Brixton Jeweller will showcase at the International Jewellery London (IJL)

BY TOBY PORTER
toby@slpmedia.co.uk

A jeweller has beaten off competition from 100 other creatives in her profession by winning the chance to exhibit at the industry’s biggest annual show.

Greek-born Elisavet Messi, who lives and works in Brixton, has won the chance, after a nationwide search, to showcase her jewellery at the International Jewellery London (IJL) in September.

The opportunity, known as Kickstart, will provide a commercial launch-pad for Elisavet’s work, offering exposure to an audience of more than 9,000 – including leading industry experts, buyers and retailers from around the world as well as national and international media.

Elisavet was chosen from more than 100 talented jewellers from around the UK. Elisavet designed her first piece of jewellery when she was 12 years old.

She later came to the UK and took a degree in Silversmithing, Goldsmithing and Jewellery. As the daughter of a mechanical engineer, Elisavet was always attracted by the technicalities of making things.

This, coupled with her fine art background, meant she was set on a career early.

“I couldn’t imagine myself being anything other than a jeweller,” she said. Elisavet, 27, has recently won the Gold Award of the Worshipful Company of Gold and Silver Wyre Drawers as a part of the Goldsmiths’ craftsmanship and Design Awards.

She is known for her creative and innovative use of wire. She bases her work on what she calls “efficient essentialism” – which plays tribute to the materials used to create minimal designs with sculptural beauty.

These are designed to represent the balance not only between chaos and order but also unusual structures and regular lines and shapes – a balance Elisavet believes is similar to what the wearer of her jewellery has to create in their everyday life.

Elisavet, who teaches at the British Academy of Jewellery in Hatton Garden, said: “I am delighted to have been selected for this opportunity.

This is an amazing opportunity to get my business to the next level. “All my work so far has been exhibited in galleries, rather than shops, so to be recognised in a field that is not really my own is a big step.

“It means I will have to develop towards a more commercial concept. “Normally, I take time to design and make all my pieces by hand. I do not outsource it. I make the tools I use and create bespoke packaging, for example out of oak.

It can take up to a week – that is why galleries have been more suitable until now.

“I love being in Brixton because the music and culture is all over the place 24-7.  And I can have a big place with all the necessary tools. You can’t do that in central London.”