Amelia’s Magazine | New for 2013: Amelia’s Award will launch the career of a talented Graduate Designer Maker

amelias award with secret emporium
Calling all soon to be design graduates: read on to find out about my new collaboration with the brilliant Secret Emporium, a curatorial umbrella which supports and promotes independent creators of wonderful goods. We’ve long championed the work of Secret Emporium and the designers they work with on this website so I’m really happy that we have now teamed up to bring you Amelia’s Award.

Secret Emporium at SGP christmas fair
Diane Turner at the Secret Emporium Christmas Market. Photography by Elizabeth Khan–Greig.

Secret Emporium at SGP EA Burns
EA Burns stall at Secret Garden Party.

This summer Amelia’s Magazine and Secret Emporium will celebrate the best in graduate design by helping a gifted young designer to launch a career as a designer maker. We are searching for a super talented graduate with bags of ideas about what they would like to make. This could be: jewellery, sunglasses, visors, clothing, accessories, illustrated goods, screen printed wares or art based food. Products with ethical or environmental considerations will be favoured.

Secret Emporium yellow cheetahs spangled sunglasses
Yellow cheetah sunglasses by Spangled at Secret Emporium.

And now for the best bit of all: the Prize! The winner of Amelia’s Award will be gifted a scholarship place worth £495 to showcase and sell their work with Secret Emporium at Wilderness Festival (held in Cornbury Park, Oxfordshire on 8th – 11th August 2013). They will be profiled and promoted on Amelia’s Magazine, as well as through the Secret Emporium and Wilderness Festival promotional channels. A couple of runners up will also receive special recommendations and promotion in Amelia’s Magazine, and for the winner there will be the potential to become part of Secret Emporium in the future.

Secret Emporium tent at festival
This is a great opportunity for a talented young design graduate to kickstart a glittering career so we can’t wait to hear from you! All we are looking for right now is some brilliant design ideas, the ambition to create wonderful things, and the desire to win Amelia’s Award and be a part of Secret Emporium this summer. Advice will be on hand to ensure those ideas become a reality, so don’t delay: fill in the form at this link now, or pass the information on to any talented design graduate friends who might be interested! The closing date for submissions is Tuesday 2nd July. *NOW EXTENDED*

Secret Emporium Rosita Bonita
Secret Emporium Rosita Bonita siren collection
Rosita Bonita. Photography by Emma Saunders.

Here’s a bit more information about Secret Emporium and Wilderness Festival to whet your palette:

Secret Emporium seeks out grass roots designers and curates events, collaborations and mentorship schemes to support designers and launch their careers. Every summer Secret Emporium embarks on a tour of the best British festivals with a tent full of independent designers hand sourced and curated from a mix of graduates and more established labels. Each designer takes a 8ft x 6ft pitch and sells their fashion, jewellery, art or illustration to the crowds for 4 full days. It allows designers who are starting out and who perhaps don’t have their label with stockists yet, who are doing things independently for themselves, the opportunity to access up to 60,000 people for sales. Designers get to interact with customers and benefit greatly from being juxtaposed with other designers who are able to share the same trials and successes of growing their own business. Collaborations are born and ideas are shared, but ultimately the most important part of being with Secret Emporium is the access to so many people thirsty for independent design, which results in sales and revenue that allows designers to financially support themselves.

Secret Emporium at SGP Daisy Thomas
Daisy Thomas at Secret Emporium.

Wilderness Festival is a 15,000 person music and culture festival at Cornbury Park in Oxfordshire on 8th – 11th August 2013. Secret Emporium has a tent at Wilderness festival each year showcasing the best of independent British designers. The winner of Amelia’s Award will win a scholarship place in this tent worth £495. Wilderness Festival is a particular favorite for Secret Emporium as the Wilderness crowd love the tent and, financially, it is the most successful festival of the season.

Secret Emporium sign
Secret-Emporium-at-Secret-Garden-Party-Grace-Du-Prez-photo-by-Maria-Papadimitriou
Grace Du Prez at SGP. Photo by Maria Papadimitriou.

Further reading:
My reviews of Wilderness Festival in 2011 here and here (including photos of the Secret Emporium tent), an extensive review of the Secret Emporium tent at Secret Garden Party in 2012 by Maria Papadimitriou, a piece about Secret Emporium artist Lauren Baker and a recent interview with jeweller Rosita Bonita by Jessica Cook.

ENTER AMELIA’S AWARD BY CLICKING HERE.

Categories ,Amelia’s Award, ,Cornbury Park, ,Diane Turner, ,Grace Du Prez, ,Lauren Baker, ,Oxfordshire, ,Rosita Bonita, ,Scholarship, ,Secret Emporium, ,Secret Emporium Christmas Market, ,Secret Garden Party, ,Spangled, ,Wilderness Festival

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Amelia’s Magazine | Wood Festival 2011: a special preview interview with founder Robin Bennett

Wood Festival  Relax

Wood Festival is mere weeks away, sale so what better opportunity to catch up with one of the founders? I asked Robin what inspired him to create this fabulous boutique festival, check and why being sustainable is so very important to him.

Wood Festival tent

What initially inspired you to start Wood Festival and what were your goals in putting it together?
I have a life-long interest in environmental issues, and the relationship of these to festivals was brought home when freak floods caused the postponement of Truck Festival in July 2007, flooding the village of Steventon and my parents’ house too. While these floods may or may not be to do with global warming, it did make us think. We also thought that if we ran some more events we’d be less susceptible to such ‘acts of God’, and for our first new event, Wood, we thought it would be good to make it an example, even the greenest event in the country (though there are some other very fine contenders for that crown).

Woodfest Portable+Solar+Generators

It has been awarded Gold standard by A Greener Festival and Industry Green 2*, and we’re shortlisted for the Music Week Green Business award, so we are getting there. I also had a newborn son and wanted to create an event that was suitable for small children and families, which certainly has become the case, as children nearly outnumber adults at Wood! Our new company which has run the events since 2007, Truck Enterprises, has a mission: “to build community through music and the arts”, and that’s what we try to do.

YouTube Preview Image
2007: Year of the Flood.

How do you manage to run so many events, and your own shop?
I’m not sure if manage is the word, it’s more like juggling hot potatoes, even on-fire potatoes… the idea is they form part of a greater whole, and make out lives more balanced. They certainly make a lot of work! we have some quite efficient methods and systems, but then we try to work individually with the community around each event, which means there are no short cuts. For example, Wood is held at a community living experiment/eco-village called Braziers Park. The shop – Truck Store – is run day-to-day by our friends from Rapture, an independent record store in Witney, a Cotswold market town. My brother works in there to keep things family. There are many Bennetts involved in the Truck Enterprises team… maybe that explains it!


A documentary about Wood Festival made in 2009.

Can you tell us more about the Truck shop – what is special about it and what can people find there? if people don’t live in Oxford where can they tap into your offerings?
Truck Store is a shop, and also a hub for the Oxford music community – it has great big windows, tables and chairs for those who just want to read a magazine, and a stage for live music events such as Record Store Day. It sells loads of vinyl, the best new CD releases, comics, DVDs, festival tickets, and even cuddly Truck monsters. It’s also an all-year base for all things Truck and a chance to say hello. You can always find interesting, helpful and unusual music advice from the staff that is more personalised than you might get on the internet. It’s close to the Oxford Tube (St Clements) stop so no excuse not to visit from London. It has a facebook page and twitter but not yet a website. The events have websites – www.woodfestival.com and www.truckfestival.com.

Wood festival Street

What was your highlight of Wood last year?
Seeing the Make Your Own DIY Wormeries workshop sell out – if that’s the term. Who knew so many people wanted to make their own wormery? In fact, the children’s Sunday morning fancy dress parade is always a highlight and taps into some strange pagan instinct…


Trevor Moss & Hannah Lou playing The Allotment Song at Wood Festival 2009 in a pedal-powered tent from Magnificent Revolution.

Why is sustainability so important to you? is it something you’ve grown up with, or that you have found over the years?
I was aware of the issue from the age of 5 or 6… picketed Macdonald’s at age 10, etc, so it goes back a way. I was lucky as a child to be able to roam freely in the woods and see farming conditions first hand, an opportunity many children now don’t have. I became aware of the importance of education on the subject after being a trustee of a charity called Siren which worked on conservation education, hence there is a great emphasis on that at Wood. Really, sustainability is important for all of us – it’s hard to actually be opposed to it! Having child(ren) certainly reminds you that the world must be left in as good a state as it can be. As a dominant species, it’s our responsibility.

Wood Festival child

What are your current hot tips for the festival season?
Bell tents, at least, I’d like one. Dreaming Spires, my band, will be at some festivals. We will try to be hot. Gaggle are appearing at Truck and sound quite novel, a choir of indie opera singers. Mama Rosin, at Wood, are a Swiss Cajun band. What is that? Come find out.

Cat Martino dancing to Dreaming Spires in Truck America
Cat Martino dancing to Dreaming Spires in Truck America.


Just Can’t Keep This Feeling In by Dreaming Spires.

Why should people come to Wood this year?
It’s a special experience – where else can you make your own musical instrument from vegetables, or go foraging in the woods for food? *NB, we have normal food too.

I don’t know about you but I can’t wait to get to Wood. Here’s my full listing here.

Categories ,2011, ,A Greener Festival, ,Award, ,Brazier’s Park, ,Cat Martino, ,charity, ,Dreaming Spires, ,gaggle, ,Green Business, ,Just Can’t Keep This Feeling In, ,Macdonald’s, ,Magnificent Revolution, ,Mama Rosin, ,Music Week, ,MusicWeek, ,Rapture, ,Record Store Day, ,Robin Bennett, ,Siren, ,Steventon, ,sustainable, ,Swiss Cajun, ,The Allotment Song, ,Trevor Moss & Hannah Lou, ,Truck America, ,Truck Enterprises, ,Truck Festival, ,Truck Store, ,Vinyl, ,Witney, ,Wood Festival, ,Wormeries

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