By Anna Jewsbury's career in jewellery and ceramics is part of a pattern. An Oxford University graduate in maths and philosophy, the designer has always had an appreciation for the marriage between precision and meaning. ‘When creating collections, I often think about the connection between a character and their environment. Your personal space reveals a lot about you, from how you choose to put pieces together to how you arrange a room.’
Despite her countryside roots, having grown up in Holmfirth, West Yorkshire, Jewsbury always felt she was more of a city person. ‘I didn’t really appreciate my surroundings whenI was younger,’ she says, ‘although now I love the breathtaking landscapes and how they’re ever-changing.’ The family home – built into the side of a hill, with large windows ‘similar to architect Frank Lloyd Wright’s style’ – housed an eclectic design mix. ‘My mum is from the Philippines and her family had a furniture company, so we had a lot of its pieces. She loves collecting things, and our home was full of glassware, ceramics and random objects.’
Fast forward to today and Jewsbury is the artistic director of Completedworks, a cult jewellery and homeware brand known for its architectural designs, which has an army of fashion-forward fans, from Alexa Chung to Emma Watson. Her home is a converted pub in Marylebone, London, where she lives with her husband, British-Iraqi author and development expert Hassan Damluji, and their two children, Rafi and Maia. The couple viewed the now-three-bedroom, south-facing property in July 2020 before getting the keys – ‘or, rather, the code for the door’s keypad’ – in December. ‘We lived here for a year and a half before starting renovations, which allowed us to think about how we wanted to use the space and improve the layout,’ she says.
To say Jewsbury and her husband stripped the property, built in the 1820s, back to ‘its bare bones’ is an understatement. ‘When we moved in, it was really falling apart,’ she says of the old boozer’s shabby crimson carpet, lime-green 1980s curtains, fire-exit signs and barbers hop pole. ‘There was a bathroom with a fallen-down shower curtain and no door at the back of the hallway – it was super weird.’ But its potential (high ceilings, Georgian cornicing and an abundance of light) couldn’t go unnoticed.
With the help of an architect friend, the couple transformed the space, rebuilding its staircase, reconfiguring the ground floor, moving kitchen walls and expanding the doorways to create a coherent and pared-back sanctuary. ‘I found the process really stressful,’ Jewsbury – who gave birth and moved studios during renovations – admits.‘But it’s amazing how quickly you forget that once it’s all done. It is a real luxury to be able to start from scratch.’
A self-described contradiction (‘I’m not a minimalist and love eclecticism, but I like rooms to be uncluttered’), Jewsbury wants her home as ‘raw and unfussy’ as possible. In the living space and downstairs bathroom, Bauwerk lime-wash paint complements the neutral Farrow & Ball Slipper Satin shade used elsewhere in the property. ‘Choosing different paint colours for different rooms was just one step too far for me,’ she says of the uniform palette – this approach is echoed in her personal style, with her own ‘uniform’ being a Pleats Please Issey Miyake top and trousers.
Jewsbury’s living room is a testament to her commitment to making every choice and detail count. Contrasting furniture includes a curvaceous black Roly-Poly chair by Faye Too good, angular block seats by Dutch designer Gerrit Rietveld and a curved, muted sofa from a dealer in Italy. (‘It arrived two days before Brexit kicked in,’ she says.) Their strong, sculptural shapes echo her flair for form in her own work, such as the wildly popular Scrunch and Crumple earrings. The ‘heart of the room’ isa mid-century table and chairs, inherited from her grandparents, which have since been reupholstered with lilac Kvadrat x Raf Simons fabric. Elsewhere, you’ll find touches of Completedworks homeware, from resin ‘Who Dropped the Small Towel’ jewellery boxes (‘I’m always taking my jewellery off and fiddling with it’) to the instantly recognisable ‘Squeezed’ vases and hand-blown glass vessels.
In addition to pieces sourced from Alfies Antique Market and 1960s Murano-glass chandeliers, Jewsbury’s home is filled with carefully chosen art and furniture. ‘I’m an all-or-nothing person – I’d rather sit on the floor ifI can’t afford a chair and save up to get the perfect sofa,’ she says. There’s theIrish artist’s Sian Costello’s Gestural Involvement with Others canvas in the living room – ‘Every time I look at it, it’s like seeing it afresh’ – and charcoal renderings by sculptor David Nash, which she first saw at the Yorkshire SculpturePark. In the bedroom, a portrait of a pregnant Jewsbury, painted by her husband, contrasts with brushed-aluminium furniture from The Ritual Works and a Japanese-style bed frame found in Copenhagen.
Jewsbury believes that balance is key to creating a home, and respects empty space. ‘If you have a lot of vintage pieces, then throw in some more contemporary objects, or offset clean lines with organic shapes,’ she says, noting the complementary contrast between the industrial, brushed stainless-steel finish and Georgian cornicing in her kitchen. Meanwhile her bathroom, with its lacquered-brass finishes, is ‘a microcement explosion’ of continuity. ‘I love that there’s no visual interruption – everything has the same kind of “plastery” feel, from the divider between the bath and shower to the basin. It’s all so satisfying to look at.’
PHOTOGRAPHS BY SERENA BROWN, STYLING BY GRACE CLARKE.
This article features in the 2023 July issue of ELLE UK.
