30 years of jewellery

Dinny Hall is a recognisable name all over the world. The eponymous jewellery brand has been worn by everyone who’s anyone – from Sienna Miller to FKA Twigs and Peggy Gou. A quintessentially British brand, Dinny Hall is a masterpiece in how to adapt to the times, appealing to generations of women and always being relevant while staying true to its essence.

The Finematter team went to the Notting Hill store to chat to Dinny about her life, jewellery, and how it all started.

“I was like a little magpie when I was a little girl. I grew up in a village in the countryside and I used to go to jumble sales and pick out bits of jewellery. I liked things that were shiny and colourful and I collected them.

“A very early sign that I might go into the jewellery business was how good my eye was. I picked up a 4p piece at a jumble sale that turned out to be a Cartier brooch with rubies and diamonds in it!

“I remember every piece of jewellery I was given. The first was a little cross that I used to bring up to my mouth and chew. I've still got that cross and it's got bite marks in it.”

Going from jumble sales to building a successful jewellery business didn’t happen overnight. Dinny went to Central Saint Martins to train as a jewellery designer.

“As a little girl, I was really good at drawing very intricate drawings, so I would just be with a pencil the whole time.

“My interest in art and design was clear throughout my childhood and into my teens. That's what I loved to do. And then I did a foundation course and it was there that I picked up a sawblade and cut into metal for the first time.

“I started to think I would maybe be a sculptor, but then I realised I really didn't like doing really big things, so I started making small sculptures. But I wasn't really a conceptual artist. It wasn't about the concept, it was about making beautiful things that you could wear.

“I was very interested in fashion, so I applied to Saint Martins to do the jewellery course. I got in and that's where I cut my teeth.

“I got a degree in jewellery design. Next year, it will be 40 years since I graduated. And at my degree show, the department store Liberty came in and bought my whole collection.

“I had this sort of kickstart to my career really young, before I even had a workshop or anything. I gained a lot of confidence to stick my neck out and think, OK, I'm going to be a jewellery designer.

“I haven't really looked back except that it hasn't been an easy ride all the time.”

With early interest from Liberty London, a recently graduated Dinny had to get scrappy. With no workshop to call her own, she relied on the support of her tutor at Central Saint Martins.

“I had to borrow a tutor’s workbench. He said you can borrow my studio’s workbench to make the collection for Liberty. I sat there from 9 in the morning to 10 at night, making the collection by myself, on my own, polishing and everything like that.”

Today, Dinny Hall is a brand with five stores in London and the kind of success most young designers can only dream of, but Dinny says she doesn’t know how she did.

“I don't know how I did it. I mean, there's still some things that I made personally knocking around in drawers all over the place. And I think you have to be, I mean, there's a word that describes it, which is absolutely dogged.

“It's the same sort of spirit that fashion designers have, you just have to be prepared to work all night and do what it takes. It’s about really wanting it.

“The designs were very different back then, much more fashion. And then I did catwalk shows for designers.” 

From 1984, Dinny had a workshop in Soho, and then she opened her first store, in Notting Hill, in 1992. “I managed to find a workshop, which I think was just luck. I shared it with a fashion designer, a milliner, and another jewellery designer. We had a little set up and so we used to have shows, and parties, of course.”

From her Soho workshop, Dinny “wholesaled all over the world”. The Dinny Hall brand we now know, with London stores and a clear identity, came about with the birth of the jeweller’s son.

“I was a single mother and there’s a moment when life and work collide. At that point I couldn't, and didn't, want to continue doing the shows all over the world. 

“I used to show in Tokyo and in New York, I had agents in Japan and America. I wholesaled in some of the best stores in the world then. But when my son Lorcan was born, I scaled it right back and decided just to keep it to retail and that's, I suppose, from 1996 onward.

“That's when who we are now began to take form. We're retail jewellery designers.”

A retail jeweller is who Dinny Hall is, but she’s also a London jeweller. All her stores are in the capital, which is by design.

“I know London really, really well. Notting Hill was the coolest place in London at the time, so this is why this was my first store. It was a no brainer to find somewhere here.

“And then I moved to Hoxton because I wanted to go somewhere else that was cool, so I opened a shop in Islington, which then serviced the Hoxton area, before the rise of all the wonderful shops that are there now.

“We decided we wanted to be in key London villages. So that we could be the sort of local designer atelier that had a span of jewellery that ranged from silver right way through to 18 karats. We really have quite a wide price range and I suppose we started to consider ourselves as a lifestyle brand, that’s when it became “we”, not “me”.

Designing for a wide range of people demanded that Dinny Hall, the brand, evolve. “I think many designers design for themselves and their peers. So when you're in your 20s, you design for that lifestyle.”

No longer in her 20s, Dinny still designs and sketches. However, the jewellery brand is evolving, and Dinny “finally found a young designer who I'm training up”.  

“I'm aware that I'm getting older, and I also live in Norfolk. We want to evolve with the times. I'm handing over some of the ideas behind the jewellery to a new young woman. She's 37 and she lives in Norfolk, which is incredible.

“Her first collection is coming out in January. It was meant to be. I think it could be very exciting.”