Who is 'WraithMaille'?

It is I, Karen, the one woman metal weaver, at least it was. Now we are the WraithMaille family, but how did we get here? 

In the beginning…

Let me set the scene for you. It was 2013 and I had the idea I wanted to make my partner something special - he will now be known as Mr Maille, but what? He wasn’t the traditional jewellery type and I wanted something different which took me headfirst down a Google rabbit hole. Before I knew it I had stumbled across chainmaille and a full blown obsession was born! So how did I get from there to here?

Helm's weave chainmaille on the go, the first design I learnt.

To answer this question you now need to imagine me sitting at a table, bags of rings in front of me, pliers in my hand and an online tutorial. I had chosen to make a Helm’s weave as my first piece (notice how I said ‘first piece’). It was black and purple, his favourite colours, and he loved it … of course he did, I made it and I loved making it to be honest. Which led to the next weave, and the next. More supplies were purchased and before I knew it I had a bedside cabinet full of pieces. After a couple of years, Mr Maille finally had enough and said I needed to do something with all the bracelets, necklaces, earrings and anything else I could make that were competing for space next to his favourite coffee cup. 

I’d shown a few friends my new obsession and they were really supportive of my new hobby. One of them had her own craft hobby and sold her crafts at local markets and she offered to share a table with me at a local event. So I had a brave moment and agreed to join her and try selling my wares. I had a dozen bracelets, some earrings and keyrings, but that first sale felt amazing and really scary! What do you mean someone liked my creations enough to pay?!

Rebrand incoming …

I spent the next four and a half years trading at local farmers markets, craft fairs and online under the name Chainmaille and Charms. As my style developed and I began to make more pieces that suited me better - think steel, spikes and my favourite colour black with rainbows - the name just felt too ‘cutesy’. I’m not a cutesy person at all, I’m an aging emo goth with a love of the dark and macabre, and the name just never felt like me. So in 2019 it was time for a rebrand and WraithMaille was born.

My stall at Liverpool Comic Con, 2020

Both myself and Mr Maille are huge fantasy fans, including Lord of the Rings. Wraiths appear a lot in fantasy realms and the name appealed to my love of dark lore and fantasy, which goes really well with chainmaille and history. At least I think it does.

But why chainmaille?

I’ve always enjoyed visiting castles and armouries, so it was only a matter of time that I fell in love with chainmaille I guess. The thing that fascinated me alongside the huge variety of modern weaves was the history of chainmaille. It was one of the earliest forms of really effective armour against weaponry like swords and the earliest examples have been attributed to the Celts in the 3rd Century. Thousands of rings would have been created by blacksmiths and woven to create the sheets of chainmaille that would be fitted to the wearer. It was not cheap and not for the likes of lowly soldiers. Chainmaille was a prized possession and it still is, just in a different format.

Time to meet the family…

Mr Maille working on his chainmaille shirt

Anyway, I digress, I did say I have an obsession with chainmaille. Now where was I? Ah yes, the birth of WraithMaille and where the name came from. I mentioned Mr Maille before when I was discussing the name, so it’s time I introduced him properly, after all without him I wouldn’t be here telling you all about us. He is the other complete opposite to me, the extroverted networking madman that sings my praises wherever we go. He’s the chauffeur, show assistant, maker in training and he definitely didn’t realise he was signing up to be part of this crazy world when he accepted his gift!

Mini Maille hiding under the stall at a local craft fair

If you’ve ever seen us at an event, you’ll be forgiven for thinking I’m talking to myself and storing snacks under the table, but I can assure you that I’m not. Under the table you’re likely to see Mini Maille, our little stall goblin. If he’s not hiding away, he’s helping us out on the stall or at home with the business earning his pocket money. It’s a real family affair now. 

Balancing work and family often meant taking advantage of nap times - can you see Mini Maille behind me?

I can’t say it’s always easy. In between making, running the website, sending out orders, there’s also the juggle of family life with school runs, long hours, summer fairs, and holidays to balance. 

Time for another pivot…

I’m sure you’re thinking “but Karen, I still want to know how you got here, with selling supplies and growing the business to have the widest range of chainmaille and scalemaille supplies in the UK”. Well to answer that we have to skip to 2020. A strange year for many reasons, but also the start of our next chapter. Towards the end of 2020, the UK’s supplier of chainmaille rings announced their retirement and Mr Maille suggested we get in contact with some manufacturers and give it a go. A few emails and conference calls later and we were taking delivery of our first boxes of stock. I’ve never seen so many jump rings and scales in my life! It was daunting to say the least, but we were fuelled by a desire to be there for fellow UK makers. I knew how important it was as a maker myself that I could get supplies quickly and suitable for making chainmaille. Thin wired craft store jump rings just weren’t up to scratch. I wanted to provide a place for other maillers to go as a one stop shop - this is still our ultimate goal and we’re getting closer every year. In fact, by 2021 I could no longer do this all by myself and Mr Maille came on board full time to take over the supplies side whilst I focused on growing the business. 

Over the next few years we continued to grow. We had teething troubles whilst we adapted to this new side of the business - like when I ordered enough jiffy bag envelopes to fill every spare space in the home or when I thought I was ordering 10 reels of chain and ended up with 50 because I hadn’t noticed I was ordering packs of 5 (did I mention we sell chain? We have a good stock of it if you need a metre or 10). However, just like any good story, it worked out in the end and we became a limited company in 2025 - one goal ticked off. 

Award winning? Little old me?

A proud moment for me and the business

Along with becoming a grown up company, 2026 saw me win Ecommerce Business of the Year award from the Kent Women in Business Awards. That feeling of accomplishment was amazing. I had previously won runner up in 2022 and finalist in 2023, but this was the big one! I’ve always suffered from a bit of imposter syndrome so this win validated all the hard work and passion I had put into the business. Next to being a member of the Heritage Crafts Association and a member of our local Chamber of Trade, I could almost convince

myself that I was a professional business owner. I mean, I am, but I’m also still that person who looks around for a responsible adult (gen X, you know what I mean). 

So what’s next for WraithMaille?

Well, we have other avenues we want to explore to bring UK makers (and further afield because we do ship worldwide) an even wider range of chainmaille and scalemaille supplies as well as items to enhance their makes. Trends are always changing, and chainmaille weaves are always evolving - which is pretty impressive for a craft that is over 2000 years old. Being able to support new makers and more experienced makers would be a dream come true and we’d like to expand our range of kits to suit every mailler. 

Eventually we’d like to expand our team and bring new people into our little family, maybe even have our own little shop for you to visit where we can teach and geek out over chainmaille. WraithMaille came about from a desire to do something special, and it’s no different now. It’s a business that came from a passion to create, and preserve the future of chainmaille and that is not stopping anytime soon. 

We’re always open to opportunities if they feel right for us, so I guess it’s a ‘watch this space’ kind of future.

In the meantime, if you’d like to keep up to date with our journey, why not drop us a follow on social media - just search @wraithmaille. We share your makes, introduce you to new weaves as well as sharing new stock we have coming in and you also get to see a little bit of behind the scenes.

The WraithMaille family