A bit about how Jewellery Lady started.

“Oh so you’re the Jewellery Lady?”
This was a sentence I often heard when being introduced to people... hence the name for my business.

18 Years ago, while living in London, my husband and I had the opportunity to visit a friend in Mexico.  He asked what we’d be interested in seeing so he could show us around and one of the things we were interested in was hand painted tiles. Luckily for us, this was a local speciality so we visited a little factory where we were able to choose a design based on some hand painted plates. The artists converted our chosen design into some beautiful tiles for "one day" when we could use them somewhere... This somewhere ended up being the kitchen of a quaint little Art Deco beach house in Hermanus, South Africa... Click here to see some pictures!

Another outing he suggested, was a day trip to a town in the mountains in County Guerrero where they mine and manufacture beautiful sterling silver jewellery. We spent a day admiring all the beautiful wares created by Taxco’s local silversmiths. I was lucky enough that my husband bought me a birthday present and we also shopped for gifts for friends and family. All gifts were so well received that we thought: maybe there's an opportunity here... so we went back 5 weeks later for the sole purpose of buying silver, and the business grew from there!

I’ve built strong relationships with my handful of suppliers over the years, most of them small family-owned businesses.  Once a year, we travel back to Mexico to hand-pick new, unusual & beautiful items, along with replenishing my stock of some old favourites, like the Birthday Bracelet that was the seedling from which the whole business grew.  To this day, the Birthday Bracelet is my best selling item and one of a very few pieces I’ve stocked all these years.  It sells out every year!

The most recent additions to my collection are the incredibly colourful hand-woven Saltillo Rugs.  Every time I visit Mexico, I see so many beautiful items available for the home so I will hopefully branch out into more items “para la casa” (for the home) in future. 

People often remark: You must have SO much jewellery – how do you choose what to buy?  My answer: I wouldn’t wear everything I buy, but I never buy anything that I genuinely don’t like.  I enjoy getting to know my customer base and anticipating what customers might like.  I often have a specific customer in mind when I select a certain item and love when that customer then sees the piece and falls in love with it.  I’m not always right of course, but my strike rate is pretty good, I think!  To me, that personal touch and the investment I make of my own time to carefully select my pieces are what makes my collection different.

In 2015 I relocated my business from London back to the lovely Cape Town where I grew up. I’m enjoying establishing my brand and building my customer base in South Africa, while continuing to provide jewellery to loyal customers in the United Kingdom with any lift I can get!

I hope you like the story of how my business came to be and that you'll grow to love Jewellery Lady as much as I do...