The rock star: Monica Vinader is the £100 million brand that's redefined the way we buy jewellery

Vinader's vision — to bring affordable, beautifully made, fine jewellery to all walks of women — is not just a success story; it’s a relative gold mine
Monica Vinader
Karen Dacre4 December 2018

Diamonds are forever but the way they were marketed in 1947, when De Beers first printed that slogan on its billboards, is an antiquated idea.

Monica Vinader, the designer and co-founder of one of the world’s most influential contemporary jewellery brands, is among those to benefit from the shift. Actually, she’s its pioneer.

“At the heart of what we do is the idea that a woman did not need her husband’s permission to buy jewellery. Women wanted jewellery that was relevant and fun but they wanted to buy it for themselves,” she says.

The result of this idea is a ten-year-old, £100 million-plus business in which Vinader’s early vision — to bring affordable, beautifully made, fine jewellery to all walks of women — is not just a success story; it’s a relative gold mine.

Monica Vinader

The company that Madrid-born Vinader co-founded with her sister Gabriela, who runs the financial side, has stores across the globe — from Dubai to the US — and took £43.2 million of sales in the past financial year alone. Its latest objective is to hit the £200 million mark.

“Now we are in a place where women are self-purchasing and that whole section of the market is better served. The attitude is ‘I’ve just been paid, I can buy myself a diamond ring or diamond pendant.’ It wasn’t when we started. Jewellery either felt too old, too grown up, or it was costume and too cheap.”

We meet at her company’s picturesque HQ in Norfolk, which looks more like a Soho House outpost than any retail head office I’ve ever visited with its floor-to-ceiling windows, carefully curated art and rustic staff kitchen.

Vinader, 48, who grew up in Madrid, attended art school in London and ran a fly-fishing and shooting business in South America with her husband Nick Zoll. They relocated to rural Norfolk 20 years ago and opened a studio.

In Norfolk Vinader began to combine her passion for precious materials with a desire to make jewellery an everyday purchase instead of a fantasy one.

“The stones were integral to what I was doing; how we cut them, their imperfections, their personality. I love the durability. I wanted to create pieces our customers would have forever.”

Monica Vinader

“From the start, I wanted to create an inclusive brand,” she continues. “Everyone appreciates good design, good quality, good taste, good stores, good packaging, good service. We all love that at any price point. That shouldn’t be reserved for one price point. I felt strongly about that.”

As well as being easy on the wallet, the USP of a piece of Monica Vinader is that it must be easy to wear too.

“From work to the school pick-up, or from work to dinner, or from work to the beach, our lives are different now. I believe our jewellery should match that.”

Her vision struck chords across the globe and nowhere more so than in London, the home of the first Monica Vinader store, where the brand has come to mean much more than the sum of its currency of vermeil bracelets and diamond pendant charms: it’s a symbol of friendship, of sisterhood and of a luxury commodity that’s bought for women by women.

This point of view is encapsulated by its iconic friendship bracelets that feature in almost all of the brand’s collections and can be engraved with the mantras, message or symbol of the customer’s choice. Vinader’s dedication to stacking rings, designed to be worn in whatever way the customer chooses, are also a key component of its DNA.

Monica Vinader

“The fact that you can engrave, you can style, you can stack and that we are open to the customer making it their own is key. We’re not prescriptive. We put out beautiful product and let you make it your own.”

Vinader is determined to allow women the opportunity to do it their own way. It’s a commitment that transfers to the workplace, where she believes focusing on the successes of females is the most effective tool with which to combat inequality.

“Of course, there are challenges to being a woman in business. It would be silly to think there were not, but I try not to focus on them. I focus on treating everyone equally, everyone is the same and I’m not turning a blind eye to what goes on out there — but my focus is on what we do.”

Vinader is similarly pragmatic on the topic of working parents.

“I was brought up by a working mum. To me, being a working mum is the norm. My husband thinks it’s the norm, so does my daughter. I worked a few weeks after she was born. It’s all she’s ever known. Me travelling, us juggling.”

Appropriately for a brand that’s built a business on the notion of sisterhood, it’s Vinader’s relationship with her own sister, a former Merrill Lynch and Amazon executive, that is among her greatest achievements.

When the siblings entered business together, the markets were crashing. “We remortgaged the house and took a risk,” she says. “It has paid off.”

“One of my biggest successes is that I’m still working with my sister and we still talk to each other. We have a very good relationship, we’ve have good times and tough times but we are better than ever.”

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