Mirri Damer: An Award-Winning Contemporary Jeweller

ABOUT

OUR STORY, WORK-SHOP & MATERIALS

About Mirri

Following her degree in sculpture, Mirri went to study diamond mounting and jewellery at Sir John Cass in London. She worked for several years in the trade for an internationally acclaimed jewellery designer, initially as a bench worker and then becoming an award-winning designer herself.

Mirri started her own business in 2005 and has been regularly selected to exhibit at the prestigious Goldsmiths’ Fair in London since. Her work is sought by collectors far and wide, with recent high-profile commissions including the Chancellor’s crown for Falmouth University and engagement rings for Comedian Dawn French.

In January 2016 Mirri moved the work-shop team into her own showroom on the old High Street in Falmouth — a fantastic street full of quirky boutiques and great coffee shops. There you can see an ever-changing display of one-off designs, alongside a wide range of pieces from her distinctive collections.

The Work-Shop

We are a small team of three (plus dog Birdy) who operate entirely from our work-shop and design studio on the High street in Falmouth. If you visit the shop you will find a constant changing display of one-off designs that you won’t find on our website, to ensure that a visit will always be worth the trip!

Made in England

Mirri designs and makes all her original pieces herself in the studio. For any processes that do not occur in the Falmouth work-shop, we use regulated, well-established fellow small businesses within our industry in the UK.

Making in England allows us to keep a very short supply chain, reduce our carbon footprint, tighten our quality control, and fix and reuse materials that would otherwise be scrapped.

Values

Jewellery making has a complicated history when it comes to ethical practice and sustainability. By explaining a bit here about how our business works, we hope to show that we are conscious and committed to doing all we can to minimise, absorb and balance the impact of our work on the environment and its people.

We also link directly to the charity Ecologi which means that a tree is planted for every Mirri Damer sale both online and in the shop.

Mirri Damer creating a bespoke bracelet in her Falmouth workshop

Mirri Damer creating a bespoke bracelet in her Falmouth workshop

“The jewellery that I design and make is a result of recording what I see while walking in the Cornish landscape. The deep beauty in nature provides endless inspiration for me…”

- Mirri Damer, Falmouth

The Materials

  • Mirri prefers to use recycled metals (mainly silver, 9ct yellow and white golds, 18ct yellow and white golds and platinum). We are registered to use fair trade gold and will happily quote for their use on request.

    We’re also more than happy to reuse your own yellow gold to make a new Mirri Damer piece of jewellery. Please see the Commissions page for more information about this.

  • This aspect of the jewellery trade is complicated and we are constantly striving to find and use the most ethically sourced stones that we can.

    All our diamonds are obtained from suppliers who go above and beyond the Kimberly Process. They adhere to high standards of ethics throughout their mining, cutting and distribution. For a fully traceable diamond from source to on your hand please read about Ocean diamonds below.

    As with the recycling of customers’ own metal, we are also more than happy to re-use your own heirloom stones. Please get in touch to discuss using them in one of our designs or commissioning a piece.

  • We also work closely with a company called Ocean Diamonds who work directly with local, professional divers in South Africa to discover and retrieve diamonds from the sea bed in a wholly responsible manner. They are of excellent quality and each one is gifted with a Certificate of Provenance specifying the country of origin and the coastal area in which it was found.

    They then oversee the cutting process before we set it in a piece of jewellery, making the diamond traceable from sea discovery, through to customer’s finger. Please get in touch to get a quote/discuss the possibility of using these special diamonds in one of Mirri’s designs.

  • Since 2013 we have been travelling to Sri Lanka to source our Sapphires directly from gem dealers whose mines we know first-hand; this allows us to asks questions, visit sites and we are intent on building relationships with suppliers that align with our core values. But in order to bring back such a variety of beautiful sapphires we also buy sapphires from the local gem market. While this means we don’t know the exact mine source, Sri Lankan mining practices are more often than not, small scale family owned mines with the miners being treated fairly and paid well in accordance with the local rates.

And introducing a very special project…

CORNISH MINERALS