LONDON — After tapping the “Absolutely Fabulous” star Joanna Lumley to perform last season, the stakes for the British jewelry designer Anna Jewsbury are high for her upcoming show.
Jewsbury, the creative director of Completedworks, will be staging her sophomore show on Friday as a full-blown theatrical performance, and displaying a wider range of designs. She’ll be showcasing 18 pieces — mostly jewelry — along with homeware and handbags.
“We’ve definitely brought in a few bigger pieces into the collection this time, but the core stories are with the pearl, metal and crystal pieces,” Jewsbury said.
If the English weather permits, the brand will erect a set design that resembles a mirrored labyrinth with monolithic sculptures that the designer calls “much more pared back.”
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Jewsbury’s collaborator Fatima Farheen Mirza has penned a three-act play inspired by the French sculptor Camille Claudel that will be performed by actor Dianna Agron, a model and violinist, and a voice over cameo from Riz Ahmed in London’s Bloomsbury, famous for past residents including Virginia Woolf, Vanessa Bell, Lytton Strachey and the economist John Maynard Keynes.
“I love recreating the energy of a live performance and London Fashion Week is about embracing and creating a moment,” Jewsbury said.
In terms of design, Jewsbury has treated her pieces as though they were playdough. Her new creations include mismatched clusters of pearl drops; grid-shaped cubic zirconias, and recycled silver and brass that have been folded and crinkled. She has also created a handbag shaped like a vase.
“I love the deception of materials, where hard forms look like very soft and supple fabrics,” said Jewsbury, referring to designs such as the wide metal cuffs or crinkly statement earrings.
“We always try to do something quite classical, but with a subversive element or something kind of unfamiliar. If you start from a place of familiarity and take it somewhere new, it can really bring your references into a modern context,” she added.
For fall 2024, Lumley read a monologue written by Mirza. She sat on a bed of silver surrounded by beautifully decorated vases. Next to her was a piece of toast adorned with a pair of earrings.
Jewsbury said that Lumley’s appearance “increased our visibility, and allowed us freedom to explore things like that and for it not to be a complete indulgence.”
The designer said she often gets her ideas when she’s toying with wax or fabrics. She then creates a cast so she can make them from metals and harder materials.
Within the jewelry category, earrings remain the brand’s bestsellers, and the COVID-19 pandemic contributed to that.
“Pearl and metal pieces have done really well for us, too, but right now, there’s a green necklace that we can’t keep in stock. It’s so hard to predict,” Jewsbury said.
Priced at 245 British pounds, her green chalcedony necklace, the color of dark moss, is an antidote to this summer’s Brat green.
Completedworks’ pricing has also made it an appealing brand for customers and stockists. A ceramic and gold plated hair clip starts at 95 pounds, while a pearl and recycled silver necklace costs 1,250 pounds.
The brand is carried by Net-a-porter, 10 Corso Como Seoul, Lane Crawford, Ssense, Harrods, Dover Street Market and more.
Another booming part of her business is the custom fine jewelry arm, which is based at Completedworks’ 2,500-square-foot showroom and office in a former pub in north Marylebone.
“We work on a lot of bespoke engagement rings, and our space has really allowed people to come in for that intimate experience. Sometimes people come in for bridal earrings and then they end up getting wedding rings as they didn’t necessarily know that we do fine jewelry too,” Jewsbury said.
The brand uses gold from recycled electronic waste with diamonds sourced from Antwerp and Canada because of their sustainability and traceability credentials.
“Sometimes customers bring stones from other pieces that they want to upcycle,” Jewsbury said.
The average time it takes for a custom piece ranges from six to eight weeks, with a starting price of 1,200 British pounds and going up to 25,000 pounds.
In the coming months she wants to focus on the brand’s men’s category — a project that she comes back to periodically that features carryover styles from the women’s jewelry.
“Men who buy on our website shop across the categories, so they’re not always necessarily buying from the men’s section,” Jewsbury said.
