With the collar of his leather jacket pulled up tight against the sparkly black diamonds glinting from his earlobes, the jeweller Stephen Webster takes a chair in the Garrard showroom and sits down looking weary.
He has recently returned from an exhausting whistle-stop tour of shows in 18 US cities. “It’s a cultural thing over there,” he says. “They want the designs but they also want a bit of you. It can be draining but it means everything if I go.” It is Mr Webster’s personal appearances as much as his edgy designer jewels, that have enabled him to attract clients around the world in markets as diverse as Korea and Kansas City.
