Garrard: Adorning royalty and the world
High jewellery maison Garrard, which was established in 1735 and holds the honour of being the longest-serving Royal Jeweller to the British throne, debuted their new collection Lotus at the Doha Jewellery and Watches exhibition recently. We sat down with Sara Prentice, Chief Creative Officer of Garrard, to learn more about the brand and its stories….
Garrard is known as the Crown Jeweller of the United Kingdom. How did that come to be?
We’re not actually the Crown Jeweller at the moment, but we were earlier, and we had the title for 163 years, and are the longest owners of the title. In 1843, Queen Victoria, who was on the throne, and Prince Albert decided that they wanted a Crown Jeweller, a position that didn’t exist before then. They appointed Garrard as the very first Crown Jeweller, who would be responsible for the crown jewels.
How did you manage to hold it for so long? And what does it entail?
We had to look after the jewels of the royal family, more accurately, that of the Crown, everything that the crown owns – everything you see in the Tower of London, the royal crowns, the sceptre, and all the other ornamental jewels used in the coronation – and we were responsible for their upkeep. The title of the Crown Jeweller belongs to a person who worked at Garrard. It was not the same person, obviously, for 163 years, but the position was passed down. The role was passed down through generations, through Garrard. It was not necessarily the same family, but you would have the Crown Jeweller who would have an apprentice. When his time came to an end, the apprentice became the Crown Jeweller. It was passed on in that manner until the early 2000s when it was decided that a Crown Jeweller would be appointed every five years; it would be a new person, and they couldn’t belong to the same company – it was a way of sharing the privilege around.
Garrard is known to represent the best of British jewellery craftsmanship; can you elaborate?
There are three things that are really important and distinguishes a jewellery piece as a Garrard creation. It’s our design, our heritage, and our craftsmanship. Our craftsmanship is about the materials we use and the levels of expertise that bring to each piece – almost like watchmaking. Each piece has stones that are hand selected and hand cut. The graduation is hand sorted and they’re all individual; that’s our level of craftsmanship. Our entire Design Team, including myself, have all trained in manufacturing and design. We have a really strong understanding of what can be made and what cannot be. In fact, there’s nothing that cannot be made. There’s always a way around issues. When we go to our craftsman, we not only have a 2-D design, but can also envision it as a 3-D drawing. All of these – the skills of the designers and craftsman, with our years of practical experience make a Garrard piece.
Garrard also designs trophies?
Yes, we’ve done a lot of trophy designs. The earliest trophy that we designed 170 years ago is for the America’s Cup – the oldest perpetual trophy – given for sailing. More recently, we did the Saudi Cup, the biggest prize win in the world. It is an enormous trophy, over a metre high. We do all the Royal Ascots every year; we make the trophies and we’re the official trophy and silverware suppliers for the Royal Ascot.
Historically, royalty such as King George V, Queen Mary, Princess Diana, and Queen Elizabeth II had personal jewellery commissioned from Garrard; why?
I think it’s our longevity. It started in 1735, when Prince Frederick, then Prince of Wales, first bought from us. We’ve got these most amazing ledgers in London, which has the signatures of the Royals, who commissioned our pieces. The earliest royal purchase is a handle for a tea kettle, which is quite humbling, but we were silversmiths originally. We also do customisation of different pieces. Obviously, jewellery has been our staple for a very long time, but we’re still silversmiths and we do trophies and other things.
Even in jewellery, you cater to different price points?
Yes, we have been offering different price points but maintaining the same standards across all our jewellery. Though we’re an old heritage brand, we’ve to think about moving forward. We want to be around for 300 years; in fact, we celebrate 290 years this year. We have to evolve with the time, hence the different price points and the range of products, but it’s still key that whatever we do, it reflects Garrard, our DNA, and who we are.
Is your sales distributed equally worldwide or is there some regions where Garrard is stronger?
The Middle Eastern market is a very strong market for us. We have two very strong collections that are very popular here. That’s our Wings collection and our Albemarle collection; now, we’re launching our new collection Lotus, which hopefully will follow suit.
