SPELLBOUND BY STAR SUPPORT
Jeweller’s golden moments
SPEAKING to Hayley Jones, the woman behind jewellery designs worn by celebrity and royalty, she is almost apologetic about the success of her Welsh product. Her biggest fear when it comes to designing her delicate gold-plated jewellery is that people won’t actually like them.
So no-one was more shocked than her when first the Duchess of Cambridge rocked up in south Wales wearing her gold hoop earrings and then Kendall Jenner was snapped wearing the same ones at a New York Knicks game at Madison Square Garden earlier this year. Well, noone apart from maybe her grandparents – they were “super-excited” when the Duchess chose their granddaughter’s designs for her trip to Barry last summer.
And when Hayley saw the pictures of Kendall emerge such was her disbelief she ran downstairs to tell her family barely able to contain her tears of excitement.
“I sent them to her stylist last year,” she said about Kendall. “I didn’t expect her to wear them because she must get sent so many things from so many companies. I didn’t expect her to see them, let alone wear them. It was surreal.”
Hayley, 28, could never have anticipated how those £62 18k-gold plated Alia hoops would transform her homespun brand, Spells of Love, into an international celebrity name.
Spells of Love started out with Hayley working on the family kitchen table in Caerphilly before moving into the conservatory. Initially she made her own jewellery, teaching herself how to put designs together. But she didn’t have the patience or the passion for making, she said, and realised her skills lay in the design process.
So she drew up some sketches and sent them off to a manufacturer in Thailand and had some samples sent back for her approval. After a few tweaks here and there she settled on her first range of necklaces and earrings and launched Spells of Love in 2019.
The past 12 months have been “crazy” for the fledgling business which had been struggling to grow up until that point. Her mum helps out with the photography, which Hayley does herself, while her dad, a postie, helps out with local deliveries.
Her recent success is down to simply not giving up said the fashion graduate who initially sold her jewellery on Etsy.
“It was really, really quiet starting out and I was only getting a few sales here and there,” said Hayley.
“So I’m so grateful for what’s happened. It’s taken a long time to get this busy and it didn’t take off straightaway. I knew I wanted it to work and I knew if I kept going that it would - or I was hoping it would at least.”
Since the flurry of media excitement around Spells of Love she’s had orders from America, Hong Kong, Austria, Australia, Mexico, and Singapore. She’s featured in magazines including British Vogue and GQ and her jewellery has become a favourite for British reality stars and models including Emma Louise Connelly, Made in Chelsea’s Sophie Habbo, and The Only Way is Essex’s Chloe Lewis.
“We had orders from just everywhere,” Hayley said. “It’s been amazing and we’ve sold quite a few hundred of those hoops - they keep selling out.
“It was very, very quiet at first but as soon as the Duchess wore them it went crazy.”
It’s been a steep learning curve for Hayley who found she didn’t have enough stock to cope. Even now, a year later, the Alia hoops sell incredibly well and she can barely keep up with demand.
“Because they’re handmade and hand-finished they sometimes take two months to make,” she explained about her designs. “So I order them in batches. And they’re sold out straightaway so then I have to put in another order immediately.”
Hayley creates her pieces in an “eco and ethically conscious” way, designing her pieces “with the intention of making women feel beautiful” in order to “enhance their inner beauty”. She was inspired by her own experiences of buying jewellery which she found tarnished almost as soon as she bought it.
“I don’t design for trends - it’s more keepsake items,” she explained. “I wanted to create jewellery that was affordable but also lasted a long time. I was purchasing jewellery that tarnished after a couple of weeks. I felt like it wasn’t sustainable. I was spending so much and it just didn’t last.”
It’s important to her that her manufacturer in Thailand is family run and everything she sells is ethically made and ethically sourced. The gold-plating for her designs is done by another family-run business in Worcestershire. As her business grows she hopes to work with Welsh jewellery manufacturers.
Hayley is still in disbelief about what she’s created with Spells of Love but designing is something she’s wanted to do ever since she was a schoolgirl. She said: “Even though I did like the making process I couldn’t cope with how long it was taking.
“I always wanted to be a fashion designer or dress designer. I did go to a local dressmakers for work experience and it just wasn’t for me. I don’t know if I have the patience with all the making and the sewing and having to undo the stitches and redoing it. I just didn’t have the patience.
“I studied art at A-level. All my pages were fashion-based and dress designs. So even at school that’s what I wanted to go into.”
Spells of Love came about because she wanted to create something positive and something “that had meaning”. Hayley explained: “Spells of Love is a positive brand that is based on the more sustainable and gemstone approach with a good vibe. That’s what I was going for.”
It’s an approach that’s resonated with the likes of the Duchess of Cambridge who is always thoughtful about picking her wardrobe to support local and small-scale businesses.
Hayley relies on the power of social media and influencer marketing. The glossy images of sunkissed influencers on faraway beaches wearing Spells of Love products belies the reality of sitting in a room constantly emailing influencers and getting knocked back. While that might put some people off Hayley stuck at it.
“I just started small and seeing what sold in small batches,” she said. “I didn’t have any marketing budget or PR or anything like that. I was just emailing different influences and, a lot of the time, I didn’t hear back.
“It was just trying to get my brand out there. It’s been a little while getting here but this past year and a half we’ve slowly got there. It’s not been overnight or anything.”
She now has 11,000 followers on Instagram but still can’t fathom what it is that makes her product so popular.
“I’m not really sure why,” she said. “I’m just glad people like my designs. I’m still super-small at the minute but I’m hoping I can grow and keep staying busy.
“I’m just on my own and I’m 100% learning as I go. I’ve never, ever run a business before and I still make mistakes now.” Business Wales have been a huge help to her when it comes to learning about mentoring, employment contracts, and training she said.
“There are so many little things you don’t think of like insurance,” she added.
Her plan is to “keep riding the wave and see where it goes”. She is aspiring to make her business as eco-friendly and ethical as possible and plans to take on some employees to help her keep up with orders.
At the moment she’s balancing the demands of designing and developing her range to include gemstones and maybe even diamonds with deliberations about how to grow her business.
“I’m so small - I may need a loan to grow further and scale the business,” she said. “It’s really scary, taking a loan, but I’m going to look at that.”