Our story...901drift is a new local jewelry line in Memphis, TN founded by a husband and wife team of Phillip and Caroline Smith. Phillip was born and raised in Memphis and Caroline was born in Mississippi. Caroline grew up around the South but most of Caroline’s family is from the Memphis area so she moved back to her roots in 2001. Phillip and Caroline met, got married, and made a home in the 901. Caroline has a degree in fashion from The University of Memphis and has been making jewelry since 2011.
Back in the spring of 2017, the couple had a date night at one of their favorite 901 Happy Hour spots in Harbor Town. While walking down by the river, which they love to do as often as possible, she picked up a piece of driftwood and asked Phillip how she could incorporate it into her jewelry designs. She wanted to create jewelry with a deep tie to our hometown. Something local Memphians or anyone that the MS River touches could wear as meaningful artwork of home with the memories of the great river that is the heart of our city and our great country. Phillip is an Engineer and he had the perfect idea. He has a background in all the material science needed and by chance already had most all of the tools for creating this unique line of jewelry. As you can see, this new venture was destined for this 901 couple almost from the start. Are you starting to see how the name came to be?
The creating processing is not one for the faint at heart, months of trial and error went on in the beginning from mixing colors, to the curing process to set the driftwood, and determining the best forming method. To this day, there is tons of playing and collecting driftwood with their children down by the river and a whole lot of love and hours of labor that go into creating each hand formed unique piece of wearable art. If you find one you love, you better grab it because that same one will never be created again. The colors are hand mixed, shapes are hand formed, and as we all know… no two pieces of driftwood are ever the same.