CREATIVE DESIGNS: Chan poses with her products which can be bought during The Bloom Bazaar 4 which will take place on October 6.
KUCHING: Among the craft exhibitors at the upcoming The Bloom Bazaar 4 is Jacqueline Chan, an Australia-based designer who found her passion in making jewellery not too long ago and went on to create her own brand, Whimsy Milieu.
Based in Sydney, Kuching-born Chan conducts a predominantly online business, offering to the international masses the products she designs and hand-crafted herself.
“The brand is a fairly new venture of mine. It commenced this past April, but I have been planning it for some time now. It is named Whimsy Milieu because my designs are fairly whimsical,” explained Chan.
Having always been interested in design, she took a second degree in design and had ultimately planned to have her own design studio.
“At this juncture, my designs are mostly for jewellery ranging from rings, bracelets to necklaces. However, because I like to explore other possibilities, I also turned some of my paintings into cards and stickers,” she added.
Currently, Chan has come up with three collections for her jewellery, each with its own concept and storyline so that her customers can relate more to her accessories. Though she does not use precious metals for her products, Chan believes that her products, with these concepts can prove precious to the owners themselves.
For example, Whimsy Milieu’s Prix collection was inspired by the recent Olympic Games. “Well, the concept behind it is that everyone is amazing and therefore deserves a medal,” said Chan in reference to the medal-inspired necklaces of the collection.
“The Outre Forest Treasure collection is inspired by nature and the outdoors. As such, the pieces incorporate a lot of floral and wooden themes as well as vines and ropes.
“Among the material I use are polymer clay, felt, acrylic and bamboo,” said Chan.
While most of her products are sold online, due to Sydney’s relatively large design and art market, there are some stores that stock up Whimsy Milieu products. Chan believed that, apart from the online channel, this would be the ideal platform for her products to reach her intended target market of women from their 20s to 40s.
She also designed her own look-book and brochures for her product, thereby running a one-woman-show for her business.
Chan expressed that getting the word out there about her brand was a challenge. Due to its small business nature, Whimsy Milieu cannot afford to do expensive advertisements, said Chan, who relied mostly on word-of-mouth and social media.