DOING THE WORK I LOVE: JACQUI LARSSON, JEWELLERY DESIGNER
Great jewellery can make a powerful statement. What if you had a piece made specially for you or for someone you love? Making the leap from a career as a Chartered Accountant, Jacqui Larsson has carved out a niche in bespoke and very personal jewellery.
What gives you the biggest buzz about your work?
Seeing a client wearing my jewellery is thrilling. Particularly when it’s a bespoke piece that we have collaborated on together. Clients who work with me are typically celebrating something extraordinary in their lives. It’s an intimate process. Being invited to help create something tangible and enduring which inevitably becomes an heirloom is always significant and memorable. It is a joyful, uplifting experience.
I invest a lot of time in the preliminary stages of a commission really getting to know the client. Obviously, part of these discussions involve jewellery, but not exclusively. I pay careful attention to the words they use. It can be very telling.
Ultimately, I distil and identify each client’s individual style to build a very personal profile, so their jewellery reflects and conveys a sense of themselves.
I found my voice through jewellery and my role is to help my clients find theirs. The dream is working with a client would rather define themselves by creating something personal and unique than following the crowd.
How did you get to this point in your career?
A Chartered Accountant in Melbourne, Hong Kong and then London, after having my two sons, I took a career break in my late 30s. I was yearning for an intellectual challenge.
Meeting a couple of people who were trained gemmologists, the thought of creating jewellery really excited me, and I began to study by correspondence with the Gemmological Association of Great Britain. For the first time in my life study was a joy rather than a chore, although with two young children at home I had to be super organised to do it.
Doing an unpaid internship with De Beers was life-changing. It was utterly thrilling to get one of the limited number of places. I sorted rough and polished diamonds, studied the diamond pipeline, and spoke to tutors from Namibia and Botswana about how natural diamonds are essential to their communities. I was older than the other three candidates but we had varied and different backgrounds and I loved working with people of all ages.
I had embarked on gemmological study because I was obsessed about gems and jewellery – it was not because I had a long-term vocational strategy. But it naturally morphed into a thriving business. First in London, and soon after in Amsterdam.
Returning to the UK five years later, evolving my business to an e-commerce website has been an enormous learning curve, and there were times when I questioned whether it was worth it. It would have been so much easier to simply apply for a job somewhere else. But I just couldn’t. This is what I am meant to do.
Was there a trigger moment that made you move into your current niche?
It was a slow burn rather than a single moment. It began simply – helping people solve their jewellery problems and building a solid base of knowledge, experience and expertise. I will be forever grateful to my friend Helen who asked me to design and craft a ring for her 10th wedding anniversary. That’s when it all officially started – my first piece of bespoke jewellery in 2006.
I found my voice through jewellery and my role is to help my clients find theirs
Typically, what do your clients want?
The vast majority of what I create are rings. Always visible, rings are one of the few pieces of jewellery that can be admired and appreciated by the wearer whilst being worn. Arguably the most communicative piece of jewellery, rings speak volumes about your personality.
When I work with men who are about to propose and want to commission an engagement ring, they are not just looking for design support, they need guidance in navigating what can be a complicated process.
Tell us about memorable ways you have helped people…
I was approached by a charismatic client who had experienced unexpected hearing loss following surgery. This led to a period of intense personal crisis, largely due to her reservations about wearing a hearing aid. After finally overcoming her resistance and embracing the aids, the quality of her life improved immeasurably.
This experience inspired her to challenge pre-conceived notions of hearing loss, hearing aids, beauty – and by extension, the role played by jewellery in achieving this goal. She wanted a striking piece of jewellery to help her do this. I proposed a gold, ruby and diamond snake ear clip which would weave its way around her ear, terminating just outside the ear canal. It would appear as a benevolent protective symbol – a guardian.
Snakes cannot hear and have to rely on their other senses to make sense of the world. It seemed a poetic symbol to represent her personal struggle, and this particularly resonated with her. The commission was the epitome of the bespoke jewellery process.
The diamond snake ear clip (and an actual snake!)
What advice would you give to anyone interested in a career like yours?
Know your stuff! Do the hard yards to ensure that you’re outstanding at your craft.
Build a strong network. Invest in other business owners you respect who have a similar target market and ethos to you. Genuinely support each other. It is a natural, organic way to softly cross-pollinate relevant audiences, and you’ll be able to recommend them with a pure heart.
Have a curious mind and be willing to engage in continuous learning to ensure that your skills are up to date and relevant.
What has been your career high point?
Being awarded the Deeks Diamond Prize was particularly rewarding as I was the mum of two very young children at the time. I am also a Board Member of the London Diamond Bourse. But probably the career high point was being shortlisted as a finalist in the Best Business Women Awards in 2020 while the pandemic was raging.
What is your superpower?
I can distil the essence of someone into a piece of jewellery.
Do you have any other strings to your bow?
Apart from doing independent jewellery valuations for insurance, probate, division of assets and private sale, I also host immersive Diamond and Jewellery Masterclasses as hospitality events. The events are fun and practical and completely hands-on. I take participants from zero to (almost) diamond hero in under two hours. The masterclasses are not just an event but an experience.
Jacqui Larsson Fine Jewellery
Instagram: @jacquilarssonjewellery
Have you carved out your own niche? Do you have a great career change story to share? We’d love to hear from you. Get in touch at hello@audreyonline.co.uk