The Aberdeenshire business behind the headdress worn by Johnny Depp in hit film Finding Neverland is up for sale.
Barry and Sharon Holton have announced they are retiring from Native Arts Trading, which was founded in 1998.
The firm sells Native American jewellery, headdresses and weaponry plus beadwork, clothing, horse tack and regalia and is now on the market.
Sharon is originally from Texas and is part Native American – her great-grandfather was Cherokee – and Barry is from England but moved to Seattle at the age of eight.
The couple launched on the Isle of Man, before moving to the north-east in 2002.
Barry told The P&J: “We decided to start the business ourselves and to be our own bosses, and that’s how it all kind of panned out from there.
“We started by buying in the pieces from the States, we started bringing in jewellery and some weaponry and headdresses, things like that.”
Couple founded business after being made redundant
“When we started it, we never expected to do a worldwide business, we expected it just to be Britain and possibly a little bit of Europe, but it was worldwide.”
When they moved location in 2002, the reach of the internet was still in its infancy, with there being less than 200,000 broadband users across the UK.
However, the growth of online was important for Native Arts Trading, as Mr Holton acknowledges: “As the internet got stronger, we got stronger as well.”
This meant that the pair no longer had to pay for adverts to promote their products, meaning that they could stop advertising in interior design magazines.
Their breakthrough came when they were contacted by production company Miramax to make costumes for Finding Neverland.
The movie – about Kirriemuir-born playwright J.M. Barrie’s relationship with his family who inspired him to write Peter Pan – featured Dustin Hoffman and Kate Winslet as well as Johnny Depp.
Earning $116.8 million dollars at the box office, it earned seven nominations at the 77th Academy Awards in 2005, winning Best Original Score and being nominated for Best Costume Design.
After this success, the couple decided to make all of their own costumes, with Mr Holton explaining: “From there on, that was it, we decided to stop buying so much stuff from the States, as far as the made-up pieces, and started making them ourselves.”
Boardwalk Empire
Since Finding Neverland, they have supplied pieces for TV shows including period drama Boardwalk Empire, starring Steve Buscemi.
Away from the big screen, they have supplied museums in the US and Native American Indian chiefs, plus collectors, the fashion industry, corporate businesses and interior designers.
Recently they were commissioned to recreate a headdress for a photographer in Montana.
Mr Holton explained: “We spend a lot of time researching a piece before we actually do it, to make sure we get it right and we get the right energy within the piece as well.”
Despite being worlds apart, the business owner was told by a spiritual leader who looks after the gravesides of native people that “us Native Americans have a lot in common with Scottish people”.
Reasons include being forced off their native lands, just like Highlanders were during the Highland clearances, as well as many Native Americans having Scottish ancestry.
Summing up his 25 years of running Native Arts Trading, Mr Holton said: “It’s been rather interesting, because you meet so many different characters along the way.”
Conversation