Directors and Dramas

Dinny Hall and girls in Vogue 1997

Ali (top right), Paola in-house photographer (bottom right) and me (gold jacket in the middle)

The extraordinary has at last happened: finally, after all these years, I, at long last, have moved out of the mezzanine level of my Notting Hill flagship which acts as bridge between shop and workshop, into my own little sanctuary of an office.

As you can imagine, packing up one's desk after years and years of long days spent labouring over designs or overseeing production or nosing into the affairs fo the shop, is something of a messy affair. Yet in the reshuffling of papers etc, I stumbled across some photographs of the Dinny Hall team in days gone by. Everyone looking so young and fresh, my son as a small child laughing and making jewellery at the work bench, a glimpse of a once favorite gold top now long lost--and it got me thinking nostalgically.

My son Lorcan aged 2 learning how to make jewellery

So I thought today I would begin introducing you to some of our wonderful team here at Dinny Hall. While you'll eventually meet them all over time, for now I'd like to focus on two specific individuals who are really at the core of the company, our two directors Ali and Teresa, without whose magic business touch, I would never have had the time to start this blog.

Let's start with Ali, because she has been with me since 1988. She came to me by way of master milliner Stephen Jones (OBE), where she was on work experience straight from college. And she has been with Dinny Hall Ltd ever since. Now a director, she is the cog of the clock that keeps our company ticking, never misses a thing. Her focus is a great antidote to my creative soul...which can sometimes lead to drama and distraction. She is also the proud owner of Sena, the fiesty daschund modelling alongside the beautiful Bo in our Christmas campaign.

Teresa joined the company at a crucial time just before the whole world seemed to tumble into financial chaos. A former investment banker with a real corporate background, Teresa seemed to be exactly what we needed to tidy up the rather lax way in which we normally looked after our financial a ffairs. A string of accountants and financial advisors who made little difference to my maverick ways--i.e. my attempts to micro-manage on my own all aspects of the company, from the business to the creative side. Let's just say, when Lehman's when down, we were so fortuitous to have a business mind as keen as Teresa's to guide us through.
So as I find my company on the eve of a milestone anniversary, I also find it, at long last, in a pair of two very different yet equally capable hands. This means, that the control-freak in me has finally been able to calm down a bit, let others shoulder some of the responsibility and refocus my own attentions on creativity.

Let the fun begin (again)!

Dinny Hall annual dinner some years ago! All pictured still part of the family
(left to right) Rachel (creative production), Paola (in house photographer), a glimpse of my teeth in long lost gold top, and my finger pointing at Ali's cleavage where something is lodged

Posh Rags

A still from the film "The White Ribbon" (2009)

Given the nature of my first few posts in this space, I am concerned, readers, that you may see me as fashion fickle. And I now wonder whether there is in fact any actual wisdom in these pearls I've been dropping into your laps. But I promise you that there is more running through my mind than bags and posh rags. I assure you I am now finished with my post-holiday shopping frenzy and will not impart any more retail-related nuggets to you, save for those pertaining to my own wonderful shops.

But just in case you were wondering, the last of my shopping spree was spent at a lovely little shop in Islington called Sefton where I purchased a D&G jacket so well cut that I swear I look size 0 in it. I then crossed London to go see the movie the Road with my soon-to-be fourteen year old son and ex-husband Billy at the Electric Cinema, quite the most comfortable cinema in London.

All three of us, having read the novel, were curious to see how such a bleak yet strangely poetic tale would come to life on the big screen. Great acting to my mind, but having seen even better direction and sublime cinematography recently in the movie the White Ribbon (Michael Haneke), the Road, alas, falls somewhat short. But nonetheless it still resonates and left me, exiting the cinema, in a rather thoughtful mood.

We then went for Chinese in Queensway and the whole evening, with the mood now shifted from the post-holiday exubrance to something slightly more somber, was exacerbated by being clamped by one of those nasty private companies--despite the fact that I had dutifully bought a ticket. Inadvertantly, this ticket had been blown upside down when I closed the door (you know the score) and I found myself having to pay the racketeers £200 in cold cash.

Having finally liberated my front right tire, I made my way home trying to put it out of my mind. On the road, I passed by that very same shop where this morning I had found the D&G size-0-wonder-working jacket, that had put me in such spritely spirits earlier in the day. And lying in the doorway of this posh boutique in the freezing cold was a homeless person, which immediately, if even just for that fleeting second, struck me in the most powerful way.

And then it made thoughts return that evening, which actually may recur to anyone with a conscience who has the luxury to work in a creative field. Sure, fashion cannot save lives, but if you think hard enough about it, perhaps it can. Just this week, Lady Gaga has said that fashion actually did save her life. And the uproar surrounding H&M's careless dumping of unsold garments whilst the homeless, like the man I saw, continue to sleep outside the shops in the cold, proves that fashion really can affect lives, in both a negative and a positive way.

So I got to thinking about how I, as a jewellery designer, fit in into this whole moral conundrum. And the conclusion I arrived to was this: jewellery can bring joy. And by spreading a little joy, we make the world a slightly better place. It's as simple as that.

Bye bye baubles...hello bags

Butters and the Balenciaga

First of all, apologies, dear readers, for starting my blog and then disappearing with the noughties. But you will understand the pressures of Christmas and all it entails. I'm back now and it's a new decade, so I have been thinking creatively about what great new things I can bring into the world.

One old thing I probably shouldn't bring out is my credit card, although it managed to jump out of my wallet today, thanks to a little Balenciaga purse found at Matches just around the corner from my Notting Hill shop. It's not that I'm an impulsive shopper, I'm actually the opposite, and after twenty-five years in the business this year (celebrations sure to come!) and a sale of my own on at the moment, I should know better than anyone about the dangers of markdown mania. I think for months and months about what it is I want and need to complete (what I consider to be) my perfect look, and then I go on the hunt. This, in my expert opinion, is the only way to shop, particularly where fine jewellery is concerned. This little black Balenciaga fitted my long-standing prescription for a small everyday purse to a t. Good thing that thanks to the faces of my holiday campaign, the lovely Bo and Sena with baubles, we had the most successful retail Christmas we've ever seen, especially with the runaway success enjoyed by our concession at Liberty.

So as Bo sulks in dismay at the fact that her fifteen minutes of fame are about to end (posters are coming down and she'll disappear from the website soon enough, the modelling business is sooooo fickle), her little Pomeranian friend Butters has stepped up to the plate (a bijoux dog for a bijoux bag) to enjoy the fruits of Bo’s labours.