Back in spring, I went to an SBS Bootcamp in Cardiff and sat through a session on financial self-confidence that felt suspiciously like it had been written directly for me.
I’m sure there were many intelligent and nuanced points made during that session. My brain condensed the whole thing down to:
Whatever you’re sitting on because you’re not confident enough, this is your sign to do it.
For me, that was Forme.
The collection I was sitting on
I’d been designing our second collection for months. Sketching, changing things, changing them back, working through details and slowly building something that felt completely different from Maiden, but still unmistakably Nudie.
The ideas were there. What wasn’t quite there was my confidence to actually press go.
Because designing something on paper is relatively safe. Sending those designs to our manufacturing team and saying yes, let’s make this involves considerably more money and considerably fewer opportunities to hide behind “it’s just an idea”.
But I came home from Cardiff and did it.
And Forme became real.
Somewhere along the way, I became a jewellery designer
This is probably going to sound ridiculous considering I founded a jewellery brand.
But until Forme, I’m not sure I really felt comfortable calling myself a jewellery designer.
Nudie began in a bedroom with an idea that jewellery could feel as good as it looked. Maiden was our first voyage and the collection that allowed me to turn that idea into an actual business.
Forme has felt different.
I've designed links from scratch. Thought about how individual surfaces should interact with light. Played with texture, movement, negative space and the geometry found in nature. I've rejected things that weren't right, changed things that were nearly right and watched drawings on pieces of paper turn into jewellery I can actually hold in my hands.
Forme is an exploration of shape, movement and light. Polished to reflect it, brushed to soften it, textured to break it and twisted to keep it moving.
And somewhere during that process, Nudie stopped feeling like the bedroom hobby that got wildly out of hand and I started feeling like I could actually say it:
I'm a jewellery designer.
Still feels scary.
And then summer happened
While all of that was going on behind the scenes, Nudie went out into the world for what can only be described as a slightly mental summer.
We broke our own sales records.
We sold out of pieces.
We received multiple award nominations.
And one of my favourite full-circle moments came from The Game Fair.
As a brand only just finding its feet, our 2026 application been turned down. but following the organisers experiencing Nudie in person at an earlier event, we were invited to trade there.
There have been long days, questionable amounts of loading and unloading, fields, marquees, terrible phone signal and plenty of moments where I've looked around and thought, how on earth did we get here?
The answer, of course, is all of you.
So, thank you
There are so many things from this season I could squeeze into one blog, but really I wanted this first proper Note from Sophie to say thank you.
Thank you for buying Nudie.
For coming to find us at events.
For telling your friends.
For voting for us.
For wearing your jewellery and sending me photographs.
For following along when things go brilliantly and, perhaps more importantly, when I show you the bits that don't.
And for giving me the confidence to keep pressing go.
Forme is about to head out into the world, which is both incredibly exciting and mildly terrifying. But if this year has taught me anything, it's that feeling scared probably isn't a particularly good reason not to do something.
There is still a lot of 2026 left.
And I have a feeling Nudie isn't done surprising me yet.
Love,
Sophie x
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