Known for casting gems in molten gold, the London-born designer has brought her signature style to Los Angeles.
British jewelry designer Polly Wales started her creative journey as a sculptor before turning her talents to producing works of art on a smaller scale. A graduate of the prestigious Royal College of Art in London, she is known for her pioneering work of casting gemstones directly into molten metal rather than using traditional setting techniques. Among her most recognizable designs are her Confetti rings, which show off this signature technique. In these bands of gold are submerged sapphires or rubies, often with the tables only partially visible.
Four years ago, Wales moved her family and her business from England to Los Angeles, California. She now has a workshop in the city’s downtown area, where a team of jewelers trained in the Polly Wales cast-not-set method create handmade pieces that celebrate being perfectly imperfect.
In 2016, you moved from the United Kingdom to Los Angeles, California. What has the transition been like for the brand?
It was like going to the land of milk and honey. We were doing trade shows over here, so it was an easy transition for us. It is such a huge and buoyant market over here. It’s just so unbelievably different from trying to do business in the UK.
Does being a Brit give you an edge in the US?
Not necessarily in terms of just being British, but more my training and my viewpoint. Over here, there’s a culture of people doing designs and getting them manufactured. In the UK, so many more designers come from the bench.
Has being based in America changed you as a designer?
I wasn’t expecting it to change before I got here, but it’s absolutely changed. I feel like there was the freedom and the scope and the opportunity to make bigger and bolder and more colorful work. It wasn’t a conscious choice, it was just something that happened. I looked back on the work I made in the first year that we moved here and I was like, “wow.” I don’t think I would have made that work in the UK.
Casting gems rather than setting them is your signature. Do you think you’ll ever move away from that?
It’s absolutely synonymous with who we are as a brand, and it’s what I’ve always done and what makes us different. I felt like when I started, I was the only person doing it, and now I feel like we’ve made a space for new and interesting work. It’s become its own kind of area, I suppose. I love the process and the technique, and it’s a lifelong challenge to keep developing and evolving the way we do things. I can’t imagine becoming bored of it.
Are there particular Polly Wales icons that will never fade away?
Yes, definitely. The work has evolved a huge amount, but at the same time, the core pieces I’ve been making for 10 years and more are still our bread and butter, like the Confetti rings and the Spinning Disc necklaces. All of that stuff is still so much what we’re known for, and pretty much 50% of our business.
How do you work with diamonds?
We use a lot of diamonds. We do a lot of bridal pieces; that’s a growing part of our business. Diamonds are great, as they’re such hard stones to work with — not as in difficult, but actually hard — so they lend themselves really well to being cast. Working with diamonds is always a joy.
Are people more reticent about having a diamond cast than a colored gemstone?
No, I don’t think so. We get a lot of people bringing us their family diamonds to rework into new pieces. We probably get more diamonds than we do anything else. I think one of the things I started doing a long time ago, which I see a lot more now, is that we use a lot of the diamonds upside down. I love the underside of stones and all the different cuts you get to see.
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