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Innovator in computer-aided jewellery design, David Valle |
Jewellers in the Capital’s crown
Ancient skills are alive and thriving alongside modern techniques in Hatton Garden, as Tom Foot discovers
WINDOW shopping in Hatton Garden should, for the dedicated couple, be a once in a lifetime experience.
Thousands of fleeting visits are made to the famous jewellery quarter, but few will take the time to look behind the sparkling shop-front displays where a forgotten world of skilled craftsmen is thriving against the odds.
There are more than 500 independent jewellery-related businesses, with craftsmen working hunched on stools or concealed in broom-cupboard sized nooks and crannies.
They are part of a huge chain of manufacturers – including designers, makers, mounters, setters, micro-setters, polishers and enamellers – dependent on one another and bound together by trust.
“The process of making a ring can take weeks or sometimes months,” says David Valle, a jewellery designer who came to Hatton Garden after learning his trade in his Spanish homeland. “I don’t think people understand how much work goes into each piece.”
An innovator in computer-aided design, he explains how the ring begins its journey to the shop front with the designer. There work is commissioned, often through word of mouth or after exhibition displays. The designs are sent to the caster, who creates the ring, which is then passed to the mounter, who fixes a mount to the ring, and then on to the setters, who fix tiny jewels to the piece. A polisher is commissioned and the ring ends up in the shop window. Job done.
Mr Valle is one of many young jewellers benefiting from the Langdales workshops project, funded by Camden Council in Hatton Garden.
It is largely thanks to Jewellery Sector Development Manager Fiona McKeith, who successfully lobbied for changes in planning rules that have helped revitalise Hatton Garden. All new developments in the area must make a contribution to the industry. The financial help has seen business return from the Far East and is now being used to set up fund a series of schemes helping new businesses get started and train young jewellery makers.
Regina Aradesian, an award-winning designer, works in the council-funded workshops.
She said: “The Langdales workshops provide a fantastic atmosphere for new businesses. I can exchange ideas, learn tips and tap into the expertise of other craftspeople in the building.
“My business has expanded by 40 per cent year on year since I started here.”
Also in Hatton Garden is Holts Academy, funded by City Fringe Partnership, which runs courses for 16 student designer makers each year and offers cheap start-up space for new businesses.
Zoe White Edmunds, 30, said: “I’m going to design and make my own jewellery. It would be great to have my own business one day – but until then I’d be happy to sell it to a shop or have it displayed in a gallery.”
At a huge warehouse in Cockpit Arts in Northington Street, established jewellery makers can hire a discount space to develop and exhibit their work.
Designers, retailers and specialist craftsmen in Hatton Garden will be opening their doors to the public for the first time on June 13.
It is part of the annual Hatton Garden festival where jewellers will be coming out into the street, showing off their talents. Items from the Cheapside Hoard – the Museum of London’s priceless collection of Elizabethan and Jacobean jewellery – will be on display. It coincides with Coutts London Jewellery Week from June 8.
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