Not currently on display at the V&A

Earring

1966-7 (made)
Artist/Maker
Place of origin

This pair of earrings is in its original flat pack labelled 'PAPER JEWELS BY SOMETHING SPECIAL', a successful venture by Wendy Ramshaw and David Watkins in London in 1966-7. In this instance, no assembling was necessary. It was one of the 'ready-made' designs.


Object details

Categories
Object type
Materials and techniques
cut card
Brief description
Pair of silver-coloured card and artificial pearl earrings in Something Special flat pack, Wendy Ramshaw and David Watkins, London, 1966-7
Physical description
Pair of silver-coloured, flower-shaped card and artificial pearl earrings with metal clip fittings in original packaging of printed card and cellophane wrapping. Instructions on the back of the pack explain that the main sections of the earrings consist of three pieces of card. The outer two pieces needed to be folded out to form a star shape. The earrings could be folded flat for storage.
Dimensions
  • Packet height: 140mm
  • Packet width: 96mm
  • Packet depth: 12mm (approximately)
Credit line
Given by Wendy Ramshaw and David Watkins
Object history
Something Special Ltd was a company set up in 1966 by Wendy Ramshaw, her husband, David Watkins, and her cousin Pat Howard. It made flat-pack paper jewels. Wendy made the original models, David produced the art work for printing. At one time there were twenty assemblers employed as outworkers. The work was sold by direct mail, by boutiques in Carnaby Street, and by department stores such as Harrods and John Lewis. It filled a window in the Haymarket premises of the Council of Industrial Design. It was exported to the United States and Japan. It was, wrote Shirley Bury, ‘designed to be cheap, light in weight, fun to wear and ephemeral’. It was ‘in the mainstream of exploratory design, for the possibilities of paper were attracting the attention of both costume and furniture designers’ (‘The Evolution of an Artist-Jeweller’, Wendy Ramshaw, exhibition, V&A, 1982-3). Beatriz Chadour-Sampson notes that Wendy and David acknowledged the benefit they derived from their early experience as entrepreneurs, an experience not common among artist jewellers (David Watkins, Artist in Jewellery, Stuttgart, 2008, pp. 12-13).
Summary
This pair of earrings is in its original flat pack labelled 'PAPER JEWELS BY SOMETHING SPECIAL', a successful venture by Wendy Ramshaw and David Watkins in London in 1966-7. In this instance, no assembling was necessary. It was one of the 'ready-made' designs.
Bibliographic reference
Wendy Ramshaw. Exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, 6 October 1982 - 16 January 1983. Chadour-Sampson, Beatriz. David Watkins: Artist in Jewellery. Stuttgart: Arnoldsche, 2008.
Collection
Accession number
M.18-2015

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Record createdNovember 9, 2015
Record URL
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