How I got interested in ethical Jewellery

I joined the jewellery trade in 2004. I was determined to leave school at 16 and it dawned on me that I needed to find something to do.  I had it in my head that I wanted to be a jeweller, I think it probably had something to do with the bling and hip hop trends of the time.  It seemed like a glamorous, lucrative occupation and I assumed that I would be gods gift to the jewellery trade, quickly gaining celebrity clients, wealth and fame.  

The only thing I knew about the stones I was handling and selling came from was the spiel on the Tanzanite leaflet that accompanied some tanzanite jewellery in the first jewellery shop I worked in.  ‘1000 times rarer than diamonds, only found in one location in the world, mined in the foothills of Mount Kilimanjaro’. It was a nice story for customers.

It wasn’t that long ago but the worlds changed a lot since then. Today you can follow people who spend their lives mining for Tanzanites on Instagram ( I do) but back then, before even myspace, it was a world away.  Add into that, I was a sheltered, middle-ish class 16-year-old trying to maintain friends, make my way in the jewellery industry and with interests as diverse as Football Manager, FIFA and both watching and playing football, I wasn’t switched on to gemstone sourcing.

The first time it came to my attention was in 2005 as the jewellery industry collectively shat itself ahead of the release of the film ‘Blood diamond’. The Retail Jeweller, a monthly jewellery industry magazine was full of articles about how to answer the questions it was assumed customers would start asking.  As a young person in the trade, I largely swallowed the industry line about the Kimberley process and how the trade in conflict diamonds had been ended. Yes, this was a bad episode in the industries history but was now, thankfully, in the past. Nothing to worry about.

The trade needn’t have worried, I remember being asked just once about ‘blood diamonds’ in the coming months.  

The whole conflict diamond controversy emerged just a few years before I entered the jewellery trade and is fascinating in itself.  If you’re interested in the ins and outs of the whole thing then the book, Blood diamonds by journalist Greg Campbell tells you all you need to know about this sorry episode.  Looking back, I think its telling that the first I knew about the whole thing was when a film was being made. 99% of the jewellery industry couldn’t care less about what was happening until they thought they would be affected.

In 2009 I Ieft the jewellery industry, at the time I was working in a workshop in Hatton Garden, this was in the midst of the financial crisis, things were tough, metal prices were all over the places and work was drying up so as the youngest and least skilled I was the first to go. Add to that I hadn’t progressed at the bench as quickly as I’d hoped, being stuck cleaning up castings, it was something of a relief to go.

I spent the next 3 years running a cosmetics business after getting a loan from the Princess trust and after that had run its course, I spent two years in Australia before returning to the UK and then the jewellery industry in 2014

As cliche as it sounds, I had learnt a lot from the experiences I had had over the previous 5 or so years. Living abroad, running a small business, moving out, relationships, life, and I came back into the jewellery industry with a far more rounded view of the world and willing to question.

One incident, in particular, had affected me. I was travelling back from Australia for Christmas and found myself in Saudi Arabia for a 16-hour layover (the flight was very cheap). Whilst in the airport I saw a woman in hysterics being beaten and manhandled up to a boarding gate by men and airport staff. She was clearly being forced somewhere against her will and her screams and cries echoed around the terminal building. It was a horrifying scene and one I was utterly helpless to stop.

Whilst in Australia I had got it into my head that I wanted to visit Namibia. I had seen an article about Namibian hipsters and I had a taste for adventure.  I’m not sure why the Namibian Hipsters article appealed to me, I’m not into vintage clothes, though these guys did look awesome.

As I had found my way back into the jewellery industry I decided that I could combine my trip