Handcrafted, sustainable accessories for everyday elegance
Founder(s) Name: Selina Penarski and Paris Solomon
Company Name: Wooden Element UK
Industry Sector: Fashion
Our Brand/Product: Welcome to Wooden Element UK! We are a family-run brand proudly based in Birmingham, UK. We offer sustainably made, lightweight accessories allowing the wearer to express themselves in a comfortable and colourful way. Our handcrafted earrings and wallets are made with ethically sourced, natural materials and lots of love, helping you look good and feel good at the same time!
Our Story: The idea for our lightweight, wearable accessories was born out of a family conversation where we were discussing how heavy and poorly made most women's earrings are. This prompted an exploration into creating earrings which are lightweight, comfortable and most importantly created from sustainable means. With time and working with skilled artisans, our handcrafted feather-light earrings were created, and this expanded into other accessories too! In terms of the UK faction of our business, my husband Paris and I have worked hard to build a beautiful website (www.woodenelement.co.uk) and promote our business through actively canvassing stores for opportunities, enrolling onto various wholesale marketplaces, and testing and learning with social media advertising. We have been able to generate demand from both a retail and wholesale perspective, fulfilling orders at speed with a personal touch to create a tailored experience for each and every customer.
Next Phase: We hope to gain both commercial and financial support through this programme. We are keen to work with experienced entrepreneurs and businesses who can advise us on potential next steps to scale our business - this is something we really believe in but are unsure of how to navigate, so would greatly benefit from mentorship in this area. We are also keen to discuss potential funding opportunities to support us in our marketing aspirations, allowing us to increase our brand exposure and visibility, thus leading to more sales opportunities. Through our individual attempts at social media advertising, we have been able to secure both retail and wholesale sales, so we are keen to build on our success with an always-on approach, instead of our current ad hoc marketing plan. We are also looking forward to meeting and sharing the experience we've had on this road so far with other incubator participants, as we truly see the value in the networking facet of this programme.
Get Involved: We are looking for an investment of £5,000. This would allow us to run always-on marketing campaigns across a number of platforms (at present we can only afford sporadic social media advertising). Due to our target market, we are keen to explore print advertising to reach our most engaged customer segments. We would also like to trial targeted Google ads, as well as investing in efforts to improve our website SEO.
Contact Details:
For more information or to get involved, please contact us at:
Email: hello@woodenelement.co.uk
Website: https://woodenelement.co.uk/
Instagram: Wooden Element U.K (@woodenelement.uk)
LinkedIn: Selina Penarski | LinkedIn
Paris Solomon | LinkedIn