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Role Call | Liz Sephton, Jewellery Product Manager

Liz Sephton says seize every opportunity you can.
Liz Sephton | Photo: Colin Ross
By
  • Rebecca May Johnson

LONDON, United Kingdom — Liz Sephton is a jewellery product manager at Vivienne Westwood, where she also manages eyewear and watches. After graduating from the fashion design and print BA at London's Central Saint Martins in 2001, she joined British label PPQ as a design assistant, before moving to Linda Farrow in 2005 as design and production manager. The role at Linda Farrow — where she was responsible for design, development and production across across all the company's ranges, including jewellery and collaborations with designers such as Dries Van Noten, Raf Simons, and Yohji Yamamoto — prepared Sephton for her post at Vivienne Westwood, which she joined in 2008.

BoF: Please describe your current role.

As jewellery product manager, my role is to oversee every creative and commercial aspect of the jewellery collections at Vivienne Westwood. I plan the collection structure, ensure the product is suitable for market, sympathetic to our brand and meets our customer needs worldwide

Following the creative ideas process, I work closely with the design team to visualise and recreate their ideas. This then leads on to working with our factories and suppliers to oversee development. Reviewing the technical aspects of a design involves problem solving and adapting the designs accordingly. It’s a multifaceted role, where you have to be the link between creative, development, commercial, marketing and financial. It’s a position where you have to be continually innovative and continually pushing the boundaries of market expectations.

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BoF: What attracted you to the role?

I came to work at Vivienne Westwood, because I thought that working with such an incredible and influential designer would be a rare and special experience. I was ready for a new challenge — I had worked in the eyewear field for nearly four years and I was ready to learn a new sector of the growing accessory market. I wanted to use my existing skills and apply them to jewellery, which turned out to have been a great move and the transition was an easy one. Ready to wear sales in general were slowing falling, I knew that accessories were the way forward and I wanted to be part of this success.

I wanted to be part of the successful jewellery line at Vivienne Westwood, work to develop and improve what was already being offered and maintain what had already been achieved.

BoF: What is the most exciting project or initiative you have worked on?

Every seasonal collection we produce is an exciting project — it has to be — otherwise you can’t get behind the ideas and motivate the team forward throughout the season. I think the ‘Gainsborough Palladium' jewellery collection that was launched at the Spring/Summer 2013 show in Paris, was one of my highlights.

It was a beautiful and well received collection — delicate and fragile filigree palladium wire frame jewellery with a Georgian influence and with sapphires and diamonds. It was a very involved project over a very tight timeline. Within four months, the collection had been designed, sampled and produced, using palladium metal, which at the time I had little knowledge of.

As well as producing the collection, the advertising campaign was shot with Georgia May Jagger, photographed by Juergen Teller. For the launch day, straight after dressing models with the jewellery at the catwalk show, we had to race to the evening venue to set up the beautiful display for the evening press event. I sourced all of the glass display cloches and antiques used on the display for the event, and hand carried them over from London. There are no boundaries in the Vivienne Westwood jewellery collection, we make pretty much anything work in a range of materials. I'm happy to be part of this energy and drive.

BoF: How is your role changing? What are the forces driving this change?

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My role has changed because the jewellery market has become extremely competitive, as with the expansion and growth of the accessories market as a whole. With this steady growth in recent years, major competition between luxury brands has arisen unlike ever before. Therefore my role veered towards the need for new design innovations each season, especially researching and looking at new technology for our collections.

We have also looked at reducing the time between design, production and the product launch in store to remain competitive.

BoF: Tell us about a time you failed and how you learned from it.

Failing on some level or another happens most days in a job like mine. In that case you have to learn from every mistake, and rationalise why this is happening. Working in a demanding position and processing a large amount of information, you can reach overload!

I see it as a fail if I don’t increase sales in a certain market. If I have worked closely with our worldwide partners, and sales haven’t improved satisfactorily, it can be a huge disappointment. I am lucky that we are a successful department within Vivienne Westwood, but that also brings a lot of responsibility, as this must be maintained and built upon each season. Through this I have learnt that there are many factors which can affect business growth. It means you have to engage with all teams within the company regularly — marketing, commercial, merchandising, and buying — and assess outside social, political and economic factors. Being on top of what is key in the creative world is important too.

BoF: What advice do you have for people who are interested in doing what you do?

I didn’t have such a clear idea where I wanted to be when I graduated from Central Saint Martins with a BA in fashion design and print and since then I have explored many avenues.

I would say to seize every opportunity you get, even if it isn’t your end goal, as you never know where this fashion journey will take you. Often you will end up in a job you never expected, but it's one that ultimately suits you better. If you want to work in a job like mine, it’s good to have some technical knowledge of jewellery, have a creative mind, a good work ethic and be open to what can come your way.

The more work experience you have in the industry the better. I would want to see that you have been in an office or studio environment, that you understand the basic structure of the working day and that starting on time is important to a busy creative team. Learn from every task you are given, even if you think it’s dull or menial. Important assets are your enthusiasm and dedication, as some days are going to be tough.

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