PEBBLES on a BEACH
Monica Vinader’s north Norfolk home and namesake brand are entwined. Not only did she originally set up her studio and offices in the property’s old forge, which has since been annexed to the house and turned into an office and dining room. But, the jewellery designer mortgaged the family home to enable her and sister Gabriela to launch Monica Vinader in 2008, something she calmly describes as, “very risky”.
Of course, at the time she and her sister founded the brand (Gabriela previously worked for Amazon and is now the company’s director), there was a global recession making it impossible to raise start -up money from investors because no-one was willing to back them.
‘WATER HAS ALWAYS BEEN MY BIG THING. THERE’S SOMETHING BEAUTIFUL WHEN THE SUN SETS ON IT’
But the siblings had seen a need for something that fell between fine jewellery and costume, which the recession made even more relevant. “For me, I felt there was a real gap in
