Mini maker – Ramsgate’s miniaturist expands her business with custom around the world

MINI MAKER

Writer

Sean Farrell

Photographer Storme Sabine

How a doll’s house hobby has become a thriving Ramsgate business with customers from around the world

Michelle Davis’s pregnancy with the first of her 13 children was difficult and she was forced to spend a lot of time in bed. This did not suit her one bit and her husband Glen suggested she find a hobby.

“I came across a miniatures hobby magazine in WH Smith and I was fascinated that there were all these tiny things that were real,” she says. That purchase 20 years ago started a love affair with doll’s houses and miniatures that turned into a thriving business in Ramsgate.

“I started off with a doll’s house and making my own accessories,” Michelle says. “I ended up with a hundred items and now I sell more than five thousand.”

Odins Miniatures, fittingly named after Michelle’s eldest son Odin, sells in store and online to customers from around the world, and has just moved to larger premises on King Street from Hadres Street and Turner Street before that.

Michelle and Glen are from Willenhall in the West Midlands and moved to Ramsgate in 1996 in search of cleaner air for two of their children who had asthma. They opened their first shop in Willenhall during a brief return when Michelle’s father died, but soon returned and have been open in Ramsgate for six years.

To the uninitiated, the store on King Street is a step into a different universe. Odins sells everything you could imagine in a doll’s house and more – from mini toasters and typewriters to drum kits and pianos. There are doll’s houses for people getting started as well as a wall of Warhammer fantasy products and a new range of Airfix kits, made by Hornby of Margate.

Most of the products come from specialist manufacturers. But what makes Odins different is the kits and intricate items Michelle makes by hand.

Her speciality is shoes and boots – 2cm long and crafted from leather and silk, which can sell for more than £20 a pair.

Michelle usually produces these items to order, and her range includes men’s and women’s footwear. Her most popular and expensive items are curlytoed witches’ boots.

A pink pair in store reveal amazing detail. Each is made from a mix of leather and lace with a wooden heel. Other handmade miniatures in the shop include a pair of green silk brocade shoes, lace bras and a set of patterned suitcases made from cardboard.

Michelle is self-taught; it took her six years before she made a pair of shoes she deemed good enough to sell.

“I’m not really a defeatist. I just keep going,” she says. “Now I make at least ten pairs a week, but it could be a hundred pairs because some people order twenty or thirty at a time.”

Michelle’s in-store customers come from Thanet and from around the UK, sometimes planning a trip to Ramsgate around a visit to Odins.

Cynthia Purvis, who lives in Ramsgate, pops in about once a fortnight and has been a regular for five years.

“They’re nice and friendly and I’ve got to know them,” she says. “If anything new comes in they let me know. Having a doll’s house is a very expensive hobby but it’s a nice hobby.”

More and more people are getting the bug, fuelled by the craft boom, the pandemic and the Channel 4 TV show The Great Big Tiny Design Challenge, hosted by Sandy Toksvig.

“I panicked when the pandemic first hit because I had to close the shop, but our online sales soared and we were selling to people all over the world,” Michelle says.

Toksvig’s show has increased interest still further, Michelle says. “We’ve had a lot of people coming in and buying certain miniatures depending on what projects they’ve been doing on the programme and we’ve had people coming in looking for doll’s houses because of the show.”

Odins sells online to customers around Europe, in China and most countries, but the US is the biggest ►

market. A customer in Beverly Hills spent more than £1,000 to create a miniature version of her shoe emporium to the stars, Michelle says.

Famous customers in the store have included the actors John Hurt, who bought some miniatures, and Brenda Blethyn, who commissioned Michelle to refurbish a doll’s house.

Michelle says she receives orders from PO boxes addressed to famous names but she can’t reveal them because of data protection. Anyway, she is far from star-struck. Vivienne Westwood’s office contacted her a few years ago about making replicas of shoes that Westwood had designed to give away as gifts at an event. “I said no,” Michelle says. “I wanted to succeed because of my efforts, not because I was associated with someone who was famous.”

With business booming at her new premises, it seems Michelle’s own star is rising.

“I came across a miniatures hobby magazine in WH Smith and I was fascinated that there were all these tiny things that were real”

Odins, 175-177 King Street odinsminiatures.com