Inside Jessica McCormack's Mayfair jewellery workshop, where age-old techniques create sumptuous designs
When Duncan Moore was invited for a casual drink at diamond jeweller Jessica McCormack’s new Mayfair-townhouse store four years ago, his first question was, "Where’s your workshop?" The answer, as it turned out, was up to him.
Tasked back then with creating an in-house workshop from scratch to accommodate two full-time craftspeople for the cult jewellery brand’s ever-growing business, Moore is now head of a space that houses six ‘jeweller’s benches’–the traditional workspace for the handcrafting of fine jewellery.
These benches look the same the world over: high wooden desks wrapping around each craftsperson, all sitting with a leather skin over their laps to catch any tiny scraps of metal, dropped tools or – heaven forbid – errant gemstones. The design has barely changed in hundreds of years, which suits the Jessica McCormack brand just fine.
"It’s the traditional techniques that are integral to Jessica’s aesthetic," explains Moore, who, as workshop head, is responsible for turning McCormack’s designs into physical pieces.
He also orders the gold, controls the workflow between benches and various finishers located around London (within a square mile of the store on Carlos Place there are bullion dealers, setters and polishers, all hidden in attic rooms and basement floors) and works closely with McCormack on the creation of each piece.
Beloved by clients worldwide for her melding of antique and contemporary aesthetics, McCormack designs jewellery that straddles multiple eras. "We really have to challenge ourselves from both a technical and design standpoint on each project," says Moore.
Take the new Cable Car collection – named for the diamonds that slide along gold chains like the gondolas seen all over the Alps. "I had a few sleepless nights figuring out how we were going to make that one work," Moore says, laughing.
He compares what they do in the workshop to engineering. "When I walk past a construction site, I do look at the pulleys and levers and start thinking about jewellery clasps." And while some pieces – like the signature Button Back rings with their Georgian-style cut-down setting – may only take a day to make, others are far more labour-intensive.
"The fan-shaped Party Jacket ring took over 100 hours," Moore says, referring to the biggest of McCormack’s ‘Party Jackets’ – rings designed to wrap around another ring, be it a client’s existing diamond solitaire or a whole new one made along with a ‘jacket’.
The collection was inspired by the Georgianera ‘keeper’ ring, originally designed to protect and enhance the more precious ring it guarded. It was exactly this creativity that set Moore on the path to jewellery.
"At art school, one of the lecturers suggested I try jewellery making," he remembers. "My first reaction was that 'jewellery making is for girls!' –I was only 17 – but the next day he brought in a lot of books on antique jewellery, and that’s how it started really."
A course in silversmithing and jewellery design at the Sir John Cass School of Art, Architecture and Design followed, where Moore discovered that he loved working at the bench. After graduation, he spent a year at a local Hampshire jeweller he had started working for in his summer holidays, before being asked to join Shaun Leane’s team in London in 2003.
This was around the time Leane was collaborating with Alexander McQueen, so Moore worked on many of the pieces Leane created for the fashion maestro’s shows. Moore spent nearly 12 years at Shaun Leane – the last eight of them running the workshop – before that fateful cocktail at 7 Carlos Place.
"I had heard of Jessica and seen her work in the press, but I had no idea such a space existed," Moore says of the five-storey Georgian townhouse that serves as the brand’s store, design atelier, workshop and HQ.
Replete with an enviable and ever-changing contemporary art collection, enormous library with an open fire, secret garden overflowing with ferns, objects of curiosity and, of course, the workshop, the space is frequently featured in the world’s top architectural and interior publications – and was designed entirely by McCormack.
"Anyone who isn’t inspired by this place has to be dead," Moore says. "It was actually quite a big shock coming here, but I really wanted to return to the old jewellery techniques I had first fallen in love with. I think the fact that we’re expanding the workshop and teaching our craft to a younger generation speaks volumes about where Jessica wants the business to go. She always refers to the workshop as the beating heart of the house."
And if that’s the case, Moore is undoubtedly the one keeping that beat steady.
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