Up and coming jewellery designers!

At Seventy Seven Diamonds we love to support creativity and design in the jewellery realm.  This week we’ve picked some of best the aspiring jewellery designers from London and the UK who we think warrant praise and exposure.  Take a look at the unique pieces in all their differing styles with traditional, vintage or modern motivation – appreciate their creativity and become inspired yourself!

Poly Philippou

An independent jewellery designer, Poly lives and works in East London to promote and sell her work primarily by word-of-mouth or recommendation.  She also undertakes commissions and displays at gallery shops based in London and Brighton.

She claims, “I love art, nature, ethnicity and clean lines and geometry, and these loves are the drivers behind my designs.”

Her work is mainly in silver and certainly exhibits an essence of the natural world, usually using clean and precise shapes that act as feature pieces with enormous versatility.  Some of her more intricate designs are cleverly adapted to bring a natural object to life through jewellery; for example, her Cyprus Cone collection was inspired and cast from tiny pine cones she found in the Paphos district in Cyprus.

You can find more of Poly Philippou's designs on her website.

Hannah Stockham

Hannah is a jewellery and tableware artist and a practising goldsmith working for a South West England jeweller.  Having studied at the Royal College of Art, she continued to win various awards and turned her direction towards jewellery and tableware, creating both decorative and functional pieces for the body and the home.

Hannah’s striking and yet beautiful ‘blackbird collection’ reflects a boldness which works well particularly in a modern setting.  Her ‘Entwined collection’ of bracelets and rings is also an obvious example of this, but designs are kept simple.  She has a collection of sleek, smooth and eye-catching pieces (including necklaces, cufflinks, and rings) for men fashioned from silver.

From her ‘Blackbirds collection’

She says, 'I want to create the big the bold and beautiful.'

You can see more examples of Hannah Stockham’s work on her website or Facebook page.

Daisy Knights

Listed as one of International Jewellery London’s Kickstarters 2010, and originally launched as a Bright Young Gem by them in 2009, Daisy has already gathered acclaim at a young age.

Daisy graduated from Central Saint Martins and now bases her work in her Cotswolds studio, often producing bespoke collections or taking commissions.

Her creations show hints of nature mixed with an infusion of rock & roll and punk styles.  The hand-crafted rings, necklaces and bracelets are wearable, charming or cute, sometimes bold but always exhibiting intricacies.  All are eco-friendly because she is keen to use ethically-sourced materials and recycled metals.

You can find more examples of Daisy’s work on her website.

Maria Zureta by Roberto Costa

Roberto’s creations are described suitably as ‘recycled bijoux’.

His jewellery is made in the spirit of ‘Maria Zureta’, a character who is “completely fearless, an outrageous brazen libertine... labeled amoral and depraved for her provocative clothing and was condemned to wander the streets forever, able to gain salvation only by providing protection for the mortals who invoke her name”.

The collection of handmade jewellery focuses on the idea of re-use, adaption and transformation.  This is undoubtedly apparent in the pieces, though the materials used do recognizably retain some of their original form.  In a haphazard fashion, they are fused together with a variety of beautiful, even broken additions that transform and lift the design.

Maria Zureta designs are displayed weekly at Spitalfields Sunday Market, East London.

The website is coming soon. However, in the mean time you can follow Roberto’s work on Facebook.

Nicole Akong

Sometimes talent just needs its big break, and Nicole got just that in 2008 when she took her first jewellery-making course, which attracted much attention and encouraged her to launch her own jewellery label this year: Akong London.

Nicole always pays extreme attention to detail, and she hand-makes jewellery pieces that will turn heads. In fact, her designs caught the attention of International Jewellery London and she was named as a Kickstarter 2010.

Her work includes bright selections of colourful gems, sparkling crystals, glass, beads and feathers that are beautifully integrated with layers of gold and silver chain to create attention-grabbing statement pieces.  An outfit can be transformed in an instance with one of these bright, beaded beauties!

You can find more examples of Nicole’s work on her website.

Some people say that there’s no such thing as originality any more; but where jewellery is concerned, we beg to differ. There is still enormous creative potential to be released and these up and coming designers are prime examples of innovation.   For all those jewellery-lovers out there, we hope you enjoyed our selection of budding designer talent!