The Bite Magazine - Autumn/Winter 2022 - Issue 32

bitejewellery Astley Clarke Cristina Lloyd discovers the delightful Ottima and Pearl collections from award-winning jewellery designer Astley Clarke. A ccording to jewellery designer Bec Astley Clarke, women should always wear jewellery and not wait for special or rare occasions. Since the brand’s aesthetic is about ‘relaxed luxury’, they suggest wearing our favourite blue jeans and a slouchy knit, then adding a diamond pendant or a fabulous gemstone ring to the mix. In this day and age, where more women buy jewellery for them- selves, Astley Clarke celebrates those who come to their stores to treat themselves rather than depend on men. Bec graduated from the University of Edinburgh with an MA in politics and philosophy and worked online and for luxury brands before starting her namesake brand in 2006. She noticed the big luxury brands were slow to adopt online as a selling medium. “I saw a gap in the market for amazingly designed contemporary jewellery.” By 2009, she was selling jewellery designed in-house at her London studio and helped to create the demi-fine jewel- lery category. Inspired by her grandmother’s jewellery, Bec wanted to start a brand that celebrated coloured gemstones. “Women have been conditioned to like diamonds because the big diamond compa- nies have told us we should,” she said. “My grandmother’s en- gagement ring was a sapphire, and in Victorian times, it wasn’t diamonds you got; it was rubies, sapphires and emeralds.” She added Astley Clarke sells 35 varied super-precious coloured gemstones with some rarer than diamonds. In 2008, Astley Clarke received the Retail Jeweller's 'Jewellery Website of the Year' Award and Walpole's 'Best Luxury Brand Online' Award the following year. The jewellery designer was listed in Vanity Fair’s 2010 jewellery power list and awarded Er- nst and Young’s ‘Entrepreneur of the Year’ Award for London and the South. She sat on the board for International Jewellery London and was a judge for the Bright Young Gems initiative. In 2013, Bec was appointed an MBE for services to the jewellery industry. Ottima & Pearl