Iris Nijenhuis

Making this jewel­lery is very labour inten­si­ve but Iris Nijen­huis does it all in her own work­shop, tog­e­ther with interns from the Crea­ti­ve Craft­smen cour­se, among others! She laser cuts the pie­ces of tex­ti­le into her puz­zle pie­ces then assem­bles them by hand into beau­tiful crea­ti­ons. She even makes the acrylic ankers which ser­ve as clasps, the kraft paper pack­a­ging she uses and the woo­den dis­plays to dis­play her crea­ti­ons! The pro­duc­tion of Iris’ jewel­lery is the­r­e­fo­re com­ple­te­ly ethi­cal as it invol­ves her own two hands, and is 100% local.

Iris Nijen­huis uses a ran­ge of dif­fe­rent tex­ti­les to make her jewel­lery: scu­ba fabric, spa­cer fabric (neo­pre­ne) and high qua­li­ty arti­fi­ci­al lea­thers. She deli­bera­te­ly cho­se the­se mate­ri­als becau­se they are par­ti­cu­lar­ly well sui­ted to the laser cut­ter and her tech­ni­que mea­ning her final pro­ducts are of the best qua­li­ty pos­si­ble. The fabric also needs to be rela­tively tough as it is worn so clo­se to skin.

The­se are all the reasons why Iris Nijen­huis choo­ses syn­the­tic mate­ri­als. Alt­hough here at COSH! we usual­ly are not big fans of this (they are not biode­gra­da­ble and release pla­s­tic into the envi­ron­ment), in this case using syn­the­tic mate­ri­als makes the pro­ducts last lon­ger, so it is still a sus­tainable choice.

Iris does some­ti­mes also use second-hand fabrics such as den­im, but finds that the­se tend to fray much more quick­ly. Using second-hand syn­the­tic fabrics is an opti­on as well, as long as they are of the right qua­li­ty and thic­k­ness. It can be quite time-con­sum­ing though loo­king for good qua­li­ty and colourful tex­ti­le scraps and old clo­thes. The­se ​‘limi­t­ed edi­ti­ons’ are not available in other shops, only from her own stu­dio and online shop. She made this con­scious choice so that peo­p­le will not mista­ken­ly assu­me all the pie­ces in her shop are made from second-hand fabrics. 

Scu­ba and spa­cer fabrics are dif­fe­rent varie­ties of neo­pre­ne. Neo­pre­ne (poly­chlo­ro­pre­ne) is a syn­the­tic fabric made from petro­le­um. Spa­cer fabric is a foam-like airy mate­ri­al that con­sists of a top and bot­tom lay­er with thin fila­ments in bet­ween them through which the air can flow. This makes the resul­ting jewel­lery very light­weight and com­for­ta­ble to wear. 

Iris Nei­jen­huis pays atten­ti­on to the cir­cu­la­ri­ty of her jewel­lery by ensu­ring her crea­ti­ons have long life­spans and by working careful­ly with her mate­ri­als.

For exam­p­le, effi­ci­ent laser cut­ting crea­tes very litt­le was­te. Iris also buys fabric in small quan­ti­ties, which she can use for years as she doesn’t need much for her modu­lar designs.

She has also deve­lo­ped her pack­a­ging so that it can have a second life. For exam­p­le, the pack­a­ging can be fold­ed into a jewel­lery stand or han­ger which could be used by the shops. The­se can also find a nice spot on your dress­er or on a clo­thes han­ger in your home.

Alt­hough the desi­gner always has pie­ces in stock for trade fairs and exhi­bi­ti­ons, part of her coll­ec­tion is only available on demand. This means the jewel­lery is only made once it has been orde­red, to avo­id having too much stock.

Short sup­p­ly chain

The enti­re design and pro­duc­tion pro­cess takes place at the Iris Nijen­huis stu­dio in the cent­re of Ams­ter­dam. This jewel­lery brand the­r­e­fo­re has a very short sup­p­ly chain! Howe­ver, we do not know how far the raw mate­ri­als have tra­vel­led befo­re arri­ving in her studio.

Iris Nijen­huis’ jewel­lery may look like it’s made of lea­ther but no ani­mals were har­med in its making! Ins­tead, she choo­ses to work with very good imi­ta­ti­ons of lea­ther mea­ning the brand is com­ple­te­ly vegan-friendly.

Iris Nijen­huis’ jewel­lery is made to last. This is obvious from the choice of mate­ri­als but also through the repair opti­ons and the modu­la­ri­ty of her jewellery. 

Iris con­siders it very important that con­su­mers also take on this respon­si­bi­li­ty. Just as you would go to the cob­bler with your favou­ri­te pair of shoes, Iris hopes you will go back to her with your jewel­lery when it’s in need of a refresh.

For the first year after your purcha­se, Iris’ jewel­lery is gua­ran­teed mea­ning she will repair it for free. After that first year, you can still get your jewel­lery repai­red for the small sum of 5 to 15 euros. Thanks to the modu­lar design of her crea­ti­ons, each pie­ce can easi­ly be repla­ced if nee­ded. You can also modi­fy or upgrade your Iris Nijen­huis pie­ces with addi­tio­nal puz­zle pie­ces so it can evol­ve with your style! 

Iris Nijen­huis has got to the point whe­re she has crea­ted a real­ly strong basic coll­ec­tion that does not chan­ge with the fashion sea­sons. Some­ti­mes, she adds new designs, and in addi­ti­on to the per­ma­nent coll­ec­tion, she does alter­na­te some colours and prints with the sea­sons. The desi­gner has her own very distinc­ti­ve style that never goes out of style, total­ly slow fashion!

Iris Nijen­huis is very open about her work methods and choices of mate­ri­als, which here at COSH! we real­ly admi­re. The only infor­ma­ti­on that we’re miss­ing is the pro­ven­an­ce of the mate­ri­als. Iris tri­es to find out as much as pos­si­ble from the fabric shops but they don’t always pro­vi­de much trans­pa­ren­cy on the ori­g­ins of the fabrics to avo­id com­pe­ti­ti­on issues with suppliers.