the greek gold collection.

For my second jewellery collection, I went more literal in terms of theme, and less literal in terms of design.

I looked to the master jewellers of the ancient Greek world for inspiration, and decided to see if I could turn their stunning examples of goldsmithing into something modern and fresh and very Plato’s Fire.

I began, as always, with a pile of books.

Greek Gold by Williams & Ogden, published to accompany an exhibition at the British Museum in 1994 (which I desperately wish I could travel back in time to see in person!) became my bible for this collection. It’s filled with full-colour photographs of page after page of the most stunning examples of ancient Greek jewellery - including the all-important close-ups!

I spent hours flicking through these books and sketching out some of my favourite design elements - a bead here, some wirework there, the odd link or chain or clasp or charm - and then moved to museum websites to hunt down these examples and more.

I played around with lots of shapes and designs, cutting them out on paper and holding them up in front of a mirror to see what they might look like.

And I ended up with three main motifs: the teardrop, taken from a seed-shaped necklace charm; the disc, taken from various earring stud designs; and the crescent moon, which began life as an interpretation of the classic boat-shaped earring and transformed into something new when I was assembling the collection samples!

The sampling process was pretty arduous with this collection. I ended up changing colours and types of acrylic entirely, I messed up my design files more than once, and gave myself countless headaches trying to figure out the cut-out elements on the large teardrop and disc pieces.

But I persevered, and got there in the end!

I’m super proud of this collection. It’s less overtly ‘classics’ than my debut Greek Vase collection, but I think that makes it more versatile.

I love the colours: gold, for gold (obviously!); emerald green and royal blue for the traces of green and blue enamel that can still be found on some pieces of ancient jewellery. I love the shine. And I cannot wait for summer to properly arrive because I think these will look STUNNING shimmering in the sunshine!

Shop the full Greek Gold collection here.