Inside the Jewel Vault with Belinda Morris

INSIDE THE JEWEL VAULT WITH BELINDA MORRIS

Belinda Morris is the long reigning editor of the Jeweller magazine, which is produced by the National Association of Jewellers, the UK's leading trade body. Starting out in fashion journalism, before turning her attention to watches and jewellery, Belinda boasts a decades long career in trade journalism, alongside her vintage jewellery hobby.

I hope you enjoy listening to Belinda's insights and discovering the pieces she treasures as much as I did, making this episode. 

And I want to hear from you!  What special pieces would you put into your fantasy jewel vault, and why?  Every so often I’ll compile your stories into a podcast of their own.  So please email me: jessica@juraster.com

Produced by Lizzie Wingham.  Engineered by Asa Bennet.

Can we go back in time and start with the story of how you fell into this world?

It's quite an odd coincidence, really actually.  My father's great-great-grandfather, whichever it was, who went from England to South Africa, he was a friend of Cecil Rhodes and he also was involved in Diamond Mine. 

And he and his wife carried the fake Cullinan diamond from South Africa to England, whilst the real one went in the post to fool would-be thieves. So he and his wife, so it was in her handbag, my great-great-grandma, and then they took it to the offices in Piccadilly. And then they went to Amsterdam to watch the real thing being cut. So yeah, so it's a really weird, you know, the fact that I have this kind of connection. Nobody could have believed that they would have done that - they would have imagined somebody carrying it. 

Are either of your parents in journalism at all?

No, my father was a fighter pilot and my mother was, well, she's a housewife, but she was a craftswoman. And then she's very creative sewing and all that kind of thing. But I wanted to be a fashion journalist since I was about 12. People didn't know anything about fashion journalism. So which O levels to take and all that sort of thing.

So entirely self-directed. And with your father being in the British Air Force, were you travelling everywhere?

Yes, not as much as we might have done. But yes, mean, Aden, which is Saudi Arabia and Germany and then around the UK. So I was at boarding school from 11 because of that. I remember saying when I was a bit younger to my  father that I wanted to be a pavement artist somewhere like Venice and draw pictures of tourists. And he said, yeah, you could probably do that. Okay, but I don't think there's much money in it. So I kind of shelved that And then went to journalism and specifically fashion journalism.

When you were at school were you surrounded by fashion acolytes?

It was a girls’ school and it was a bit on the fashion-y side because we had to get changed for tea. So we had to get out of our uniforms and into our own clothes, which meant for at least the week, if not month of a new term, sort of like every day something different to wear. So when I went home at long holidays I'd chain my mother to the sewing machine and say I want flares they've got to be this wide.

My mother was very much into fashion. She would see what was in fashion in the newspapers and then she would make herself whatever it was, which meant that she'd be wearing things like hot pants before anyone knew they were a fashion. yes, but when you're only 10, you just want a mother that looks else's mother. So was a bit, you know, and now I appreciate it. When I look back, she was great. But she was a bit outrageous, really.

She was very happy that I was doing what I was doing. And you know, where have you been? Who have you seen? Who have you photographed? All that kind of thing. So, so.

Do you have anything in your jewel vault that links to your mum?

If you know that my mother used to make earrings out of Christmas tree decorations, you’ll understand why!  My mother's engagement ring, which she, she doesn't wear it. I think my father bought her a different ring on one of the anniversaries that she prefers. So I wear this one, which is an emerald with diamonds on the sides. yeah, and my father died about 20 years ago and he always said that any, jewellery that he bought my mother would have to go into the grave with her. And I remember her just looking at me and shaking her head and going, don't listen to him. So sorry, daddy, I've still got it and I'm wearing it.

What a beautiful emerald ring, is it an antique?

To be honest, I don't know. It definitely looks it. I mean, it has a sort of a slightly deco-y feel about it. And I know which shop he bought it from in York, they definitely sold antique pieces as well as modern pieces. So it's possible

My mother, when she was in her fifties, she's very beautiful and she had a sort of Elizabeth Taylor look about her. I think Elizabeth Taylor liked green stones and, my mum had long dark hair. so green things suited her. So, maybe that's, that's where I've got the look from. Also green was my father's preferred colour for cars, whereas most people think it's unlucky. My father said it was lucky, so every car he got had to be green. So it's obviously there in me. preferred colour for cars, whereas most people think it's unlucky. My father said it was lucky, so every car he got had to be green. So it's obviously there in me.  And I've always said that I haven't got a sentimental bone in my body, so I've just disproved that theory about myself. So that clearly isn't true at all. 

More on the colour green...

A couple of years ago, I got a second piercing in my ear because we were at a trade show and the people on the stand next to us were demonstrating their new ear-piercing system. The CEO or somebody on the stand said, would you mind just going and having your ear pierced so we can do a video of it?

After my husband and I separated. I thought, what shall I do to mark this occasion? I know I'll go and have my ears pierced, which my mother would never let me do when I was a child. And I went to Claire's accessories to do it, because at the time, you know, this was a little while ago, not many jewellers were doing ear piercing, it had kind of fallen out of favour amongst independent jewellers.  

So went to Claire's accessories and there was a form you had to fill in and at the top of the form it said, parental consent with a box to tick. And I said, do we have to do this? Because if I phoned my mother now, she'd still say no. They said, we can forget that. We'll just go ahead and do it. So, whilst I was at this trade show, after I'd had the ear piercing, the second piercing, I bought a little pair of emerald studs to go, once I'd had to take the other thing out. so, yeah, I'm sort of, I have a little green emerald thing going on.

Belinda on her Grandmother...

My grandmother was more my influence because she had lots of beads, loads and loads and loads of them. And so every time I visited her, I used to play with those.

I just went straight to a bedroom, straight to a wardrobe, straight to a box and just took all the jewellery out and put it all on. And so, that was the starting point. Whereas my mum was very much more kind of flamboyant. My grandmother said that my mum had no taste and she was just too much. And just like, why do you have to have so many really cheap things?

I just want lots and lots of things rather than one nice thing.

Do you have sisters or brothers?

Just a brother so I had my family jewellery all to myself. And all the jewellery that my mother still has, there's loads and loads, but it's all sort of 1980s big earrings, the sort that Joan Collins would take off in order to make a phone call in Dynasty, all those sorts of earrings.

Is there anything in the Jewel Vault then that reminds you of your childhood?

Well, my grandmother's beads, these are my grandmother's beads. I can't now remember whether she gave them to me or I was left, you know, they were among a pile of things that my mum said that I could have. But what I do know about them is that my grandfather, my mother's father was also a pilot in the Air Force and he was in Iraq teaching the Royal Family to fly in the ‘50s.

And on his second tour, my grandmother and my mother went out there with him. And these beads she bought. So I know that they must be 1950s. I like them because they looked a bit like amber, but they won't be amber. I don't know what they would have been in Iraq in the 50s, but maybe resin or something like that.

So they remind me of her and I love amber, so I love the colour of these.

Takes you right back to your grandmother and your family history, which is wonderful.  So did you go to university and study?

I went to the London College of Fashion I did a fashion writers course, which was in the college was just over. It was Oxford Circus above what used to be British home stores in Oxford Circus. So it was great, you know, going from the boarding school on the East Coast of Yorkshire straight down to central London.

I thoroughly enjoyed it, and we'd go to Paris and go to couture shows and we did b eauty therapy, textile science, so we were covering all sorts of different things that might be useful to us going into fashion journalism or beauty journalism.

Vintage Dior Earrings

But the next pair of earrings is a pair of Christian Dior, Diamante earrings, because just as I was leaving college and having flat shares and stuff like that, I discovered Camden Market. And in discovering Camden Market, which was a different sort of place in the 80s than it is now, it was much more ramshackle and sort of random. you know, people like Katherine Hamnet had a stall in Camden Market, you know, things like that. But I just discovered vintage.

Clothing first and then when I needed a ball gown to go to an event, a work event, I wanted vintage jewellery and so these, which I think they're probably 1960s and they're in perfect condition, despite the fact I've had them all these years and moved from pillar to post. They still, they're still together in one piece.

They're quite big and they clip on obviously so they're quite heavy but they're not uncomfortably heavy. You've got a sort of like amethyst colour stone at the top and then the diamante round and then another amethyst.

So we're in London and you've started your first job. Where were you working?

My very first job was when everybody, they used to call it work experience, they now call it being an intern or something, don't they? But when you did work experience, my work experience job was actually my first proper job. And I went to Woman's Own magazine and I was replying to readers' letters on fashion and beauty problems. 

But it was all behind the scenes because the front person was a lady called Claire Rayner, who you may or not remember. And she would come in once a week and pick up a selection of letters that she thought were interesting, that had been answered. They were all genuine letters.

And so all I was doing was simply wading through piles and piles of people with hairy legs and, you know, whatever, that they didn't know what to do about. so that's sort of, yeah, there were some funny ones. There were some funny ones. And the level of ignorance back then was shocking.

Given that I'm talking about the end of the 70s, these questions were quite daring. They actually did do a sex survey, which went on for pages and pages with people having to, I can't remember what all the questions were, but it was quite in depth to the point where one of the more elderly readers then sent us a letter, absolutely outraged that the magazine she bought for knitting patterns and recipes was spouting all this obscene stuff and it was a very funny letter which got pinned up on the notice board.

I was a stylist and responsible for getting the clothes in and finding out who was on TV and whether they were suited. We didn't use models, we used celebrities from TV, so like actresses or game show hostesses or whatever. So I had to find out who their agents were, whether they were attractive enough to be in the magazine, what their sizes were, and then call them in. You know, we do a photo shoot with them. So it was good fun, yeah.

Can you name any names or any stories?

It's funny, I told this story to some people, it was actually during COVID, somebody did, a sort of interview blog thing, just light-hearted. And they said, any funny stories? And I said, well, and I've never thought about it as being something I shouldn't say, but you know, different times and all that. But back then, we occasionally did a men's feature and there was a police cop series called Hazel. And Hazel was played by an actor called Nicholas Ball, very handsome, young guy, very nice. And we thought, yep, and his, the new series was coming up and, we said, yep, he'd be great. It'd be really good to get him. Called his agent and myself and the other assistant who was slightly senior to me.  It was just two of us actually. We said to the agent, we need him to come into the office to make sure the clothes fit. And it was just before Christmas, we got a couple of bottles of Beaujolais Nouveau and some mince pies, which we heated up. And then we went into the clothes cupboard with Nicholas Ball and made him try trousers on for an hour.

I'm sorry, I'm very ashamed of it now, not. He was a grown up and he was perfectly happy to take his trousers off in front of us. So that was that.

And continuing onto the next few years...

I’ll skip the next eight or so years. I went from there to a trade magazine for the menswear industry, which was called Menswear, which I stayed in for eight years and really enjoyed it. But I was waiting for a consumer magazine to come along because I really wanted to move from trade to consumer. And it never did. so eventually I moved on and became…  What else did I do? I worked for the International Institute for Cotton, doing trend forecasting for the cotton industry and producing a booklet. So that was really nice. That was a nice job. Then I went freelance, and I ended up in the jewellery industry because I was doing a job for a publisher who then got the job of doing The Jeweller Magazine, which was done in-house by the NHA at the time.

And he said… There's nobody at the NAJ that can write. There's no journalists there. It's just all knowledgeable people in the industry. But they need someone who can do news stories. And I said, could do that, couldn't you? And I said, well, technically, yes, but I know nothing about jewellery. And he said, that's fine. They'll send you all you need to know. And it was pre the internet. So I just get wadges of paper, press releases to turn into news stories.

And then I started doing features, then eventually, sadly, when an editor at the time died, he hadn't been unwell, so it was a complete shock. But the publishers phoned me up and said, could you just, this is in the middle of an issue, can you finish it? So I said, yep, and I'll carry on until you find yourself another editor. And eventually the job was mine. 

But there, I had moved to Norfolk from London and initially the publisher said, well, you can't be an editor if you don't live in London. So I was like, well, think I probably can. No, you can't. And then eventually there was another editor in between and when she decided to leave, he got in touch with me again and said, now will you do it? And I said, thought you said I couldn't. And he said, I never said that. But anyway, that was about 14 years, so 22 years in total I've been working for the magazine.

So do any of the pieces in your vault remind you of this switch?

The only, this isn't anything to do with, we've sort of slightly, we've missed out a bit actually, about 10 years ago or so, I got divorced because my husband found someone else. We're still friends, it's fine.

Life's too short, et cetera, et cetera. But immediately it happened. I then had to go on an assignment for, I think the Independent newspaper, can't remember now which one it was. I had to go to Peru and I took with me a photographer and a manufacturer, he's Peruvian,

We had to stop on the way back in New York. So, I said, and we had quite a long stopgap and the photographer and the guy from Peru, both very familiar with New York, I had never been. So, I said, okay, since it's my first time, we're going to do everything I want to do. So, I had a list of things I wanted to do, going to a diner and, you know, seeing Central Park and all that kind of stuff.

But the other thing I said, I want to go into one of those stores and buy myself a pair of Miriam Haskell earrings. Because my husband used to buy me a lot of vintage, know, Scapparelli and Haskell and stuff like that. So, with our joint credit cards, I went into the department store.