India & The Tibetan Ring

I am very proud to present a short film made by my talented nephews, 17-year-old twins, Art and Theo, who travelled to India with my twins and me last month. I wanted to see India through their eyes as first-time visitors to this extraordinary country and to see the process of seeking and choosing stones and making jewellery.

I have been travelling to India since I was a teenager and it has become my second home, I love it for its magic and madness. The film shows a little of the world I inhabit and the making of a Tibetan gold ring.

We made our way to Jaipur, bundled into Tuk Tuk's in the Rajasthani heat, and began our Indian adventure.

It was wonderful to introduce India to my nephews and all the artisans I work with - Om the stone cutter, Sushil the goldsmith, and everyone else was delighted to meet more of my family. We spent a week racing around on motorbikes, bicycles, Tuk Tuk's, and jeeps getting a feel of the country, from farms outside the city with buffalo and small desert herds of mottled goats, the prettiest palaces, the workshops and gem dealers and gold sellers, the stone markets and narrow bursting lanes of Jahori Bazaar.

We whizzed about with Ramesh the Tuk Tuk driver and managed to design our next collection for fall winter 2018... using old mogul style cut luscious African aquamarine, and rich warm regal Afghan amethyst and Burmese peridot wrapped in warm gold.

I love India for its massive life force, its stunning, still and mesmerising natural world of forests and deserts, the people who inhabit these remote hard places to the cities with their tumbles of buses, cars, elephants, camel carts and zipping rickshaws, the choking pollution and night scent of jasmine that manages to seep through the tangles of city smells, the palaces, tents and shacks that are homes to such a diversity of humanity.