What you’ll learn in this episode:   What it means to be a personal jeweler, and how Jessica helps repurpose people’s unworn jewelry How Jessica came up with the idea for her podcast, Inside the Jewel Vault What pieces Jessica would include in her fantasy jewel vault Why wearing jewelry connects us to our humanity Why Jessica is creating a gender-fluid jewelry brand   About Jessica Collins   Jessica Cadzow-Collins fell in love with jewelry and gems aged 18, whilst working as an intern at Sotheby’s, and trained as a professional gemmologist. For over 30 years since then, she’s held senior roles in fine jewelry at luxury retailers such as Harrods, Garrard and Asprey where she helped all kinds of amazing clients with their precious pieces, from tiaras to engagement rings, all over the world.     Jessica is now a personal jeweler. She started a business, Jessica May Jewels, to help people find their dream designs and remodel their unworn pieces. Using her high-jewelry know-how, she creates bespoke pieces that don’t compromise on luxury, quality, service, value or ethics.    Photos available on TheJewelryJourney.com   Additional Resources: Instagram Facebook LinkedIn Website Jessica’s article on the Koh-i-Noor 'Curse or Blessing'   Transcript:   When Jessica Cadzow-Collins isn’t designing jewelry, repurposing her clients’ old jewelry, or developing her own line of jewelry, she’s talking to people about jewelry on her podcast, Inside the Jewel Vault. A lifelong jewelry lover, Jessica joined the Jewelry Journey Podcast to talk about what it means to be a personal jeweler; what she would include in her fantasy jewel vault; and why wearing jewelry is distinctly human. Read the episode transcript here.   Sharon: Hello, everyone. Welcome to the Jewelry Journey Podcast. This is the first part of a two-part episode. Please make sure you subscribe so you can hear part two as soon as it’s released later this week.    Today, my guest is Jessica Cadzow-Collins speaking to us from London. She is the founder and designer of Jessica May Jewels. She is also the creator and host of the podcast Inside the Jewel Vault. She’s a gemologist and a designer, and she has worked with many well-known jewelry houses. Jessica, welcome to the program.   Jessica: Thank you so much for having me, Sharon. It’s so lovely to be your guest. It’s nice to be on the other side of the process instead of being a host for a change.   Sharon: Tell us about your jewelry journey. When you were a child, were you interested? Were you artistic?   Jessica: Yes, I was artistic. I was also quite academic. I was an all-arounder. I grew up in Scotland. I was educated in Edinburgh, and I had my heart set on being an art dealer as a teenager. That’s what I wanted to do more than anything. So, as soon as I could, I got into my old, beaten VW and drove all the way from Edinburgh to Florence. I stayed with the Prince and Princess Corsini as their paying guest, and I did studies in Italian and history of art.    Luckily, I managed to win a job as an intern at Sotheby’s. I had a very menial job filing, but the desk next to mine was the jewelry expert’s. She would value the pieces that came into the Florence office, and I would send them to London if they were good, or New York if they were very good, or they’d go onto Rome. That is how I got into jewelry. It was so amazing seeing these piles of new pieces. Every day fresh pieces would come in, and we would stand and talk about the age of them, the condition, the composition, and the gems.    She said, “You shouldn’t do paintings. You shouldn’t be an art dealer. You should do this.” So, I did. I phoned my father that evening and said, “I’m going to London. I’m going to study gemology,” because that is what she told me she had done. So, there it was. It was just fate.   Sharon: You were an art history student and then you went into jewelry?   Jessica: Yes, that is the way it worked.    Sharon: There are not that many courses for jewelry