About Harriet Kelsall

Harriet Kelsall's CV

Style

Harriet's work is characterised by her own combination of 'classic and contemporary', being particularly interested in reworking traditional ideas in new and interesting ways. The popularity of invisibly set small stones in ring shoulders and around eternity and wedding bands owes much to her and she is well known for her use of coloured stones, particularly unusual shades of sapphires. She is also well known for many of her designs including the ocean inspired fitted wedding and engagment ring sets.

Harriet is a great believer in practical and wearable design and prefers to see simple, unique designs that say much more about the wearer than they do about Harriet and this un-egocentric approach to design is at the very core of Harriet's business.

Career

Harriet was brought up in St Albans in Hertfordshire. Her father is a jeweller and her passion for the craft began at the tender age of 4 years old when she made her first silver and amethyst ring with quite a lot of his help! By her early teens she was making earrings in her free time and selling them on a friend's stall at Covent Garden market.

Coming from a long family line of architects and well known artists was obviously very influential on Harriet who, having achieved excellent grades in school, went on to take a BSc (Hons) in Industrial Design at Brunel University. She achieved a first class degree and the prestigious University Prize for the highest marks that year. She was later to find out that she had achieved the highest marks that the University had ever seen.

Following university Harriet went on to work in the computer and film industry, first with financial systems and then with film editing systems. Throughout this period Harriet was still developing her jewellery skills as she had converted her garden shed into a workshop. Once she had a waiting list of over 30 clients, she realised it was time to take the plunge and so she left her full time job and founded her company in a spare room in the house.

Today, Harriet Kelsall Jewellery Design employs 30 people across two locations - the company's headquarters, workshop and design studio in Hertfordshire and a city centre studio in the heart of Cambridge Today, it is the UK's leading bespoke jewellery design company and is at the forefront of an industry innovation - bringing proper bespoke jewellery design directly to the UK's high streets.

The company have won numerous awards over the years. In 2011, the company was awarded Business Initiative of the Year at the UK Jewellery Awards for the re-design of the Cambridge studio and its innovation in making bespoke jewellery design accessible to everyone.

Also in 2011 Harriet was thrilled to win the Specsavers Everwoman overall 'Woman of the Year' award - an award recognising the most inspiring woman in the retail industry. However, she sees the award as being for the whole company rather than just for her individually as she says the brilliant team all work together with her towards the common goal of being as good as we can be, and being the best bespoke jeweller in the UK.

The company is passionate about ethical jewellery and in February of this year was announced as one of the very first jewellers in the UK to be able to offer Fairtrade gold, the first precious metal to receive Fairtrade certification. Harriet worked closely with the Fairtrade Foundation on helping to achieve Fairtrade status for gold and is proud to be able to offer this as a sustainable and ethical alternative to her customers.

Harriet is also passionate about proper design within the jewellery industry and about encouraging creative start-ups. In her small amount of free time, she is currently working on a design project with UCA students, involved with Doug Richard's School for Creative Start-ups and working on some projects for the Peter Jones Academy encouraging creative entrepreneurs.