We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Nargis Shah a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Nargis thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. We’d love to go back in time and hear the story of how you came up with the name of your brand?

Why Studio Nerg? It took a while to land on a name that felt right. I wanted my new business to feel personal, unique and fun. I decided to use ‘Nerg’, my nickname, to make it feel friendly and approachable. As if your best friend was lending you some new amazing jewellery find. ‘Studio’ reflects my creativity and the way in which I work. It’s open, social and forever growing with lots of ideas bouncing around – never a stationary or solitary place.

Nargis, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

My interest in design led me to pursue a degree in engineering product design and a career in brand design. What attracts me to design is understanding how people interact with it and being able to improve our experiences with the world. After the covid restrictions and trying to go back to normal, my creativity felt drowned working in a large organisation. I always knew that I wanted to run my own business and bring my own imagination to life, so I thought what better time than now.

I always had a passion for jewellery. Different pieces help us better reflect our personality, mood and confidence to the outside world. It’s a very personal thing – we bring these accessories to life. Each piece of jewellery has a story, a history. We carry these with us. Any time I go on holiday, I always look out for local jewellery. Different places and cultures have different designs, shapes, colours, materials and techniques they use in a completely different way. It was so inspiring, I’d come back home and I would experiment with all these new ideas!

In a world where you can get lost so easily, I felt that I could help people feel confident. Help them tell their story with the jewellery I have made. I love being able to create that small spark of joy that jewellery can bring into people’s lives. And that’s where we say hello to Studio Nerg.

I am most proud of the Christmas markets I took part in last year. Having founded Studio Nerg in the summer of 2022, I had yet to reach a large audience. This very much felt like my business’s first test. It went really well, I sold out of many different designs, connected with so many new customers and I received lots of great feedback about my products, the market stand and my business. It was also really nice to be able to interact again in real life. One of my favourite interactions was telling people about this material that children used to play with to make little sculptures. It brought a smile to people’s faces as they remembered the fun they had playing with it themselves or with their kids. This is exactly how I want people to feel when wearing their jewellery from Studio Nerg.

We’d really appreciate if you could talk to us about how you figured out the manufacturing process.

Arts and crafts hobbies and Pinterest led me down this path. You know what it’s like, once you start pinning you can’t stop. You jump from one idea to another, to another, to another. I had a strong connection to jewellery and loved the idea of making with my own hands. I recall experimenting with all sorts of materials to create my own designs.

Polymer clay was a medium that I really connected with. I was able to experiment with so many techniques and play with bold colours – the possibilities were endless. I started out learning from tutorial videos on YouTube or Pinterest and following polymer clay makers to keep in the loop of the latest trends. I learnt a lot from others, but you get to the point where you cannot learn any more without trying it out for yourself. I spent a lot of time playing with the material and found there were certain techniques that I was drawn to.

I started handcrafting bold statement earrings for the everyday. Polymer clay being so lightweight meant that these designs really could be for everyone. After launching Studio Nerg, it was very much trial and error to form a way of making that I could sustain as a business. It can be quite physically intensive to create in this way so I invested in tools like a pasta machine to help me create small batches of designs without losing that handmade charm. Just small steps at a time made the whole process not too overwhelming.

Can you open up about how you funded your business?

To be honest, you don’t need a whole lot to get started. I was lucky and had some savings from having worked full-time as an in-house designer and running my freelance design business for a number of years. Whilst working as an in-house designer, I worked on this idea in my own time. I started small. I injected a little bit of money at a time, with one goal in mind at each point.

You can get started with polymer clay with just a block of clay, an acrylic roller and an oven. I still had materials and tools from the different crafts I had pursued in the past. This was so helpful to be able to experiment with different techniques at a low-cost. Once I got comfortable working with the materials, a lot of my expenses went into jewellery findings. Then it was time to test the market for my products at markets and shops.

After leaving my in-house role, I had the time and energy to push my new jewellery business forward. But I continue to run my freelance design business. Working as a freelancer gives me a way to fund my new venture and allows me to work more flexibly. It’s still early stages, and the money I make from my business goes back into developing it further. I am thrilled to see where Studio Nerg will be on its 1sts birthday!

Contact Info:

• Website: https://studionerg.co.uk/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/studio.nerg/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/studio.nerg/