This London-based jeweler, who has designed more than 300 charms, is empowering her clients to tell their stories through personalized trinkets.
If charm jewelry is ubiquitous these days, it was always a core item for Annoushka Ducas, who has been collecting tiny trinkets since childhood. For the self-taught designer, the dangling pieces are a way to tell the wearer’s story, through sentimental, playful and evocative motifs. A few years after selling her highly successful business, Links of London, which specialized in affordable sterling silver items, Ducas launched her fine-jewelry brand Annoushka. Ten years later, her dedication to charms is as strong as ever with the introduction of a bespoke service through which her clients can design their jewelry based on their personal story, called My Life In Seven Charms. This is also the title of her new podcast, in which celebrity guests share their memories, which are reimagined as treasurable objects.
When did you discover the power of charm jewelry?
My mother and I used to travel a lot, and when she would go away on her own, she would always bring me back a little charm as a token of the places she had been to. Each treasure holds its own narrative, reminding me of every adventure and memory together.
How have your charms evolved since you launched Links of London?
At Annoushka, we use 18-karat gold and gemstones, whereas at Links everything was made in silver. To work in solid gold is a huge pleasure and privilege, not just because of its material worth, but due to its connection to history, spanning millennia. It also has a real warmth to it. When aged it has a patina and in time it molds to the skin, becoming part of the wearer. Gold in 18-karat particularly has the perfect temperament for my designs; its softness means it is highly manipulative and the malleability allows me to create minute detail and innovativeness where you least expect it. If a charm can spin and move, it should!
How does your enthusiasm for gardens and nature inform your creations?
Nature has always played a big part in my design, because it’s endlessly inspiring — when you look closely at a seed, or a petal or a beetle, the detail is always so exquisite, and I adore retaining that level of intricacy in my work. My garden in West Sussex has been a real work in progress since we moved in 25 years ago — it’s my sanctuary and it evolves with the seasons. I visited a remarkable topiary farm in Nantes in the South of France and brought back a couple of large trees to punctuate the garden. The collection I launched last March, Garden Party, is inspired by the graphic lines and negative space which makes topiary so fantastic.
What did your Russian heritage bring to your collections?
Touch Wood encapsulates the memories I have of Russia; it’s a reminder of what my mother taught me about my Russian heritage and the times we spent traveling together there when I was a little girl. The collection was first inspired by a ring I remember her wearing. It was a large carved ebony piece by Van Cleef. I loved the idea that you can carry a piece of wood with you, a talisman worn directly on the skin. As such, all of the pieces in the collection have an insert of polished ebony hidden within, set flush to the surface. This will always be one of my favorite collections — it sums up the magic and Gothicism of Russian architecture, while also feeling delicate and feminine.
What pieces do you consider as your most iconic?
Charms are a constant for me and something I’ve collected since I was little and have been designing for 30 years — I think I designed roughly 200 for Links of London and now over 100 charms for Annoushka. Each charm is the most perfect miniaturization of a moment, or feeling or sentiment — like a tiny little story immortalized forever and passed on to generations to come. I’ve just launched a bespoke service called My Life In Seven Charms, whereby I will design a client’s life through seven entirely bespoke charms. It comes in a beautiful bound jewelry box designed to open like a book, with an accompanying scrapbook of your life with tokens and illustrations — I call it an 18-karat gold biography.
How did you cope with Covid-19, and what good came out of the crisis?
It was a difficult time as our business has many bricks-and-mortar stores across the UK and China, which shut overnight. That said, the team were incredible and together we pivoted the business to really drive through online and our social channels. At the beginning of the year, I was far from tech savvy, but with little choice we launched IG Lives, ran an online book club, and I took part in many online panels and events. We launched our “Charm of Hope” competition [participants were invited to design a meaningful charm] which had an incredible 1.000 entries, which totally blew us all away. It’s given us all huge confidence to really nurture this side of the business and for me to really embrace technology.
From your international perspective, how do you see the tastes of consumers of fine jewelry changing?
There’s an overall shift to buy less [but] better as customers seek to buy more consciously. In recent years, the fine-jewelry market has been flooded with demi-fine, and brands are using brass and other base metals, plated in gold and charging the same as solid-gold jewelry, and I think consumers are looking more closely at this. Ultimately, solid gold is a more conscious purchase than plated gold, which wears in time, requiring replating, and often uses very toxic chemicals through the plating technique. We’re really trying to inform our audience about this, and encourage them to dismiss passing trends and buy jewelry which they can cherish and pass on to future generations.
What is your next collection about?
Excitingly, we are launching a full bridal collection this spring. As an extension of the Marguerite collection, it will be fully 18-karat white gold and white diamond. Bridal is something I’ve always been tempted by. Over the years, we’ve taken many commissions for engagement and wedding bands, and our pearls are always popular, but we’ve not had an official collection. For those less traditional brides, our Crown rings are popular and this new collection will complement Crown beautifully.
