Cara Tonkin designs elegant and bold jewellery with an Art Deco aesthetic. Fluid interlocking shapes, repeated forms and pattern work together to create jewellery that is tactile and playful to touch, with a focus on refined detail, textures, and craftsmanship. The daughter of two artists, Cara grew up surrounded by creativity both at home and in the inspiring city of Brighton. After training at Central Saint Martins in London and achieving a First-Class Honours degree in Jewellery Design, Cara returned to her hometown to establish her studio, where every piece is handcrafted from carefully sourced materials. 

Cara describes her Makers Process:

“My collections come to life through gathering imagery that inspires me, which can relate to many things such as myths, nature, art history and architecture; I then produce rough sketches which I use as a basis to start working directly with materials and experimenting with ways of texturing, forming, connecting and interlocking. My creative process is a lot to do with construction and how the jewellery works with the body. For me jewellery has to feel comfortable and a joy to wear, the wearer brings the jewellery to life through movement and the shapes of the body. I enjoy seeing how simple shapes can become intricate and striking through repetition and changes in scale.”

Gold vermeil is similar to gold plate but has a few significant differences. Gold vermeil is always applied to a base layer of sterling silver and the gold layer must be a minimum of 2.5 microns thick. Gold Plate may be applied to any metal including copper and brass and the gold layer must be a minimum of 0.5 microns thick. These factors make gold vermeil more expensive than gold plate but far more harder wearing. Gold vermeil is also a more affordable option to solid gold.