STORIES FROM THE ATELIER: JET McQUISTON

eliane de luca peres
2 days ago
3 min read

i first met jet in london in 2024, when she invited me to a private showing called Auric.

we immediately hit it off. not only did she make me feel incredibly welcome, but i was also completely blown away by the beauty, symbolism and attention to detail in her work.

based in london, jet creates jewels that blend tradition with a fresh, contemporary spirit,

drawing on history, memory and the natural world to tell deeply personal stories.

we stayed in touch after that first meeting and last year i had the pleasure of interviewing her

for my dedicated column in Salut les Garçons magazine. it gave us another opportunity to talk

at length — not only about jewellery, but also about life, travels, children, people and the intricate realities of this industry we both navigate in different ways. we met again this year in paris, where jet showed both with Nouvelle Box and as part of The Jewellery Cast, a group of exceptionally talented emerging designers.

apart from her obvious talent and deep respect for her craft, what i appreciate most about jet is her honesty and transparency. there is something incredibly thoughtful and sincere about the way she approaches both her work and the people around her. she is very special to me and it is truly an honour to share more about her and her work here.

JET McQUISTON

I am an artist and designer from London of Sri Lankan and Scottish heritage, creating jewels that eternalise personal histories and commemorate relationships, ideas, and moments of significance. Given that jewellery is an artefact that can endure for thousands of years, I see it

as a powerful setting for preserving and celebrating meaningful information.

My work explores the many dimensions of jewellery: its ability to commemorate, communicate personal and collective stories, and reflect the cultural values of its time. I am drawn to the way jewellery can embody symbolic and emotional significance beyond its material form and particularly enjoy exploring its cultural and mnemonic roles. Through bespoke commissions, family histories and love stories are memorialised, while my commercial collections are designed to hold evocative narratives and information.

Jewellery’s capacity to act as a vessel for storing information is a particular area of interest to me. This is explored allegorically through the incorporation of iconography from cultures across the world, an area of study during my MA in Jewellery Design at Central Saint Martins.

Exploring the earliest forms of creativity as seen in prehistoric art revealed the fundamental human urge to communicate and leave traces of ourselves, as well as the connection between this impulse and jewellery being one of the earliest artistic forms of human expression.

In this vein, I like to use these ancient traditions of leaving symbolic traces within jewels.

I also enjoy other jewellery traditions that worked with similar ideas, notably Victorian mourning jewellery, and therefore created my first contemporary jewellery collection, Fallen Flora.

The collection was researched alongside specialists at Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, and eternalises 75 iconic vanished plants and flowers from around the world.