ON THE COVER: CHUPI
She’s an award-winning jewellery designer who has founded and grown her own company, yet Chupi Sweetman says she still has to bring her husband to certain meetings with her to ensure her ideas are taken seriously
The jewellery supremo on staying true to her brand and fighting for respect.
Irish jewellery designer Chupi SweetmanPell, 34, swishes into Dublin’s Westbury Hotel wearing a Zara polka dot maxi dress, Hermes belt and fingers stacked with her own beautiful quirky gold rings. The Wicklow-reared, homeschooled daughter of one of the founders of the Women’s Movement has just won her first international prize: the Entrepreneurial Spirit award at the prestigious UK Jewellery Awards 2018.
‘It was a huge moment standing in London winning the award against absolutely enormous international jewellery brands with incredible money and incredible history behind them and we are this tiny Irish start-up, five years old,’ she says.
‘For me it really felt like it was the right decision, staying in Ireland.’
When Chupi first began making jewellery in dreary 2011, people were dubious and advised her to set up shop in London or New York instead. ‘I thought, but someone has to make something beautiful. There has to be space in the world for beautiful things – why can’t it be done in Ireland?’
Now that the economy has improved – we have a giggle at the €150 cocktail on the menu – Chupi is glad she stuck to her guns, working her way to global recognition from the spare room in her Portobello house and, more recently, the company’s new premises in Harold’s Cross. When I first interviewed her in 2015, she had a staff of eight; three years later it has almost tripled to 23. Her jewellery, inspired by nature, has become instantly recognisable – twigs, leaf and feather motifs, grey diamond engagement