers and pieces Poklewski Koziell has designed herself to fill the gaps she sees in the market. All of it is displayed together, costume mixed in with heirloom.
“When I was younger, I never had any money, because I was in the arts. I always slightly resented going to shops where you had to ask the price. In Felt, everything is priced and very expensive things are right next to cheap things, so it doesn’t intimidate people.”
Her concept has certainly worked so far, with Felt surviving as most independent boutiques around have closed. Poklewski Koziell has been selling jewellery since 2006, when the tenant of the original shop (a few doors down from the current one) asked her if she knew anyone who’d take it on. Poklewski Koziell mentioned it to a friend, Jayne Pickering, now fashion director at Marie Claire. “Jayne was very much the catalyst and did the first edit. The lady who had the shop was selling second-hand things. She didn’t even have a card machine. I thought, ‘If we just raised the game, maybe we could make it work’.”
After a year or two, says Poklewski Koziell, Jayne retired from Felt, “and I started buying old things quite quickly”. “Old things” doesn’t really cover it. Hired by Bennie Gray, who started London’s covered antiques markets, to run Gray’s and Alfie’s antiques markets in her early twenties, Poklewski Koziell has better instincts for good design and longevity than most. “I should have become a dealer at the age of 30,” she admits.
Instead, she went on to work with Ben Andersen (who is now married to television presenter Kirstie Allsopp), “who did all the props for Laura Ashley in the windows. He was an obsessive
‘I always slightly resented going to shops where you had to ask the price’
frequenter of car boot sales, dumps, anything. Both of them imbued me with a love of all things.” Poklewski Koziell also trained as a photographer, working with the British film director Peter Greenaway.
This education makes Poklewski Koziell an unusual retailer, one who isn’t interested in constantly flogging the “big thing” of the moment and then moving on to the next. “We live in a very materialistic society, and I have a problem with that. I’m happy to say I have a business that is recycling, rather than constantly trying to persuade people to buy things they don’t need. I’m a reluctant retailer in a bizarre way. People have bought stuff from me and brought it back 10 years later!”
The bartering element allows clients to bring in their own jewellery, which, once sold, can either be traded for credit in store or for a (slightly reduced) sum of cash. For the new pieces, Poklewski Koziell keeps one eye on what’s happening at fashion weeks and Goldsmiths’ annual jewellery fair in London.
“Sometimes I wait for a year to find the budget to invest in a certain jeweller, and sometimes I only carry one thing by a jeweller, because I know I can sell that one item over and over again. Jewellers always like to sell you stories, but that’s not what Felt’s about. Felt is really about the edit.”
It’s compelling shopping. Poklewski Koziell now shares new arrivals on the store’s Instagram page, where clients clamour to get them first, be they £1,000 emerald rings or cut-glass hair clips for £40.
“My clients are 15 to 80. I’ve now done one generation of schoolchildren, who have left, got married, had their first job – one just one brought her baby in to me this afternoon. They’ve stayed with me.”