Goldsmith's Craft & Design Council Awards 2023 - Gold Winner!

We are delighted to announce our designer and co-founder, Kayla Rimmon, recently won the Gold Award at the Goldsmith’s Craft & Design Council 2023 Awards for the 2D Tiara Design category sponsored by Fuli Gemstones!

Read below to find out all about the winning design from Kayla herself:

The Goldsmith’s Craft & Design Council was founded in 1908 to “promote the pursuit of excellence in craftsmanship and design amongst all those in the United Kingdom who work within silversmithing, goldsmithing, jewellery and the allied crafts.” Every year they have a competition culminating in an awards ceremony with many different categories encompassing many different skills including 2D and 3D design. One category in the 2023 awards was a 2D Design prompt for tiara sponspored by Fuli gemstones, a peridot mining company. As a life-long lover of Tiaras (anyone who follows me on Instagram will know of #tiaratuesday, which I’ve been doing for years), I absolutely had to enter!!

I’ve never entered a competition before, and I was umming and ahhing about what I was going to design. I felt a lot of pressure to come up with the most amazing tiara design using peridots, knowing the opportunity to design a tiara doesn’t come around every day! Eventually, after some encouragement from Chloë (that’s why we work so well together!) I came up with a design inspired by peridots being known as the Ancient Egyptian ‘gem of the sun’.

Calling it the Lotus TiaRa, Ancient Egyptian symbols of the sun like the sun god, Ra, and Sesen were at the heart of the design. The main motif was inspired by Sesen, Egyptian lotus flowers which were associated with not only the sun and the god Ra, but also life, rebirth, creation, healing and Egypt itself. The lotuses close and sink below the water every evening before reappearing and blooming at daybreak. The water is depicted in the zig zag motif, which in hieroglyphics means water. To make the tiara more wearable, I decided to make it be worn as a headband, a more modern version of the traditional tiara. I also wanted it to be convertible into a necklace, as there aren’t so many events where a tiara is needed anymore, unfortunately!

Once I submitted the design, there were several weeks of judging by the best in the industry. After a while, I started seeing entrants post on Instgram that they had received a letter saying they had won an award. I was so anxious every evening when I came home waiting to see if there was a letter for me! One evening I came home and saw the envelope, and with shaking hands, I opened the letter that told me I had won an award! I immediately called Chloë, and crying told her I had won something, although it didn’t say what award. Straight afterwards, I called my family (since they don’t live in the UK) and celebrated with them. I literally couldn’t believe it! Not because I didn’t have the design talent, but it was my very first competition that I had entered in, so I literally didn’t know what to expect.

The big day arrived a few weeks later, and getting ready was great fun - I got my makeup done, bought a new dress and Chloë and I went off to the ceremony which was hosted in the gorgeous and opulent Goldsmith’s Hall in London. The ceremony started off with other 2D categories and my heart was racing when finally the Tiara category was announced. They called the names of the bronze winners, then the silver… and I realised I hadn’t heard my name yet meaning I had won gold!!! I was stunned and floated in a haze to receive my award at the front. I don’t really remember what happened next because I was very much in shock. I walk up to the front of thw room to recieve my award and smiled for a photo and then left the stage back to my seat. The rest of the ceremony I was in a daze.

After all the incredible winners were announced, there was a reception where all the winning pieces were on display. It was to fun to meet the Fuli gemstone team and the previous winner of my category. Everyone was so gracious and congratulatory, I feel so privileged to work in such a friendly industry where individuality and skill are celebrated.