Arriving at Heathrow, passengers making the long march from aircraft door to immigration often find themselves cheered on by blown-up photographs of “typical” Londoners: a beefeater, a member of the constabulary, a town crier and – I would like to say but am not entirely sure if my memory is tricking me – pearly kings and queens. It is the sort of thing that has one furling one’s umbrella, adjusting one’s bowler hat and humming the opening bars of “Maybe It’s Because I’m A Londoner”.
The walls of Heathrow are a glorious kaleidoscope of stereotypes. There is, however, a serious lacuna in this line-up: there is no picture of jeweller Stephen Webster. It is a monumental omission. Energetic and slightly wizened, Webster looks like a blend of 75 per cent Marc Bolan, 25 per cent Keith Richards. Descriptions of him inevitably mention rock’n’roll (“the man who puts the rocks into rock’n’roll”) and he is as unchanging as any London landmark and deserves to be added to the register of official national treasures.
Webster’s cheerful irreverence and his lively self-effacing sales patter (missing consonants and all) is the same, unchanged since 1976 when he became an art student and punk rocker after growing up in Gravesend during the Sixties.
Rather like Richards, he has become one of those rock’n’roll figures who has been adopted by the establishment. I was not at all surprised to run into him earlier this year at a black-tie banquet to benefit the Queen Elizabeth Scholarship Trust and it seems only natural that last summer he opened a shop in Harrods. It was supposed to be a pop-up, but a year on and it’s still there. You won’t find him cosying up to the big-name Bond Street bling in the fabulous but rather sepulchral Harrods jewellery department (one of the many wonders of our nation’s capital), but in the basement, next to the menswear, where his space is dominated by a striking mural by D*Face.
Webster may be pushing 60, but he still looks, behaves and sounds young. His charm is irresistible and works on everyone. Whether you happen to be Warren Buffett, Madonna or Blondey McCoy, the culturally multivalent skater, artist and Burberry model, you’ll know Webster, feature in one of his anecdotes and, as in McCoy’s case, might even find yourself collaborating with him.
The Webster-McCoy collaboration, named after the skater’s own streetwear brand, Thames, looks spontaneous, uncontrived, enjoyable. As a ring wearer myself I would be happy with the Thames TV ring, which features a citrine the size of a sugar lump, on my finger. Although it’s very “street” and Supreme-friendly, it is still a clever piece of jewellery. The setting for the citrine spells out the words “Thames” and “TV”, permitting light to enter the stone and bring it alive on the hand.
Indeed, it’s hard not think that at times Webster is auditioning for a Welcome To London poster, as the city is one of his favourite inspirations. Still, the designer’s real gift lies is the way he perceives familiar objects. Years ago he told me he had made a placebo cigarette in 18k gold with a fire opal at the tip for a client who was not allowed to smoke at the gym; with Mark Hix he designed a lamb chop pendant; there is a smoking-gun tie clip and now one of his bestsellers is a pendant featuring a miniature, functioning cutthroat razor. Just as Warhol took soup tins and turned them into art, so Webster has done with his work, transforming the most mundane of articles into jewellery, so as well as seeing him as the rock’n’roll jeweller, I also like to view Webster as a pop art jeweller.
Read more:
Introducing the brand redefining luxury leather goods
