Kiki McDonough, who has just been granted a Royal Warrant from Queen Camilla, never considered becoming a jeweler. Even her parents were surprised — and understandably skeptical — about her decision, despite the family’s long history in the business.
More than 40 years later, McDonough can’t imagine doing anything other than working a kaleidoscope of colorful stones into pieces inspired by her many passions, which range from the ballet to Liverpool’s football team to the great outdoors.
She designs jewelry that’s meant to add pops of bright color to an outfit, and be worn every day. Early on she decided to eschew traditional stones — rubies, emeralds and sapphires — and work instead with a colorful palette of citrine, peridot, fire opal and lavender topaz.
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During a walk-through of her new collection, “Night at the Ballet, Act 1: Thorns and Roses,” McDonough was wearing a small diamond snowflake pendant, even though it was the middle of May, and a pair of dangly disc earrings from her Fireworks collection, which is bursting with tiny fire opal, blue topaz, peridot and lavender amethyst stones.
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“I think jewelry should be worn to enhance — not take over — and I also think wearing a lovely pair of earrings should give you a spring in your step when you walk out the door,” McDonough said. She designs her jewelry so that it’s lightweight and easy to wear every day, rather than just on special occasions.
The new Thorns and Roses collection fuses her love of color and the ballet. McDonough, who’s been going to the ballet since she was 4 years old, and whose store near Sloane Square is filled with framed ballet slippers from prima ballerinas, said she finds a lot of inspiration in the colorful costumes and stage sets.
She often takes notes in the margins of her ballet program, planning how she’ll turn the Spring Fairy’s pale blue tutu and green satin top into her next ring, or pair of earrings.
The colors and shapes in the latest collection are based on Tchaikovsky’s “Sleeping Beauty,” with diamond vines curling over vibrant pink or green tourmaline stones, hugging oval amethysts or rubellites shaped like fat teardrops.
Other diamonds have spikier settings resembling thorns. They appear on a green tourmaline Toi et Moi ring and the rubellite pendants of hoop earrings.
The main, colored stones in the collection are flat and faceted around the edges. “I think they’re incredibly pretty, because the facets around the outside push the light into the stones,” she said.
Although McDonough grew up around jewelry, she never trained or expected to go into the business. Her father, Robin Axford, was a fourth-generation jeweler, a world expert in Georgian jewelry and had an antique jewelry house on Bond Street in London. In the early 1980s a friend and antiques dealer suggested that McDonough try her hand at jewelry design.
“I was working as a secretary at the time, and I thought this friend had actually gone mad. I said, ‘What are you talking about? I’m not going to design jewelry.'”
But she faced the challenge, sketched out a heart-shaped rock crystal pendant and put a gold and diamond bow at the top. She found a manufacturer in Birmingham to make her designs, although he was initially doubtful they would sell.
But they did — and today those heart-shaped earrings are part of the V&A jewelry collection. She started the business in 1985 on the basis of those first sales and with a 5,000 pound loan from her father. McDonough said he was doubtful about her new enterprise given that she’d rarely stuck with her previous jobs.
But she persisted, working with her rainbow of stones and encouraging women to buy jewelry for themselves, instead of waiting around for families, husbands and boyfriends to give it as gifts. Having grown up surrounded by antique jewelry, including heavy Victorian-era brooches, she was also keen to make her styles versatile and wearable.
The market responded with enthusiasm, and McDonough repaid her father’s loan within a year. She later opened a shop on Elizabeth Street in Belgravia, and eventually employed her mother Yvonne, who worked there until she retired at 92.
Princess Diana was an early customer and the brand has long been a royal favorite. But it was only after Kate Middleton wore the citrine pear drop earrings, more than a decade ago, that the brand went international, with website orders coming in from Australia, Mexico and the U.S. “I was so grateful to Catherine because she gave our online store integrity. It was a great boost for us,” McDonough said.
The royals continue to deliver. Last month McDonough received a Royal Warrant from Queen Camilla as a jewelry supplier to the royal household. She described it as the greatest honor of her career, and said the moment “feels like a celebration of a lifetime dedicated to the beauty and individuality of colored gemstones.”
McDonough has just put the official “By appointment” crest at the entrance to her store, which is located a few steps from Sloane Square, and said she only wished her father, who died not long after she launched the business, had been there to see it.
“I think he would have been blown away. It’s such a big deal, a mark of trust, integrity and achievement, and there are very few jewelers in London who’ve got it,” she said.
McDonough also gets a thrill from seeing people wearing her jewelry — at football games, the ballet and even on the street. She once saw her beloved Liverpool team play Manchester City at Wembley Stadium and spotted a woman wearing her designs a few rows below her.
“I was doing high-fives all over the place because they scored — and because I saw someone wearing my jewelry,” she said. One of McDonough’s designs is even inspired by the team colors. “My fire opal earrings are — in my mind — dedicated to Liverpool football,” she said.
The business is growing, with around 25 to 30 percent of sales coming from the U.S., and McDonough said she’s thrilled that demand is not just in the big cities. “I am so proud that someone in Boise, Idaho, is wearing my jewelry. I can hardly get over it,” said McDonough, who’s planning a series of trunk shows in the country later this year.
Bestsellers include the Double Oval two-stone earrings, while later this summer she’ll be building on another classic collection, little hoop earrings with detachable drops.
The hoops and drops launched more than two decades ago, but this time, she’s doing one-off drops made from stones including tanzanite, iolite and pink tourmaline. True to her ethos, she envisions her customers wearing the hoops to work in the day, and then popping on the colorful gemstones for evening, adding a spring to their step.