Pippa's Gold Origin Story

I wanted to share the story of how I fell in love with gold. I started working with gold nearly thirty years ago, particularly because I was starting to work in India, and there’s a strong tradition there of working with high karat gold. Once you work with 18, 22, or 24 karat gold, it’s really hard to come back because there’s something so seductive and beautiful about pure gold and its qualities - this kind of incredible softness, warmth, and gentle colour.  I choose a lower polish because I feel it allows an unearthed, ancient feeling to the gold, rather than a high polish, which perhaps makes it shout a little more.

 It took me to visit gold mines, and the rivers where women are panning the gold, to really understand that gold is from the earth, it’s mined and panned as tiny fragments of gold dust and nuggets that are then refined and melted into sheets: it’s the transformation at the hands of the artisans that is incredible to see. Gold is a material that has been used for thousands of years, we are constantly recycling it: melting, loving, treasuring, melting again, recreating and recycling it – all the time. It’s a material that is elastic like that; it never goes away, always in circulation.  

Our Colombian pieces are made from clean, eco-gold panned from the rivers of the Choco Jungle, which makes them extra special. In Myanmar, the artisans work in 21kt gold, which is just something they prefer. I love that you can engrave, etch, hammer, create flowers – you can do anything with gold, it’s a magical material.