Designer Desire: Dorrie Nossiter

Born in Aston, Birmingham, jewellery designer Dorrie Nossiter (1893-1977) worked in the Arts & Crafts and latterly Art Deco styles.

Nossiter is another designer I discovered from a recent auction catalogue; it included the rock crystal necklace at the top of our montage above – simple elegance!

She studied at the city’s Municipal School of Art from 1910 to 1914. During the 1930s, she exhibited her work a number of times at Walker’s Gallery in London.

She created rings, earrings, brooches and necklaces in gold and silver using gemstones such as amethyst, aquamarine, citrine, garnet, peridot and tourmaline.

As well as at auction, you’ll find a handful of examples of her work for sale at any given time on eBay and Etsy.

As Dorrie Nossiter never signed her work, it has often been mistaken for her friend and contemporary, Sibyl Dunlop – perhaps we’ll feature her in next week’s Designer Desire slot.

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Additional image credits:
The Peartree Collection | Sotherbys | Sworders

Price Points: Ethical sustainable jewellery

In the past few decades, we’ve become aware of ethical and/or sustainable food and fashion; but what about ethical sustainable jewellery?

We’ve heard of the many thousands of litres of water that it takes to manufacture a single pair of jeans, but what about the amount of greenhouse gas it takes to mine a diamond? Or what about the use of child labour? Or the profits from the mining and sale of precious metals & gemstones going towards funding civil wars?

The pieces listed below are certain to have been created without negative impact on the environment or local communities.

Annie Oak – Bee Geometric gold necklace: £25.99, Ecomodo

£1.00 from every purchase goes to The Bumblebee Conservation Trust, so investing in this beautiful necklace goes that little bit further.
18kt Gold Vermeil PSTM Afghanistan Armaan lapis earrings: £270.00, Pippa Small

Hand cut Lapis Lazuli gems set in gold plated silver settings by the men and women artisans of the Turquoise Mountain Foundation in Kabul. Training and employing young people in meaningful creative jobs is vitally important now in Afghanistan when the young desperately need hope and a sense of purpose in a beautiful country tragically caught up in violence and conflict.
1.08 carat pear Skydiamond: £8,301.92, SkyDiamond

Each carat of mined diamond has a footprint of over 100kg of carbon dioxide and over 500kg of greenhouse gases in total. In contrast, a one-carat Skydiamond has a footprint of minus 4g of CO₂.We take rain water and split it into oxygen and hydrogen using electrolysis – powered by the wind and sun of course. We then combine these gases to create methane, which we feed into our Diamond Mills.

shop ethical sustainable jewellery

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Prices & links correct at time of publication.

1.08 carat pear Skydiamond
£8,301.92

18kt Gold Vermeil PSTM Afghanistan Armaan lapis earrings
£270.00