World dominance is next on Meg Roberts’ list. The owner/founder/jeweler extraordinaire behind Zuu Studio designs intricate metal animal outlines–when she isn’t being, as she calls it, “a professional badass.”
World dominance is next on Meg Roberts’ list. The owner/founder/jeweler extraordinaire behind Zuu Studio designs intricate metal animal outlines–when she isn’t being, as she calls it, “a professional badass.”
Roberts creates necklaces, earrings, and most recently, a new cuff. She’s been working with animal outlines since 2010, but changed the name of her company to Zuu Studio about a year ago. “It used to be just my name, Meg J. Roberts… which is terrible. It’s not an exciting name,” says Roberts. “So I had this long list of names, and a lot of them weren’t available. I wanted something that alluded to the animal drawing theme that I have going on, and I wanted ‘zoo’ to be a part of it, but usually when you see things with z-o-o it’s like a children’s clothing company or something. I wanted it to be a little… I don’t know.” She laughs. “…cooler than that.”
Roberts graduated in 2009 from VCU’s Craft & Material Studies department, but she currently works for two other artists, Sonya Clark and Susie Ganch. Ganch was her professor and mentor through college and was huge in helping her develop Zuu; putting her in contact with different jewelers, and showing her how to actually manufacture the jewelry.
All the design is done from Roberts’s in-home studio, a small space but one that has an overwhelmingly perfect mix of chaos and creativity, compressed into a nook of her colorful living room.
Animal drawings, tools and hanging necklaces line the wall, along with photos and color palates allowing for inspiration. Art installations come out of the walls above our heads, next to hanging bulbs strung to the bottom of a shelf, overlooking and lighting her workspace.
“I draw the animals and then I scan and [digitize] them,” Roberts says, explaining her process. “[Then I] send them to a company and we arrange them on a big [metal] sheet. They don’t change anything about the designs; they’re relying solely on me to figure it out.”
Roberts says her inspiration to create her jewelry line started with the idea of getting a giant tattoo of a humpback whale across her chest. However, knowing that her grandmother would have disapproved, she was scared to go through with it. The jewelry was a way to create the same visual effect with less permanence. “[My designs] are like quality temporary tattoos,” she explains. “The whale kicked everything off–they’re very wise and calm creatures, and I feel like that’s not me. It’s a nice reminder to be more like that.” A later design incorporating a sloth was inspired as a similar reminder. “The sloth was the same thing… I feel I’m really Type A and I wanted to be more chill.”
“They’re animal auras,” adds in Roberts’ intern, Elaina Arsenovic. “Exactly,” agrees Roberts, “All of [the animals] have different characteristics that I think are good or important, and I like reminders of that.”
After designing the whale, Roberts says it occurred to her that she could do more. However, she wanted to start small, for fear of people not being into the animal designs. Almost immediately though, the line took off through her Etsy page.
The reaction to the whale design was positive, and all sorts of people were full of suggestions for other animals. This inspired Roberts to continue. In fact, after receiving so many requests for specific animals she hadn’t included, she realized her original line was pretty limited. From here she set out to design her next two collections, the latest of which just came out and includes 13 new animals, bringing her overall total to 28.
Roberts says she’s especially excited about the lobster earrings she just released. The lobster’s whisker acts as the earring’s hook–the idea being that they’re part of you.
Custom orders are also available, if people are willing to wait a little longer and pay a little extra.
“The dragonfly was a custom order,” says Roberts. “I really liked it, so I asked if I could add it to my line and they agreed… The elephant and frog were also custom; those are things I probably wouldn’t have made, but I like them now.”
According to Roberts, her most popular designs are the humpback whale, shark, and the bison, which one woman actually got tattooed onto her.
Laughing, Roberts talks about her more bizarre animal requests. “I’ve gotten fruit bats, or someone’s specific pet. I took a taxidermy class once and they told me that taxidermists hate doing pets because they never come out quite like their animal,” she says. “I tried to do a Boston Terrier, but that’s the same deal with the eyeballs. It’s very important where those are, and you kind of lose the detail with the small scale I’m working with.”
Ultimately, Roberts says, she would love to have hundreds of different animals with options for everyone. Her animal designs can already be found all over the world. Customers have ordered her wares from every continent (except Antarctica, of course–though how cool would that be?). Roberts has been in talks with many different kinds of museum shops, including the Smithsonian and a company which distributes to zoos and aquariums. Recently, while on a trip to Louisiana, she walked into a boutique while wearing her shark necklace and they placed a huge order right on the spot.
“People buy my stuff usually after they’ve been on some kind of trip; it reminds them of their experiences,” Roberts explains. “There’s a sloth preserve in Costa Rica, and nine times out of ten, if someone buys a sloth it’s because they’ve been to that preserve. When I was a kid and went to museums, I would buy so many plastic animal toys… As an adult you can’t really walk around with those, so this is the slightly more sophisticated version of that kind of souvenir.”
“I have one customer who’s written to me who has a small child, and she loves [the necklaces] because whenever she goes to a grocery store, people always think she has a giant neck tattoo,” laughs Roberts. “She always says that she feels like a badass mom. It’s like an alter ego; when you wanna be a badass indie bitch, put on a necklace from Zuu Studio. It feels good to change it up.”
“One of the coolest parts about the necklaces,” notes Arsenovic, “is that when [Roberts] sends out the orders, she’ll draw really custom packaging. I don’t know of any other company where the owner sends you a hand-drawn picture card along with the jewelry.”
If you’re interested in ordering Zuu Studio’s unique designs, you can find them on Etsy, or on their website, zuustudio.com.
If you use the promo code RVAMAG, Zuu Studio will give our readers a special 20% discount on all purchases. Follow them on Instagram and Facebook for other pop up promo code specials.
