London's new silver and goldsmiths injecting youngblood into London's jewellery industry

Bleue Burnham Self-taught jewellery designer Bleue Burnham launched his namesake label two years ago and has been turning recycled precious metals into oversized signet rings and gem-encrusted necklaces ever since. Burnham’s favourite material to work with is gold, owing to its sentimental qualities. ​“All the pieces of jewellery I have ever had handed down to me have been gold. I’d love my jewellery to be handed down in the same way,” he explains. ​“That’s not to say that silver jewellery doesn’t get handed down, but because gold is precious and holds its value it’s much more likely to safely make it through the decades.”

Joy BC Artist-goldsmith Joy BC (Joy Bonfield-Colombara) has been enamoured by jewellery since day dot. As a child she was drawn to her incredibly glamorous Italian auntie’s fine jewellery and spent her time sitting under the workbenches of goldsmiths that were friends of her parents ​“watching them make treasure”. Now she’s drawn to the scientific and mythical side of jewellery, becoming known for her intricate pieces hand-carved from rhodium, platinum, gold and silver that reference fractured statues of gods and goddesses. Her current obsession? Ama (female Japanese free divers) and their incredible physical strength. ​“They became famous for finding wild pearls,” she explains. ​“I’m ​‘diving’ into this research about women and the sea and starting my first carvings and colour palettes.” Fun fact: BC made a piece for Lil Wayne while studying at London’s prestigious Royal College of Art – a solid 18-carat gold pendant in the shape of his face, finished with diamond tear

Isabel Bonner Stylist and designer Isabel Bonner’s dramatic pieces are influenced by modernist and biomorphic sculpture, permutational mathematics, architecture and objects. It’s complex stuff, but it all makes sense when you see one of her pieces on, or off, the body. ​“I think it’s important for the final designs to hold their own on the body and as standalone objects, so they give joy to my customer in more than one way,” she explains. ​“That’s always something I keep in mind throughout the process.” Most recently she’s been working with petrified wood: ​“It’s hard in every sense of the word!”

Rebekah Bide Australian-born, London-based artist Rebekah Bide is known for her one-of-a-kind wearable sculptures. Think: a poured aluminium breastplate, oversized heart-shaped lockets etched with love letters and letter pendants suspended from pearl strings. Head to her Instagram account (currently doubling up as a DIY home shopping channel) for proof. The references for her rarities include historical and contemporary sculpture, her grandmother’s collection of Christian Lacroix, the ​“good ​‘bad’ special effects found in graphic Italo-horror or B movies”, David Cronenberg’s 1988 psychological thriller Dead Ringers and costume jewellery worn to ooh-la-la excess.

Ellie Mercer Ellie Mercer is the self-taught master of metal. She makes gold, silver and resin rings that you’ll be gagging to stick your fingers through. She hand-carves each ring at her east London studio before hand-pouring the resin, meaning that every single one of her pieces is unique. ​“What initially excited me about resin is that the possibilities are endless,” Mercer says. (Custom orders have included a resin ring set with weed. Others have gone too far and asked for pills.) But it’s not always plain sailing: ​“That versatile aspect is great, but resin is hard work as it’s super unpredictable; it always reacts slightly different to external factors, especially temperature, so it takes time to get to grips with it.” Thankfully, resin works in mysterious ways.

 

Georgia Kemball Ask designer and co-founder of GUT Magazine Georgia Kemball how she got into jewellery and she’ll cite ​“a lot of YouTube videos. I’ve just learnt as I’ve gone along,” she says. Pick up one of her intricate hand-finished pieces and you’ll know there’s a lot more to it than that. Her newest collection revolves around the idea of things being washed up at sea. ​“I really like the idea of someone walking along the beach and finding an orgy ring,” Kemball says of her gold band made from multiple naked bodies. Elsewhere in her collections you’ll find wax-carved goblins set in silver and gold. ​“I gave one to my friend Olu for his 30th birthday, it went missing that night and then mysteriously reappeared in his birthday cake – a goblin living up to its mischievous reputation.”

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Ellie Mercer: the jeweller blowing up Instagram

 “For me it was never, ​‘Oh, I want to be a jeweller.’ Only because I suppose I didn’t think it was an option,” says the 26-year-old wunderkind whose ring designs have spread like wildfire on Instagram.

Lucien Clarke and Nick Grimshaw (among many others) have proudly shown Mercer’s rings off, much to the envy of their followers who have gone on to flood her DM’s, requesting custom orders. One time, she got over 700 message requests overnight (“I cried”), and it isn’t hard to see why. Each ring is unique and handmade by Mercer, the only constant being that they are gold, silver, and permeated with resin – her signature material.

“I think in jewellery it’s quite hard to have [that] signature, so it’s something I’m quite proud of and really want to keep hold of,” she explains at her studio in east London, moving her hands as she speaks. Two Ellie Mercer rings glisten on her fingers, and they look even better IRL. ​“Being uniform, that’s not my style at all.”

Indeed, Mercer’s journey into jewellery wasn’t linear. She studied illustration in Bristol, but sensing that wasn’t her vocation, used the time to experiment with sculpture as much as the course would allow. After graduating, friend and fashion designer Caitlin Price (who recently opened sustainable boutique 3am Eternal with her sister) asked Mercer to design resin pieces for her SS17 Ibiza themed collection. ​“It was heavy, abstract stuff,” she says. ​“The models wore [the jewellery] to the after-party and it came back in a hundred pieces because it was so fragile. So that was when I realised resin doesn’t work on its own.”

In a bid to master the material, Mercer enrolled on a short jewellery course at Central Saint Martins, where she also learned to work with metal. What began as a personal project gained momentum when her friends started asking her to make rings for them. ​“I was playing around and making stuff with resin for myself. I never thought other people would like that at all. And if you make mistakes, it’s quite a lot of money,” Mercer recalls, recognising the expense and challenge of working with gold, which allows small margin for error.

The appeal of Mercer’s designs has grown organically over the last year, which can be attributed to the spontaneity of her work. She doesn’t draw anything up before making it, and never planned collections. ​“I think the fact that I’m mainly self taught and have never really watched the process is why I’ve made stuff that’s quite different. My main inspiration is from sculptors and architectural stuff rather than fashion.”

Mercer’s own process varies. ​“Resin is the worst thing to work with. You pour it as a liquid and then it has to set, but it’s so dependent on temperature. In the summer it can take a day to set, and in the winter that same thing could take a week.” Heat accelerates curing, the hardening of the material. ​“If you mix a little bit wrong it won’t set at all,” she continues. Mostly, Mercer has been experimenting with casting colour and objects in the tiny resin patches that embellish each ring. One of them was weed: ​“You can cast anything in resin…” she joked on Instagram, but that particular effect has been hard to recreate. 

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