Solange Azagury-Partridge

London-born and bred, of Moroccan-Jewish heritage, Solange Azagury-Partridge turned to jewellery after graduating with a degree in French, Spanish and linguistics.  She worked first with fashion jewellery – perhaps absorbing the freedom and fantasy of the genre- and then with 20th-century specialist antique dealer, Gordon Watson, where she developed her interest in vintage jewellery. In 1987 she designed her first jewel, her own engagement ring. Encouraged by friends, she began producing one-of-a-kind creations and, very quickly, a collection took shape and a business was born.

In 1995, celebrities and tastemakers beat a path to Solange Azagury-Partridge’s first, dramatically different, red velvet-lined boutique on London's Westbourne Grove. They were drawn to her alternative, iconoclastic, pop-art influenced jewels, playfully irreverent yet subtly layered with cultural and historical meaning and redolent of talismanic traditions. Her over-sized, expressive rings, alive with colour remain her best-known and most innovative creations.   Her love of language and meaning became part of the creative process, informing the names of her collections and enhancing narrative and personality. They include Stoned, Chromance, Platonic, Everything, Seven, Regalia, Beauties, Random, Cosmic, Unwearable Jewels, Poptails, Supernature, Scribbles and Sentimentals, and Metamorphosis, a collection of jewelled objects.

Solange has extended the parameters of her design, making films to accompany her collections, creating two signature perfumes, Stoned and Cosmic, and turning her hand to interiors, furniture, lighting, and objects, making what she calls jewels for the home. Work by Azagury-Partridge is included in the collections of The Victoria and Albert Museum, London, and the Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris.