Yes, we are terribly excited to be celebrating Caradiaz’s 5th year in business this month. To me personally, it feels like yesterday but… so do the 80s and they are well gone!

It all started as a hobby really but the response was overwhelming. The feedback we kept receiving was hugely reassuring – we were definitely doing something right! – and people kept telling us how unusual our pieces were, which was fantastic.

So here we are five years later, selling the ‘chunky’ necklaces, bangles and earrings that have become our trademark.

Looking back, we had had many many highs: the first ever order (it came from a lady in Hertfordshire), the first complimentary email we received (from a lady in Cheshire that actually placed 2 more orders that same week), the first wholesale enquiry (we hadn’t even considered that line of business until the enquiry arrived from Red Direct), the first media sample request (from Eve magazine), the registration of our trade mark…

But along with the highs came a few lows, from one or two suppliers that let us down with the quality of the goods (far from that promised), to a dodgy agent that did a runner with a few samples (I doubt she made much money out of them), and also a few mistakes we made ourselves in the early days. I remember one occasion when we lost one of the orders on the way to the post office (I’ll tell you how some day…). We prepared a replacement and sent it to the customer as normal. What we couldn’t imagine was that whoever found the lost parcel was actually kind enough to post it! - there are still some nice, decent people out there… -. So, much to the customer’s surprise (an ours!), she ended up receiving the same necklace twice – it was the Fragola necklace. The customer contacted us to inform us of the duplicate so, full of embarrassment, we had to confess to our little mishap. We told her to keep the extra necklace as a ‘thank you’ for letting us know - perhaps she’d like to give it to a member of her family or a friend? – but she declined, arguing that she didn’t want any of her friends wearing the same necklace as her! When it comes to fashion, women can be so protective of their secrets….

So… what’s next for Caradiaz? Well, our main objective as a business is to grow and, in order to achieve that, we need to ‘spread the word’ more widely to reach new customers and make our brand better know. That’s why at the end of last year we decided to appoint fashion PR expert, Claire Doherty, (she did the launch of ASOS) to try help us get out there. In just a few months, Claire has managed to get our jewellery featured in the London Metro paper, Vogue.com, Asiana, Stylist and, only a couple of weeks ago, our Khun Yuam necklace (one of our best-sellers ever) appeared on ITV’s This Morning as part of a feature on Summer Trends for 2010. And there are more media features coming up soon but unfortunately we can’t reveal them yet, you’ll just have to stay tuned!

Of course, I couldn’t finish this little trip down memory lane without thanking all of our customers for their continuing loyalty, as well as the long suffering members of the small but hugely efficient Caradiaz team for putting up with me as ‘the boss’. Thank you and here’s to at least another five years of success. Cheers!

The Caradiaz birthday party in full swing!
Pictures by: Marisol Douglas