An invitation from Victoria Buckley Jewellery and Leona Edmiston

 

 We would love to see you instore next Thursday evening to enjoy a glass of champagne and discounts on a selection of pieces. Our neighbour Leona Edmiston will be launching their new Spring Summer collection, and are offering a $50 discount voucher on the evening. RSVP's to strand@leonaedmiston.com are required by Tuesday 3rd August.

These are the last couple of days for voting for us as in The Sydney Business Awards- we are now in the top ten!
Please spare a few seconds to vote for us at

http://www.sydneybusinessawards.com.au

See what's new by visiting us at

Victoria Buckley Jewellery on Facebook

new diamond ring just made in our Sydney boutique

We just completed this diamond ring commissioned by a lovely lady who wanted something to celebrate the birth of her two children. It is hand engraved with their names, with tiny diamonds interspersed between the letters. She said she was delighted with the end result, and doesn't mind sharing it with the world :-)

Victoria Buckley Jewellery Business Award Nomination

We are delighted to announce that we have just been nominated for the City of Sydney Business Awards 2010

Voting has already been in place for a couple of weeks, so we have a bit of catching up to do, so spread the word, and please vote for us at

http://www.sydneybusinessawards.com.au/sba/search/?SearchChar=V

Thank you :-)

Victoria Buckley Jewellery makes International headlines with our Ophelia Collection

Our images below have raised a storm of attention around the world following their removal from Facebook. Beginning on Victoria's Futurist husband Ross Dawson's blog , the story was quickly picked up by the Sydney Morning Herald, making international headlines in dozens of major publications such as Der Spiegel, the London Evening Standard, and as far away as Finland and France.

Lead story on front page of SMH July 5th 2010

As our loyal supporters know, with each collection created, Victoria is inspired by whimsical tales and myths. Our last collection, Spring-Summer 2009 Ophelia Collection was inspired by an untamed Pre-Raphaelite creature commissioned from internationally acclaimed artist Marina Bychkova of Enchanted Doll. Ophelia lives in a tiny enchanted world of beauty, surrounded by treasures of platinum and rose gold. Ophelia has been on exhibit in out Strand Arcade boutique since the launch of this collection six months ago, receiving nothing but praise from visitors.

Curiously, after being on display on our Facebook page for six months, we have just been warned as being in violation of their guidelines, leading to a huge debate about censorship and what is acceptable fine art on this platform. Feel free to add your voice to this debate by joining our
Victoria Buckley Jewellery Facebook Group

Rest assured all this controversy is not distracting us from the real job at hand ; making beautiful jewels. Our new collection is being prepared, ready to launch in a few weeks. In the meantime, we are going to show you some more of The Ophelia Collection below, to put our images of Ophelia in the context intended. This collection features jewels such as delicate diamond bands with hand engraved foliage crafted in the most difficult of precious combinations to master- 18ct rose gold and platinum.

 

If you would like to examine the collection in person, we would be delighted to guide you instore, by email at contact@victoriabuckley.com or by calling 02 9231 5571.

Gold and where it comes from

As a jewellery designer, I am a kind of super-consumer of gold. I produce more jewellery than thousands of women will wear in a lifetime. (cue superfluous shot of my gold jewels..)

With the exception of pearls, everything I make is from gems and precious metals borne of the earth.
 

The gold I use is mined in Australia  and New Zealand, under governmentally supervised conditions (much more so than many mines in poorer countries anyway).

 I have managed to find precious metal suppliers who make their alloys using primarily reclaimed and  recycled gold.  (A small percentage of newly mined gold is still necessary to get the gold up to suitable purity for use in fine jewellery).
My clever husband Ross Dawson has drawn up this nifty diagram of the efficiency of recycling gold vs mining.

You can go to his blog post to read more and see the details. Gold can be reclaimed from all sorts of interesting sources. Gold dust is called lemel, and we take our shop sweeps seriously in this trade. We refine what comes out of our shop vacuum. I know a goldsmith made $15,000 refining the carpet from his old workshop.  My laptop has a small diamond rattling about in the keyboard, but that's another story. One day I'll get you back, my precious.. ;-)

Also on the plus side environmentally, the jewellery I make is designed to last not just a life time, but  many life times. I don't make fashion jewellery. Re-using is even better than recycling .

On an interesting side note,  I was speaking to the CEO of one of the largest metal refining companies about these issues. He told me that under-caratage of gold is a significant problem in Australia.  A lot of  unethical jewellers are keeping their prices low by keeping their gold carats lower than legally required. They get away with it because, unlike England, we don't have an independent body testing the purity of gold.

This has been an issue the Gold and Silversmiths Guild of Australia has been aware of for at least
20 years.  I am a proud member of this band of passsionate craftspeople, and believe strongly in its code of practice. To quote from the Guilds' website-
"The Guild is the only professional organization in Australia with a traditional and comprehensive system of marking precious metal items.

Guild Members' names and marks are permanently recorded, they abide by set standards of material, their work is clearly identified as genuinely made in Australia. "