“In my head, I am still 26, yet I have been in the same workshop 18 years. How could it possibly be that long?” marvels Ming Lampson, who is celebrating 25 years of her Ming brand. “Maybe it’s my inability to think of a time landscape, because when I am working on something, I am quite in the present.”
The private jeweler, who has worked out of her gallery in London’s Notting Hill neighborhood for those 18 years, has never laid out a business plan. “I am very entrepreneurial but never thought of myself as starting a business,” she reflects, as her focus was on making the pieces. She admits to being rebellious, declaring herself “too in the moment” to follow rules.
On the desk in front of her are working drawings for her new collection and an array of colorful jewels twinkling in the sunlight of late summer. Lampson mostly designs one-of-a-kind jewels, but sometimes there are moments when she wants her body of work to be on a theme — such as in her 2016 Oriental Garden collection, which she later renamed Nature; 2020’s Secrets, which took inspiration from stained glass and samurai weapons; and Origins, a 2023 line exploring the earliest forms of jewelry. This autumn marks the appearance of a fresh theme — an ambitious work called 25, featuring 25 extraordinary pieces reflecting three concepts that have been whirling around in her head: “the past, the people, the places.”
Hong Kong to Notting Hill
“The past” represents her early childhood in Hong Kong, and her training in goldsmithing and grading gemstones in India and Sri Lanka; she later studied jewelry-making and silversmithing in London. The designs include a jade bracelet based on a Xian terra-cotta soldier breastplate, and a moon gate ring with a jade cabochon.
“The places” covers the vibrantly colored jewels her neighborhood inspired: Portobello, the Notting Hill Carnival and west London gardens. “The English are just mad gardeners,” she says, revealing a pair of cabochon and faceted fire opal earrings “that look like some weird orange berries” she passes every day on her way to work.
“The people” are her team, some of whom have been with her for 20 years; her gem dealers, now friends, who link her to places around the globe; and her clients. Her designs use twisted and knotted metal to represent how interconnected they all are in her work.
Tradition with a modern edge
Honoring a beautifully colored gemstone is her motivation. “The holy grail is to get the combination of a really magnificent, rare or unusual gemstone that’s set within an innovative design that is technically unusual and accomplished,” she says.
Lampson also likes to push the envelope when it comes to employing technology and artisanship to create her designs, which encompass sculptural and geometric shapes but are always comfortable to wear. She respects classical traditions in design and construction, she says, but her work “also has a kind of rebellious modern edge.” An example is a dahlia ring with bezel-set violet sapphires and Montana blue sapphires forming tremblant petals, which took endless experiments to perfect.
Her goal is to take the collection to America next year, although she has no firm plans yet. A few years ago, she had “a really good show” at the Stephen Russell jewelry store in New York. However, she has never felt the lure of wholesale, because she loves handmaking her pieces.
Still, a challenge from friends prompted her to design a limited edition, available this autumn in a one-month pop-up at London department store Harvey Nichols. The pieces are in yellow gold, black enamel, and diamonds, all based on this year’s Art Deco centenary.
True to her belief, she says there is no point investing in jewelry unless it is really one piece — “not just for the investment, but for the treasure of wearing it, for it being a unique stone.”
Many of her friends warned her that she couldn’t build a business that way. “I know,” Lampson responds, “but I just really believe in it.” That ethos has stood her in good stead for 25 years.
Main image: A selection of gold earrings by Ming. (Ming)
