AN OUR MANLY LOCAL DESIGNER INTERVIEW
Manly has a number of industry leading designers, none of whom have quite as much sparkle as David Connor, of David Connor Designs. The jewellry designer has had some of the world’s wealthiest as customers, but is just as happy handcrafting the perfect engagement ring for a Manly local.
Apprenticed at 15 at London’s world famous Hatton Gardens, formative years in the West End where he made jewellery for members of the Royal family and celebrities such as Ringo Star, David Connor came to Sydney in 1965 establishing his own workshop specializing in fine handmade jewellery.
Our Manly: You began working quite early in jewellery. Was it a family business?
David Connor: My family was all in the jewellery trade so it was quite natural for me to follow my brother into Hatton Gardens, which is and was the real center for the craft of jewellery making in London. From there I moved to the West End where all the really great, very big pieces- diamond tiaras and necklets are made, nowadays not so much for the royal family as Arabs who shop for that kind of thing in London.
O M: What was the West End like in the ‘60’s?
D C: It was, and I suppose still is fabulous. There was a great group of jewelers and designers who worked together in some of the best places in London. I remember the Shah of Iran before he got kicked out; we made a lot of magnificent stuff for him. Also for the royal family and the pop groups of the time. Mainly it was big pieces being sold out of Bond Street. One of the places I worked had 17 of us in the workshop. Everything we made was for stock, not for individual people, and it was sold as fast as we could make it. On average it took about 3 months to make a piece.
O M: Why did you leave London in 1965?
D C: I’d done the European thing. A mate of mine was looking to go further afield. What appealed to us was you couldn’t go any further from London without falling off the edge. The climate also appealed to us and it was a Commonwealth country. In them days I could get there for 10 pounds. I was always called a “10 Pound Pom”. I was here for about 6 months before I started my own business. In my naiveté I thought I could do just as well as the guy I was working for. You learn that it’s not quite that easy. I was pleasantly surprised by the high quality of jewellery being made here- due to the large number of migrants here bringing their skills and ideas which we didn’t have in London, which was very conservative. There we made jewellery the way we had always made it for the last few hundred years. Coming to Australia and working with people from all different parts of the world and seeing how they approached the same problem, designing a three dimensional piece of jewellery from a one dimensional design, seeing how they did it, their methods, was, for someone like me, very exciting.
Our Manly: What national style appealed to you most?
D C: I worked with a couple of Italians who are really known for their design. Maybe they learned from me the conservative nature of how a thing is made as much as I learned from them the way they interpreted things in a design-oriented way. That could be said of the French. I worked with Arabs, people from Turkey, Armenia, and that was different, again, They had a totally different approach to how they would do something. I said show me how you do that, I must incorporate that into how I do things. It’s that melting pot that I really enjoyed.
O M: Would you have been a different jeweler if you had stayed in London?
D C: Absolutely. Maybe working on much bigger pieces. But that wasn’t important for me. First of all, I wouldn’t have been working for myself because of the conservative nature of England. In your own country you tend to have shackles put on and don’t even realize it When you come to a new country you can be anybody you want. You can change your name. You tend to be a lot braver. Coming here opened me up to a lot of things and not just jewellery. Another thing was food. You know how the English are about their food- it’s a bit like their jewellery.
O M: Do you have a favorite traditional piece of jewellery?
D C: No, not in that sense. Over the many years I’ve been doing it I’m proud not so much to be an artist, if some people use that expression, but to be a craftsman. I like to think of myself as a professional, and when you are that in this business you are producing articles that people want to buy. It’s not a matter of me sitting down and making something, like an artist, hoping that somebody is going to buy. That’s not the business we’re in. People come in with a rough idea, color and stones they like, the budget they have, and we come up with a design but always overriding everything is you have to make a piece for somebody, not for yourself. It’s much more professional and rigid in its application. You have to survive, you have to make pieces people love.
O M: What’s your advice on engagement rings?
D C: I’m always saying to the girls they have got to be conservative because an engagement ring has to be worn everyday, day in day out, maybe for fifty years. If you get tired of a dress ring you can not wear it for a while. You have to look at an engagement ring in twenty years time, when you are a changed person, when you have children, and think to yourself, “I still like my engagement ring”.
O M: What’s the difference between that and designing one off pieces like dress rings and broaches?
D C: I think there are no two ways about it, they are the best pieces I ever make. But, of course, you have to have customers who are used to dealing with you and have the confidence in you to let you do whatever you want. When you do things like that, I always think, you produce the best stuff.
I do sometimes think that if I get to the stage where I retire I wouldn’t mind just sitting down and making things.
O M: Your favorite cut of diamond and what setting pares down the design but best highlights the stone?
D C: I’ve always found that the objective is to show the stone at its best. If someone comes in and spends $100,000 on a nice big diamond, they are not coming in to show them how clever you are. It can be generally considered the least metal you use for the setting the better the stone is going to look. But the problem with that, what is more important, is the security of the stone. You’re always fighting the security of the stone verse the design.
If someone comes in with $2000 dollars, with the cost of hand-making a ring I can’t spend very much on the diamond, so one has a tendency to make a ring that everybody, when they look at it, says to her, “What a lovely ring”. Because the diamond is not really big enough to stand up by itself. But if I’m doing anything a carat and over, my intentions are when everyone looks at it they go, “What a lovely diamond”. Because that is the only thing they see.
As to the cut, I’m still a fan of the old fashioned emerald cut, which is cut differently than the more sparkling Asher cut, has a more elegant look about it. It’s always been my favorite.
O M: How important is certification?
D C: In the early days one hardly ever saw a certificate and anybody could do a valuation. In recent years governments have been a lot tougher on industries. I pretty much wouldn’t sell a diamond without a certificate. Under ½ a carat we don’t bother but above we do. These are important; the certificate should go with the stone if someone decides to sell it.
It’s important for me that people know that any paperwork for their diamond is not coming solely from us. There are independent laboratories that are grading the stones we sell. People can be more confident they get what they pay for.
David Connor Designs, with a strong international reputation, have customers as far afield as the UK, Italy and Turkey. The majority of their work comes from local customers wanting redesigns, usually from inherited or gifted rings, or customised jewelery for their loved ones.
If you would like to see some of their work, or would like to chat about design options, pop in and see David, or one of the friendly team at David Connor Designs, 365 Sydney Road, Manly.
Interviewed by Paul Oscar Hamilton