Made in Hastings opened in the summer of 2004 to provide an outlet for the work of the founding members and local creatives. The idea grew from a successful Open Studio sale where Sue, Josephine, Sophie, Judith, Claire and Melanie all first met. Between us we realised that sharing our combined skills, experiences and expertise could allow us an opportunity to focus on our individual businesses and also have somewhere to sell our work. Many meetings later we set about finding a suitable premises to open a shop that would suit our needs. No 82 the High Street in the Old Town just happened to come up for rent and in June 2004 we opened our doors for the first time.
In the early days we focused on our own work but soon started to include the work of many talented local people and have forged strong relationships with our makers over the years. As well as our own work we sell for between sixty and eighty talented craftspeople from the local area and some from further afield.
Working together like this we have been able to help emerging makers to trial new products and have had wonderful success stories over the years. For example, we work with our local design college to promote a project for the illustration students by giving them a window space to sell their products once a year.
Lots of things have changed over the years including Melanie leaving to pursue her very successful teaching career but essentially we are a group of women working together in our shop in the Old Town of Hastings, do come and visit….
