Five years ago, after a few years of working in the fashion industry, I started a small boutique jewellery brand. I wanted to give women a meaningful jewellery option that made them feel confident and that helped them manifest their best selves. When I watched films from my grandparents' time - Casablanca, Gone with the Wind, Laurence of Arabia - I just loved those stories of romance, travel and history. This was the founding concept behind Carousel Jewels: modern jewellery that takes us back. I looked for small producers who employed artisans - people who learned to make jewellery through tradition, who had generational knowledge. I thought so much about the aesthetics of the past - why do we always return to them? I thought about different stones and their meanings in history - where did those meanings come from, what was their source? I grew a small team of hard working heroes - open-minded friends who held values about ecological and business ethics. I learned from them, and especially, I learned about the technology of moving a brand online - which definitely was never my strong point! We started getting press opportunities in publications like Vogue, The Independent and Grazia. Then our designs were spotted by the costume team at Bridgerton, and our pieces ended up featuring in the Netflix hit show. Through lots of hard work, lots of adventures in many countries across the world... lots of early failures, growth spurts, life learnings, and wonderful moments, Carousel Jewels slowly grew into a viable business. But still, every week, we are evolving and growing... with a beginner's mind, we are always learning. And we are always making new friends on the way - we love when our customers contact us to tell us what we're getting right, and what we're getting wrong. Most of all, we love knowing that more than ten thousand women wear our unique first-edition pieces... and that more than half of our customers love their jewellery so much that they come back for more. There's a lot of hard work in what we do, but there are three simple principles we always come back to: that jewellery should be designed ethically, it should be handcrafted beautifully by artisans, and it should transport us to places of romance and adventure. Yours,
Sally Louise
Founder and designer
