My Ritual: Jewelry Designer Monica Vinader Reveals How Her Home, Nature and Quiet Practices Spark Her Extraordinary Creativity

After founding her eponymous studio in the British idyllic coastal county of Norfolk in 2008 – where she lives with her husband Nick and daughter Scarlett – Monica Vinader has gone on to open stores across the UK, US, Singapore, and Hong Kong, as well as heading up a booming global business online.

Her sculptural pieces, inspired by the shapes and textures of nature, modernist architecture, her travels and antique finds – dotted with delicate diamonds and candy-hued gemstones – are an A-list and royal favorite, boasting fans from Princess Catherine of Wales to models Bella Hadid and Kendal Jenner, singer Kylie Minogue, and actors Dakota Johnson and Selena Gomez.

An art school graduate who followed her passion for jewelry, inspired by her mother’s vintage collection of cocktail rings, Monica Vinader creates multi-generational pieces that stand the test of time. Pebbles, shells, coins, flint, hearts and stars inform the sculptural silhouettes and motifs of her ever-evolving range of earrings, necklaces, bracelets and rings, imbued with an organic, textural tactility that comes with the feeling of having been ‘touched by a thousand thumbs’. Here, she tells us what keeps her inspired and grounded.

What Drew You to Making Jewelry?

I was inspired to replicate a cocktail ring from my mother’s jewelry collection that had been stolen. She’d had these massive 1920s Van Cleef rings that were quite full-on but fantastic. My mother was a huge influence on me – she was an antique dealer with incredible taste and confidence in her ideas, always way ahead of her time in everything that she did – so I learned a lot about jewelry through her collection. When she gave me one of her 1940s rings to wear as an 18-year-old, I appreciated the boldness of it, how it made me feel, the craftsmanship, the design, the quality of the materials, and their meaning. That piece tied everything together for me and taught me you can wear whatever you want, however you want, whenever you want.

Why do you Think Your Designs Have Such Wide Appeal?

My aesthetic has always been cross-generational – it appeals to my mother, my sister and now my daughter – because I think my style is quite simple, classic and not trend-driven. Good design endures through the ages, whether it's made by IKEA or Bottega Veneta, it doesn't matter to me. Proportion is proportion, care is care, craft is craft – so we have always appealed to many generations because we've always focused on quality, on the integrity of the materials, the integrity of the design. The same guy who cut my first gemstone – a large piece of labradorite into an oval shape for a big cocktail ring – still cuts my gemstones today.

Describe Your Style at Home?

We are currently in the middle of a big renovation. For years, we were really busy with work, and there was never any time. We had restored the pond and the terraces, but eventually the roof, the heating, and lighting needed redoing, and the bathrooms weren’t quite right. Now we’ve created a big kitchen, a really lovely home office for Nick and I, with bookshelves, a laundry room, and a larger boot room. We've moved some furniture around and hung lots of new paintings – some inherited, some collected – and it has transformed the house. It’s like a new beginning, and yet people come around and say it feels like it's always been like this.

What do you Love to Surround Yourself With?

I love to be in an environment I find aesthetically pleasing – at home, we are surrounded by collections of antiques, beautiful fabrics, books, Buddha heads, pebbles, crystals and fossils I've gathered from my travels over many years, and artworks. Everything has meaning – reminders of when we lived in Mexico, when we went to Italy. I know a lot of people find too many objects overwhelming, but I find it inspiring and anchoring. My home is my refuge, a place for gathering family, kids, and lots of dogs.

How Did You Start Monica Vinader?

After focusing on sculpture, drawing and decorative arts at London’s City & Guilds Art School I thought I wanted to be in the art world, but with my first job at a jewelry company, I started to learn how to produce and market jewelry. I left to travel to places like India, Patagonia and Mexico, where I started to build a network of artisans, and in 2008, I launched my brand from my kitchen table, working with my sister Gabriela, who was living in London. I first sold my designs privately before opening a small studio in Norfolk.

How do You Keep Yourself Creatively Inspired?

I'm about to get a kiln because I've started learning to throw pots on wheel. I'm getting two so I can do it with someone else, and I'm going to put it all in one of the buildings by the studio, so the team can use it, too. Jewelry is like little mini sculptures, and we look at ceramics quite a lot for inspiration; we did a small collection of dishes with the ceramicist Florence St. George four years ago, and she inspired me so much, listening to her talk about how pottery was so good for her mental health (she discovered her love of clay after suffering from postnatal depression), so I've been going to lessons to learn the basics and then let’s see where it takes me.

What Was Your First Piece of Jewelry?

I had a big cocktail ring made in India from laboradite and a pinky, cloudy ruby, cut in unusual facets – that didn’t really exist at the time – to fit something I had designed. That was the height of what I really wanted to do, and those large-scale pieces are still filtered through the collection. They're not for everybody, I recognize, but to me they are still, in a way, my trademark.

Why is Jewelry Such a Powerful Accessory, Especially When Buying for Yourself?

When I started out in jewelry, there was either Cartier and Tiffany & Co, or costume jewellery. There was nothing in between, so I started designing things for myself, things that were missing from my jewellery box. Buying something for yourself is empowering because it means something to you. Like my Goddess coin – you're wearing it close to your skin every day, you’re touching and playing with it, it's a thing of beauty, it makes you feel happy and protected.

How do you Bring a Jewelry Piece to Life?

We start with drawings, or sculpt in wax, which we then put into CAD and then send through to a 3D Printer, which comes out in plastic. We then look at it, to see if we like it, how it feels, and if it is the right scale? We then cast a master in silver, which the team then works on, carving, shaping, and refining it. We take inspiration from everywhere, from flints found on nearby beaches, the pebbles I bring back from holiday in Menorca, antique artefacts like old coins and sculpture, by the likes of Henry Moore, Brancusi, and Barbara Hepworth. Another side of our constant exploration draws on modern architecture, and my obsession with Carlos Scarpa.

You've Made Sustainability a Key Part of Your Business – Can you Tell us More?

When my sister and I started the business, we made a very clear promise to each other to 'do the right thing' – to run a business with integrity, to create a business that could reach a lot of people without compromising on the quality of the materials, how we design, the product that we put out there, and the service that we give. It’s important to share this ethos with our customers, too – not to show off but to help them understand why we don't work with certain materials, why we don't do certain things, and what we do is very purposeful. It's the culture of the company, and every year we feel we're doing better and better and better.

What Techniques do you Use for Focusing Your Mind?

I love to draw from nature, especially striking striped and heart-shaped pebbles. This is my meditation – I find it very peaceful, taking in the lines, the shape, the pitted surface. I only use pencil, and as I sit and draw, an hour, maybe two, might go by. I'm not doing it because I'm designing jewelry, I'm doing it to enjoy that connection from the brain to the hand, like when you write, it encourages you to look at things in different ways, which to me is so powerful.

How do you Relax After a Long, Busy Day?

Relaxing in a very salty bath in the evening, washing away the day, is really, really important – I have my phone, a book, some water. I also love to spend time in nature, pottering around our garden, planting bulbs and digging weeds in our herbaceous borders – a new passion of mine, only in recent years – and going for a walk with the dogs to the beach.

What are Some of Your Sensorial Pleasures in Life?

How the different rooms in my house smell is really important to me. I have about five go-to best home fragrances from Dr Vranjes Firenze: the smoky Milano is fantastic for the living room, Ambra for my bedrooms, Ginger and Lime for the bathrooms, and Giardino di Boboli (with notes of roses, jasmine, and green moss) for other sitting areas. They make me feel grounded and happy, like music can completely impact your mood and frame of mind.

What do you do for Self-Care?

I use facialist Marie Reynolds’ oils and masks day and night; I and I'm religious with sunblock – after having a kidney transplant three years ago, kidneys that aren’t working brilliantly affect the way your body activates Vitamin D (I like Natura Bisse’s sunscreens (Bloomingdale's) because they don’t leave a sticky residue); and having buccal facial massage with another amazing local woman called Kyũshi which releases all the tension in my jaw (she also does amazing sound baths).

How Does Where You Live Enhance Your Lifestyle?

The big Norfolk skies, especially when it is bright and sunny, keep me sane. And the colours of the mud creeks as the tides come in and out – the browns, greens and greys – are so beautiful. That is a constant joy. We also treat ourselves to very good fresh, seasonal ingredients at home – fantastic olive oils, produce from the farmer's shop down the road and our local butchers, apples from our own trees (which we eat in all different guises, from grated into porridge to pies and big batches of apple and courgette soup), and salad leaves and herbs picked straight from my little vegetable garden at home. I grew up in San Sebastian, where my grandmother’s very wholesome way of looking at the quality of the ingredients was deeply ingrained in me.

What are Some of Your Biggest Life Lessons?

My biggest lesson has been gratitude, for my family, but also for the opportunities that I have had. It is also important to be brave and bold in pushing yourself out of your comfort zone. From this comes resilience. If I could give my 19-year-old daughter Scarlett one piece of advice, it would be to have confidence in your instinct, your taste, and your convictions without judging others, especially in the social media age where it's so tempting to go along with the crowd. I’m happy with where I am – I've never really conformed. I've always been very comfortable just being me.

Any Regrets?

I never think about what could have been. I'm always thinking about what could be. I'm always looking ahead, there's still so many exciting things to see and do, how can anyone not be excited? The sun is shining, the plants are growing, how can you not be excited? I have an ability to see the silver linings quite quickly and I find a lot of things deeply fulfilling.

Monica Vinader's Essentials for a Calm and Fulfilled Lifestyle

This interview is part of the My Ritual series from Homes & Gardens, which explores the ways that leading tastemakers find calm and connection in their busy lives. Part of our wellbeing and sanctuary content, you'll find plenty of tips and nuggets of wisdom as well as product recommendations to help you create your own daily wellness rituals, for a healthy body and calm mind.