“When we started Makerie, we would just spend our weekends and evenings building our own projects. Then, one day, I wrote to a photographer I really liked in Milan to ask if we could collaborate on something in the future. She wrote back the next day, saying ‘I have a Vogue shoot the day after tomorrow. Can you make a lion?’ We were like um, yes!”

We’re speaking to Julie Wilkinson, one half of Makerie Studio, whose work adorns the front cover of this Localfolk edition.

Makerie is an international creative studio producing paper showpieces. Yet, that doesn’t really do justice to what Julie does with her creative partner, the UK-based Joyanne Horscroft. Together, they make sculptural creations of breath-taking imagination and intricacy, astonishing scale and skill, involving birds, landscapes, and, yes, lions—all from paper. These “3D illustrations”, in Julie’s words, are then used in photoshoots, editorials, and window displays for some of the world’s biggest brands, from Gucci to Google, from Nespresso to Nike.

Julie makes their success sound pretty effortless. “When we ended up in Vogue, Gucci saw our work and asked us to do their windows—and it really all went from there. We would just write to people that we thought it would be cool to work with. Luckily, many of them wrote back saying ‘we’d love to’!”

Yet, Julie’s humility hides the reality of the duo’s hard work. Julie and Joyanne met in Bath, UK, while studying graphic design at university. Soon they began to create projects together in the moments between their day jobs (“we’d just get together to build a peacock!”) and built up a portfolio to show to possible clients.

But their work with Gucci changed everything. Since then, they’ve been accepting commissions from across the world—from Milan and London to New York, and many places in between. Even now, though, the fast pace of work hasn’t changed. “Sometimes, we’ll have a job come in on Thursday for the Monday—which is still pretty crazy,” Julie admits. “But now we have some great assistants, and all sorts of fancy machines that make our lives a little easier.”

The two now are in different places—Julie is in Oslo, while Joyanne has a studio in London. Yet, Julie tells us that they’ve reached a point where they don’t need to work side by side for Makerie Studio projects to have their recognisable elegance and quality. “We’re basically just two of the same person!” Julie says. “That means we won’t work on the same commission unless it’s something really big or something we’re both passionate about. These days Joy tends to handle the larger rollouts of window displays, while I focus on shorter projects like unique pieces for photoshoots or one-off displays.”

Naturally, though, as places change, priorities change too. Now settled in Oslo, Julie is focusing her efforts on finding clients across Scandinavia and she’s conscious of the challenges—and artistic opportunities—that this new place presents.

“I love the Scandinavian, Nordic aesthetic, and I try to add elements of that into my work. But I don’t think that style is necessarily us. My style is much more Italian—more ornamental and decorative. Being here has made me appreciate that side of myself more. In fact, it’s shown me what I might have to offer Norway.”

Looking ahead, Julie seems characteristically relaxed about the many different projects coming Makerie’s way.

“There’s lots of little bits and pieces in the pipeline that we’re looking to bring together right now. We now have some wonderful agents here in Oslo, and I’m working on some products to sell through our shop, for example—along with some personal things to feed my soul a little. Luckily, we’re in a position now where we can handle many different things at the same time—wherever we are in the world.”