London

Kirt Holmes designs jewellery with a timeless quality

The contemporary jewellery designer
Kirt Holmes

Perched high on a swivel chair and staring intently at the necklace she’s creating, jewellery designer Kirt Holmes is deftly wielding not one but two pairs of pliers. ‘It’s a bit “Edward Scissorhands”,’ she says. ‘Your tools become an extension of yourself so you learn how to achieve things effortlessly with them.’

It also takes years of practice: 34-year-old Holmes has been preparing for this career since she was a tot. She grew up in Yorkshire but remembers many happy trips down to London as a child: ‘My mum would always take me to the Bead Shop. I absolutely loved that place. I can’t really remember a time when I didn’t make jewellery and intricate crafty things.’ Feature continues

Later, she took a BTEC in jewellery design: ‘I’m so glad I did that because it wasn’t design-led – it taught me really traditional techniques; repetitively taught me too.'

After that came a degree at Middlesex University, where the emphasis was very different. ‘At college they had that really ’70s idea of challenging the establishment – you know, all that “Can you pin a teabag to your front and call it jewellery?” stuff,’ she explains. ‘It eventually led me to challenge them because it seemed to me that they were the establishment. Which is why I went down the fashion route, really; I was sick of having to justify everything. I thought: I want to make pretty things.’

That’s not to say Holmes’ work is frivolous. Far from being a slave to the latest trends, she views her jewellery as an investment for the wearer. ‘The unifying factor with all my jewellery is that it has an almost timeless quality, and quite a depth – it could almost have belonged to your grandma. I want it to look like it has a story behind it.’

Her ideas flow thick and fast when she’s not too stressed running the business side of things. While she prefers to make in rough (rather than sketch) her ideas, sometimes she has to record them on paper so they’re not forgotten.

Because her work – characterised by layers, a darker, subtler oxidised silver and, of course, beads – doesn’t date, she has built up a loyal fanbase who stock up when they can. In the jewellery world, she is now well known in Hong Kong and America, where she is stocked in the
Co-op boutique of Barneys, the department store currently expanding across the States at a rate of knots. ‘I’m always surprised by my following. A woman from Hong Kong came in last week and went round the shop saying “I’ve got that, and that, and that” and then spent £1,000 without even thinking about it. I never thought I’d have fans like that.’

She used to work from home, which was ‘crazy’ and isolating for a single mum with a young child. The idea of a shop meant more contact with people. She shares the space – a studio in a light-filled basement and the shop floor above – with fellow college graduate Lesley Vik Waddell.

Holmes never used to remember to wear jewellery but now feels she ‘has a responsibility’ to show off her own creations. But you’re still more likely to find her down in the studio rather than in the shop, armed with her pliers. She says, ‘It’s always been about the jewellery, rather than having my own shop. I want people to buy something that they know they look good in and that people compliment them for. That’s a success.’

Jewel, 16 Camden Passage, N1 (020 7226 2065) Angel tube. Open Tue-Fri 11am-6pm, Sat 10am-6pm, Sun 11am-4pm.

Nicky Bush at Rigby & Peller - best in the bespoke lingerie business

The old-school corsetière
Nicky Bush, Rigby & Peller

In a low-ceilinged basement beneath the shop floor, nearly a dozen black-clad Rigby & Peller assistants are either eating their lunch, taking telephone orders or searching for stock items. Among them, tucked away in the furthest corner of the room with her trusty Singer sewing-machine, is 40-year-old Nicky Bush. Along with her colleague Laura Day, Bush is in charge of creating Rigby & Peller’s world-renowned bespoke garments, such as bustiers and bras. With the company’s royal warrant and a history stretching back to 1939,

Rigby & Peller is viewed by many as the best in the bespoke lingerie business. Well-endowed ladies are particularly well catered for.
‘Many of the bras we make are big bras,’ says Bush. ‘We’ve just posted one off to a lady abroad and it was big. We worked out the cup size to be a Q. But I won’t say that’s the biggest because there’ll be something bigger next week.’

Bush has never worked anywhere else. After a year spent at college learning pattern-cutting, she joined Rigby & Peller as a trainee in 1983. Other than time taken out to bring up her children, she’s been there ever since. She learnt the trade for four years before she was considered ready to make her own bespoke items. ‘You can do anything, alteration-wise,’ she says. ‘A lady found this bra, in the old-fashioned style, and brought it in because she wanted exactly the same again.’

At R&P, you pay £45 for your own pattern then from £205 for each personalised bra. That way, loyal customers can order more lingerie even if they live in Australia – and many of them do. It’s not all at the larger end either: the shop’s narrowest measurement around the back is 30 inches but Bush can alter this so that it fits a slip of a girl with a 26-inch bust.

Oddly, much of their time is spent dissuading people from taking up the made-to-measure service. ‘I’d say only one or two out of four people who ring up actually need made-to-measure,’ says Bush, ‘They think they do because they don’t realise how thorough the fitting service upstairs is, as well as the alterations we can do without starting from scratch.’

Those who do go for the Rolls-Royce option can have a lot of input into the type of bra they get. Bush has a folder of material samples stuffed with different laces and satins in a multitude of colour combinations. Most of the lace is bought from where they can get it in small quantities; many suppliers won’t sell unless you want rolls and rolls of the stuff, which would be surplus to R&P’s slow and steady requirements. Most of the contemporary styles – such as large relief flowers in muted pearlescent shades or bold black – come from Switzerland. Lace from Nottingham is more traditional, with smaller, fussy-but-pretty flowers in creams and whites.

‘We can do anything’, says Bush. ‘We can lower the line of the bra because it will be seen under a dress, we can pad a bra out if someone wants more lift or we can just pad one side if the breasts are different sizes.’

Rigby & Peller, 2 Hans Rd, SW3 (020 7225 4765) Knightsbridge tube. Open Mon-Sat 9.30am-6pm, Wed until 7pm.