MY LIFE, MY STYLE
Sheherazade Goldsmith’s home is as much a treasure as the elegant jewellery pieces she creates for Loquet London
Inside the light-filled London home of the jewellery entrepreneur Sheherazade Goldsmith
‘Iloveflowers that are a little bit shy, but when you get near them, have an amazing scent or a beautiful shape,’ says the jeweller Sheherazade Goldsmith, as we stroll around her sun-dappled lawn, which backs onto the London Wetland Centre in Barnes. ‘My garden is inspired by Vita Sackville-West, and a lot of the planting scheme that I put in has come from Sissinghurst, so it’s very fragrant and floral,’ she says. ‘The local farmer uses the land at the bottom, so sometimes we even have sheep and cows wandering past.’
It is an idyllic setting in which to bring up her three children, Uma, Thyra and James, by her former husband Zac Goldsmith, the Conservative MP for Richmond Park. Her spacious double-fronted Victorian house also has an office where Goldsmith works on ideas for Loquet London, the finejewellery brand she launched in 2013 with the model and writer Laura Bailey. The label’s signature piece is a modern keepsake locket with a clear crystal face, encased in gold, that can be opened and personalised
with charms and birthstones, from a lucky horseshoe to a rainbow. ‘Loquet is about people’s stories, their individuality, what’s important in their lives and what makes them who they are,’ she says.
Goldsmith was born in London, the daughter of John Bentley, a financier, and Viviane Ventura, a Colombian actress, and grew up just off the King’s Road in Chelsea. ‘When I was a teenager, I looked really young, so I embraced it and went with the tomboy look,’ she says. ‘I studied at the French Lycée and everyone wore secondhand baggy Levi’s 501s, Converse trainers and sweatshirts.’ But she allied her casual style with an early appreciation of jewellery. ‘My uncle, who used to
live with us, is a jeweller, and I was infatuated with all the stones and kit he would bring home.’
Goldsmith’s entrepreneurial spirit first led her to open an organic café and babyfood company, Deli Organic, in Battersea’s so-called Nappy Valley. ‘I had embarked on this romance with Zac that turned quickly into a marriage proposal,’ she says. ‘When I became pregnant, we bought a house in the country and I didn’t really know what to do with myself at the weekends, so I started growing produce.’ Even after the café closed – she found it impossible to combine with hands-on motherhood – her passion for organic food and environmental causes remained, and she went on to write about green issues for The Sunday Times and many other publications.
Like many brainwaves, the idea for Loquet came to Goldsmith at the kitchen table, over a glass of wine with Bailey, one of her oldest friends. ‘My son had bought me a present at a fun fair – a Perspex heart necklace with dried flowers embedded in it,’ Goldsmith says. ‘With Laura as a sounding
‘My garden is inspired by Vita Sackville-West, and a lot of the planting scheme has come from
Sissinghurst’
board, we turned it into a stylish concept and then, before you know it, five years later, we’re in 53 stores worldwide and online.’
Her team are based in a shared office space in Ladbroke Grove: ‘It’s basically a building full of designers, all women, and it has a really cool atmosphere and vibe.’ Day to day, Goldsmith works on production, wholesale and online marketing, coming up with design concepts, which she then talks through with Bailey, the creative director, who takes the lead on packaging, look books and photography. While Loquet is known for its contemporary spin on the charm necklace, the brand now sells rings, bracelets and earrings, and will unveil a new collection with the jewellery designer Chantel Conrad in September.
When we meet, Goldsmith is wearing a grown-up version of her childhood uniform – blue jeans and an Elder Statesman cashmere jumper, and looks simultaneously playful and elegant. ‘I’m obsessed with Phoebe Philo’s Celine, Marni and Isabel Marant,’ she says, ‘and I love Prada and Miu Miu for their femininity and pops of understated colour.’ During the day, Goldsmith likes to ‘have fun with fashion’, favouring long skirts with little stars or hearts on them; whereas, in the evening, she prefers a classic look, with a Dior dress and Manolo Blahnik heels. ‘The biggest compliment I’ve ever had as far as my style was concerned is that my two teenage daughters are constantly in my wardrobe,’ she says.
When the family moved to Barnes in 2016, the children all had a say in how their bedrooms were decorated. ‘They grew up in the countryside, in a house with shabby-chic interiors, so I wanted to keep an element of that warmth, but introduce clean lines and a sense of space,’ Goldsmith says. Working with the architect and interior designer Willie
Nickerson, she transformed the property into a sophisticated family home with floorto-ceiling Crittall windows, filled with 1940s and 1950s furniture, wrap-around bookshelves, giant cacti and sculptural lighting. She has just started to put together a small art collection, including works by Wolfgang Tillmans and Louise Bourgeois, which hang in the living-room opposite a painting by the Irish artist William Crozier. ‘I think art is just the same as a timeless piece of jewellery,’ she says. ‘It is never constrained by trends, age or occasions, but a reminder of a moment in life that has a meaning.’