A couple of weeks ago, with just a handful of bloggers (check out these gorgeous blogs I Am Not A Celebrity, Fashitect and Who Is Bobb Parris) I was invited to take a peek inside Islington jeweller Stephen Einhorn’s shop and workshop. Not many people know that this is where all the shop’s jewellery gets made…

With a fabulous skull collection, an exquisite range of cool chunky and delicate pieces and customers including Johnny Depp, Kylie Minogue, Charlize Theron among others, Stephen Einhorn has been making jewellery since 1995. A former advertising model-maker (we saw some amazing examples of Stephen’s work, back in the day when everything was done for real), Stephen has also designed for other brands including Paul Smith, A Bathing Ape and Alfred Dunhill. Committed to responsible sourced materials for the jewellery, every part of the jewellery packaging is recycled – it took Stephen two years to source and develop this!

Behind the shop front is the workshop and on our behind-the-scenes tour we got to chat with the jewellery smiths who were still hard at work. We got to check out the drills, peer through an incredibly strong microscope used for placing and fixing the tiniest of stones and watch the smiths at work. I love the age-old use of a leather skin beneath each smith’s station for catching stray gemstones and in this workshop each smith has a bag of marbles to remind them not to ‘lose their marbles’ – love! We also heard some great stories about how they have to have their carpets and floors combed of all the collected gold dust, yes it adds up!

Upstairs, we got a fascinating peek into the design process. Whereas before, new designs would be carved out in wax, now, it’s all done 3D on a huge big screen with a stylus. This means designs can easily be changed and modified, saving time – a wax design that wasn’t right would have to be started from scratch. Stephen showed us an incredibly cool wolf ring he’s working on at the moment, but take a peek at the video below, which describes the process a little better than I have – we also saw an amazing 3D printer machine whizzing away creating moulds.

Before we left, we got to choose a piece of jewellery and I went straight for one of the amazing skull rings – how cool to have one of these as an engagement or wedding ring, which people have done. I’ve never seen skull rings with the bones in the design as well, and it really stands out. I also got to try on the incredible £14,000 flame ring, whew! A big thanks to Stephen Einhorn for such a fascinating and engaging evening!

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I would like to have my boiled eggs in this! | Blogger Toni from Fashitect

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Trying on an oxidised version of this silver bracelet

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One of the cutest little silver charms

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Skull tap heads – amaze (Jonathan Ross has these in his house!)

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2000 year old Thames Wood excavated from the first Roman Port facilities, built circa 63AD, that Stephen uses in some of his designs, like the one above

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Yes, this is the £12,000 flame ring I tried on! 

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