Jewelry Houses Celebrate Scotland

Scotland is a land that speaks of history, royalty, and a rich iconography that includes thistles, tartans, muted palettes of greens and violets, and the sgian dubh ceremonial knife.

Luxury brands from Dior to Chanel have recently chosen elements of Scotland as inspiration or as an evocative backdrop for their storytelling. In June, Dior hosted its lavish Cruise 2025 show on the grounds of the country’s 15th-century Drummond Castle, featuring apparel in fabrics such as Harris tweed, tartan and velvet. Meanwhile, Italian brand Loro Piana chose Inveraray Castle, home of the 13th  duke of Argyll, as the location for its fall 2024 ad campaign. 

Chanel’s relationship with Scotland is a longstanding one, given that the tweed jacket — a fabric named after Scotland’s River Tweed — is as integral to the brand as quilted bags or pumps with a contrasting toe. Coco Chanel’s fascination with the knobby woven fabric is also the inspiration behind the Tweed de Chanel high-jewelry offering from Patrice Leguéreau, director of the brand’s Fine Jewelry Creation Studio. The inaugural collection of 45 stunning weave-inspired pieces launched in 2020 and included the Tweed Couture necklace, which has entered the maison’s Patrimoine archival repository. When the collection’s second incarnation came out in 2023, one of the centerpieces was the Tweed Royal necklace, featuring an intricately crafted yellow-gold weave with diamonds, 37 rubies, and a chain trim.

Coming to America

For US retailers eager to jump on this Scottish trend, Aetla — an innovative jewelry boutique in Edinburgh that welcomes US tourists year-round — is a good place to start for research and inspiration. During the Fringe Festival in August, it hosted an exhibition titled “A Celebration of Scottish Jewelry” that championed homegrown talent as well as English designers Ruth Tomlinson and Sian Evans, who create pieces using Scottish agate. Thanks to establishments such as Edinburgh College of Art and the Glasgow School of Art, the country is a hotbed of creativity, fostering inspirational jewelry designers such as Andrew Lamb, Alison Macleod, and Ellis Mhairi Cameron.

Cameron, for her part, is growing her presence stateside. The jeweler regularly displays her one-of-a-kind pieces, mixed-cut settings, and distinctive use of diamond colors at Melee the Show in New York. She has amassed an impressive roster of retailers across the country who stock her jewelry, including New York’s Sedoni Gallery, Esqueleto in both New York and Los Angeles, and Mora in North Carolina. Twist also carries her creations both online and at its boutique in Portland, Oregon, and will soon add them to its Seattle branch.

Most recently, Cameron has been a recipient of bursaries and scholarships to enhance her engraving skills. The results are evident in her latest works, such as the Etch, Fluid and Loch rings, all crafted in Scottish gold.

Royal treatment

The Scottish Gallery in Edinburgh carries the work of Perthshire-based jeweler Malcolm Appleby, including an oval garnet ring that combines his stone-setting and hand-engraving skills. Appleby, who is now in his 80s and received an MBE in 2014 for services to hand-engraving, is probably the most famous Scottish engraver alive. His jewelry and objets d’art are popular at auction. Probably his most famous claims to fame are two collaborations with artist Louis Osman: a gold and diamond model of the moon — presented to the first astronauts to set foot there — and the orb in the 1969 coronet of Charles, Prince of Wales.

The jewelry of Catherine Zoraida, meanwhile, is a favorite of a younger royal: Catherine, princess of Wales. In 2012, the palace contacted Zoraida — an Edinburgh College of Art graduate who was relatively unknown at the time — resulting in the princess wearing her Double Leaf earrings to a dinner with the king of Malaysia. More recently, the princess sported the jeweler’s Fern drop earrings at the Chelsea Flower Show. Both items are available in 18-karat gold.

Agate appreciation

The mining of Scottish gold is currently on hold, which leaves the Scottish agate that Queen Victoria — who made frequent visits to Scotland from 1842 onward — helped popularize. During the 19th century, brooches featuring the grey-banded variety from Montrose or the vibrant orange and red colors of Burn Anne were very much in demand.

Sian Evans has become the modern-day champion of Scottish agate. Her grandfather was born near Glasgow, and his geologist prospector’s kit and some Scottish pebble jewelry — both of which she inherited — helped shape the story of her 2022 Tanis collection. Scottish to the core, the line features 18-karat gold rings with stunning banded agates and jaspers that come from Fife, Montrose, Broughty Ferry, Burn Anne, Campsie Fells, Barras, Ethiebeaton, Tayport and Mull.

“Agates were highly prized precious gemstones in the past, and so they should be,” she says. “It is an amazing stone.”

Through the Scottish Geology Trust, she met geologists who fieldwalk in search of agates and jaspers — a practice that involves methodically crossing recently plowed fields. It was important to her that the line use only collected stones, rather than mined ones, and that she know where the geologists found them so she could accurately report their origins.

“I want to capture a feeling of ancient and modern,” she says of the collection. “Pared-back, exquisite stone forms allow the viewer and wearer to see the stone in all its beauty. The metal parts take a back seat, allowing the patterns and structures of the stones to be inspected and admired.”

Main Image: Loro Piana fall/winter ’24-’25 campaign shoot at Inveraray Castle in Scotland. (Mario Sorrenti/Loro Piana)

This article is from the October-November 2024 issue of Rapaport Magazine. View other articles here.