http://www.boatinternational.com | April 2016BOAT LIFE
PHOTOGRAPH: GETTY
“Like the
yachting industry,
jewellery-making
is keeping great
skills alive”As well as creating beautiful jewellery,
Fennell is famous for his silverware, whether
it’s the popular silver Marmite lids and bottle
sleeves or larger creations, like an impressive
hot-air balloon bowl on a plinth.
His love of silver comes from his traditional
training at Edward Barnard & Sons in the
1970s. After art school and putting aside
a desire to be a portrait painter, Fennell
landed a job at the famous silversmiths in
Hatton Garden. “They were one of the great
silversmiths in the world and had been going
for 300 or 400 years. You could have filmed
a Dickens series in there without changing
anything, almost including the pens and
clothes. My daughters laugh when I say
‘when I was first in London we had horses
delivering coal and milk’.
“The workshop was this
amazing place where they were
making things that one had
never really stopped to think
how it was made. Being the
company it was they were doing
things that were steeped in the
17th century, reproductions of
things for the military and
then trophies for everybody.
They made the FA Cup. It
was such fun seeing all this.”
This taught Fennell you
could make anything. It
also instilled in him a huge
respect for craftsmen. His
own have been with him for
years. “It was terribly old-
fashioned in many ways and
full of funny characters. The
interesting thing was that
nobody was more important
than anybody else. The man
who designed the silver sat
with Fred the polisher and Harry the setter.”
Fennell came out of art school in the 1970s,
a fertile time: Peter Blake had designed The
Beatles’ album, pop art was the rage, and there
were a host of creative people in industries
such as advertising, magazines and television.
“The areas in which you could use traditional
skills just expanded out of all recognition from
what it had been in the old days.” And Fennell
was well equipped to take advantage of this.
When he set up shop 34 years ago he was
the first jeweller in London to sell only his owncreations and he used, shock
horror, semi-precious stones.
As he explains: “People really
wanted bright stones then
because it was fun. Suddenly
there were pink tourmalines,
tanzanite and tsavorite, bright
pinks and bright purples, and
the trade was desperate to
stamp them out and the truth
is some of them are rarer than
precious stones.”
Fennell’s keys, crosses, skulls and large,
brightly coloured stones were a breath of
fresh air. He continues to give a modern twist
to traditional items – apostles spoons are
reimagined to feature James Dean and Elvis.
One unique creation is an 18kt yellow gold
and rock crystal Colosseum
ring, a collaboration with the
micro artist Willard Wigan,
who has made a slain 18kt gold
gladiator clad in a loincloth,
measuring an awe-inspiring
1mm high. The ring comes with a
diamond-studded gold pendant
magnifying glass through
which all the exquisite detail
can be seen.
Fennell is working on
a ring in which you see a boat
on the surface and when you
look through the sides you
can see that underwater it’s
a submarine with a couple
of sharks circling.
He clearly relishes
making these wonderful
treasures. “On a sailing
yacht or a motor yacht the
finish is the thing. I’ve never
been on a yacht where the
owner hasn’t at some stage said: ‘You’ve got to
see this mechanism or gizmo.’ It doesn’t come
cheap making a 1mm high perfect rendition
of a gladiator inside a ring that took someone
three months to make, inside a box that took
someone six months and it keeps 12 craftsmen
doing what they do. It’s the same in the yacht
industry; it’s keeping great skills alive. And it’s
ever been thus; the patronage of people who
can afford to indulge in those archaic skills.”
For Fennell the skills may be archaic but
the designs are very much rock’n’roll.Sterling silver
balloon;
chandelier
earrings; gold and
rock crystal
Centurion ring and
magnifying glass/
pendant;
Sub-aqua
ring with boxClose up of the
1mm gladiator;
yacht cufflinks
and model;
Fennell’s studio