The perfect Christmas gift

Jewellery is the best gift for Christmas. Not only will it add some sparkle to your loved ones’ lives, real jewellery will last forever.

For a treasured gift that can be passed down to the next generation, jewellery can’t be beat.

We spoke to Dinny Hall, the Queen of Hoops, about the perfect gift for Christmas.

You would think Dinny Hall’s gift of choice would be hoops, but like Siobhan of Sweet Pea, Dinny is gifting necklaces this year.

“At the moment, my favourite piece of jewellery to gift are my Rose Cut Birthstone necklaces, as they're a really good present price. 

“But it changes, I’m very whimsical.”

Birthstone jewellery is the perfect personalised Christmas present.

“May is emerald and April is diamond. September is sapphire and July's ruby. January is garnet, and February is amethyst, August is peridot.

“I really had to think about how I could make a peridot look as desirable and gorgeous as a diamond. 

“I'm really proud of this collection because we've taken a Victorian technique whereby underneath the stones, I've used coloured lacquer.

“Every single gemstone is a natural garnet, amethyst, aquamarine, diamond, emerald, pearl, ruby, peridot, sapphire, opal, lemon quartz or lemon topaz, and blue topaz.

“December could have been tanzanite, there are different birthstones, but we chose the most universally accepted birthstones.

“They're really, really small and they're really cute, and we put little lab grown diamonds in them.”

The Rose Cut Birthstones are “an affordable present, for this Christmas and all year round, I think.

“I've already given them to various goddaughters.”

Real jewellery is about precious materials that last forever. The Rose Cut Birthstones are made with real gemstones.

“We have coloured lacquer underneath, which is tree lacquer. So it's a natural material and then the lab grown diamonds, so there's a twinkle.

“They're really cute, really sweet, but you can slide them off and put them against anything else.

“There’s a rhodolite garnet with raspberry, an amethyst with lilac underneath.

“The aquamarine has powder blue underneath.

“There's a salt and pepper diamond in there, a real emerald… we've scoured the world to get this emerald.”

Dinny isn’t afraid of sparkle. For her Rose Cut Birthstone necklaces, she uses lab-grown diamonds.

“We do both natural and lab-grown diamonds, but we have a division. Anything that's 9 karats or silver, we'll use lab grown, and keep them very small.

“They have a really beautiful twinkle, and it's understandable when they're lab grown to put them in those pieces.

“But with 18 karats, with our fine rings, we only use natural diamonds. We're really careful about where we source them, they come from Botswana. 

“We'll use real diamonds when we say it's fine jewellery. But we've got this new range, which is 14 karat, and we're using emeralds and rubies in the rings, and we're using lab grown diamonds with them because it's a slightly younger market, and they're all under a certain size, but the rubies are bigger.

“To enhance things, lab grown are great.”