Attire Accessories - Nov/Dec 2018 (Issue 73)

PROFILE 31 MANTRA JEWELLERY T: +44 (0)7714 765 161 W: mantrajewellery.co.uk @mantrajewelleryuk wellness collaborations with experts like Julie Montagu and Mel Wells; and our charity initiative, Mantra Changes Lives. We work with amazing charities like MIND, Care International and Bullying UK to create mantras that support their cause, and donate 25 per cent of the sales of these pieces to them. We run our My Best Self campaign on our website, where we interview successful women about their role models and their inspiration. And my blog, Jo’s Journal keeps customers up to date with what we are working on. We have a real sense of community on our website, and I am sure it will really support our stockists in continuing to raise awareness of our brand. What have been the key milestones in the business? After launching in April 2016, it was amazing to win Brand to Watch at the UK Jewellery Awards the following June. In December 2017, I won the NatWest Everywoman Businesswoman of the Year award, for evolving my business from Fabulous to Mantra, which was a great accolade. Gaining our first stockists in the wellness sector was also a major milestone; we are stocked across the wonderful TriYoga studios in London and online at YogaMatters and YogaClicks. And launching our first collaboration with the amazing Julie Montagu was a key achievement, as it has led the way to many more such collaborations, including working with global wellness brand Wanderlust. Finally, working with such amazing charities in our Mantra Changes Lives project has been a major milestone. We were featured in The Stylist and Cosmopolitan magazines for our charity collaborations, and this has really helped to raise Mantra’s profile. How do you view the current market, and what trends – both in business and product – do you see emerging over the coming months? I see sustainability and provenance becoming more important and brands with a social conscience. We have a paper off-setting initiative with UK charity Trees for Cities, for example, for our packaging and use only FSC-certified paper for our brochures – as well as running our Mantra Changes Lives initiative. For me, these are an absolute must, as I feel every business has a requirement to give back. I see products with meaning, or with a purpose, continuing to grow because customers expect more from their purchases and price continuing to be important as there is definitely less money around for discretionary purchases. What are your future plans for the business? First of all, we really want to build brand awareness. We have great products, a really loyal customer base and a strong proposition – so our main focus is to grow our awareness. Launching into wholesale, and getting stocked in a selection of the right retailers, will really help. Our advertising currently directs people to our website, but it would be great to also be able to list retail stockists to give consumers more choice. We plan to keep growing our charity partnerships too and grow the sales of these pieces so that we can make substantial donations to great causes. And fill gaps in the range where customers are looking for more mantras. The category we are working on at the moment is Creativity and Imagination, as this is an area we are asked about a lot at events. Is there anything else you’d like to add? For us, being at Top Drawer is the first real chance to talk to retailers about what Mantra could bring to their offering. The wellness trend is growing exponentially, as well as the focus on mental wellbeing and positive psychology, and Mantra is well placed to help retailers capitalise on that. I am hoping a real diversity of retailers will come to talk to us and take a look, even if they aren’t ready to order yet.