November 2011
2 posts
WatchLet Stephen guide you on a personal journey through the world of Stephen Webster.
Explore the collections and hear the inspiration behind them, as told by the designer himself.
The Garden of Good and Evil
Last night marked the launch of “The Garden of Good and Evil”.
A month long exhibition of the collective works of jewellery designer, Tomasz Donocik at the Garrard flagship store on Albemarle Street London.
Ever since becoming the Creative Director of Garrard, I hoped at some point to be able to offer a platform for new and outstanding talent in the jewellery industry.
I come...
October 2011
3 posts
September 28th 2011. Mobile, Alabama - New...
Mobile hasn’t much to offer so we felt obliged to visit the one thing it did have; USS Alabama. The ship and the sky were the same colour - battle ship grey. Something biblical was on its way weather wise that was for sure.
The first thing on show at Battleship Park is a B52 bomber. The sign informed us that “Calamity Jane” had seen a lot of action wreaking havoc over Vietnam...
Road Trip 2011: In Pictures (part 1)
Tuesday 27th September 2011. Athens Georgia -...
We had been invited by Bertis, REM’s original manager who now looks after everything REM, to come over to the office and take a look around. After an old school breakfast in the Mayflower diner, who have been “putting the south in your mouth since 1948” (their slogan not mine), we paid a visit to Bertis and the team at REM HQ.
It was extraordinary. Every square inch of wall...
September 2011
2 posts
Monday 26th September 2011. Asheville NC - Athens...
I had a brain wave. I thought it had been indigestion at first, “Let’s not go to Atlanta”. I’d heard Athens, GA was a cooler town. To be honest I knew nothing about it other than Michael Stipe was either from there or grew up there and had told me once that it was a nice place. Throwing caution to the wind we headed there.
After leaving the great un-groomed of Asheville we...
Road Trip USA 2011
Over the last 5 years, I have been fortunate enough to be able to ring fence a week in September and take a road trip in the 1959 Thunderbird that I bought at the side of the road in Newport Beach, CA after my excitingly successful first year exhibiting as the Stephen Webster brand in the USA.
The car always had beautiful lines but the condition could only be described, at best, as faded. Many...
July 2011
1 post
Festival Camping Safari Style
Packed my summer outfit which consists of one pair of shorts and a pair of canvas shoes with a sort of rubber and string sole. We’re off to Ibiza this weekend to celebrate Pete Tong’s wife, Carolina’s 40th birthday. I want to say this will be a relaxing break but we land at midnight and head straight for Pacha to catch Pete’s Friday night set, ‘It’s all gone Pete Tong’. Which for...
June 2011
4 posts
The Launch of 'Murder She Wrote' North of the...
As it always will, it started with a murder. This time round the scene of the crime was that pillar of Scottish establishments; Hamilton & Inches of George St, Edinburgh. The victim was none other than the playboy of the high and the lowlands; Mr Hugh McHeffer. He was already dead when we got there, a Stephen Webster designed Sgian Dubh (that knife men in kilts wear down their sock) protruding...
From Russia, via Los Angeles and Las Vegas, to the...
If variety is the spice of life then life over the last few weeks has been at jalapeño levels. Moscow - St Petersburg – London – LA - Las Vegas - LA – London. Finally coming to land in my garden in Kent by helicopter, (I will expand on that later).
Following very brief visits to Moscow and St Petersburg it was back to London for a flying visit then over to LA for a meeting. Our shop on Rodeo...
Parties, Launches and a Chewbacca Hat?!
There was quite the celeb crowd at the first night of Crazy Horse cabaret last night and those girls can put on a show. The very clever lighting raised the bar for pole dancing & stripping for a while.
Up at 6am to get to Heathrow where it’s on to Moscow. The C gates have just opened at T5 so of course nothing works but it smells nice and new.
The first time I landed in Moscow 16 years ago I...
The Tale of a Volcano, a Kansas cop and a 9mm...
I can’t believe we are facing the prospect of another Icelandic, volcanic dust cloud. The upcoming week sees me flying to Moscow - St Petersburg – London - LA and finally Las Vegas, where I stay put for a bit to exhibit at the largest US jewellery show. The last cloud of dust, of course, had a lot of us stranded in one place or another. My family were considerably displaced; Wife in Russia,...
May 2011
3 posts
Aladdin Sane
It’s been five months since the Stephen Webster store in Beverly Hills opened. I have written before about the second floor curated space, the No Regrets bar and lounge and last month we opened our first art exhibit; a retrospective of the work by pop artist, Alan Aldridge.
Alan himself came to the opening party along with 150 people keen to view a collection of works so intrinsically linked to...
Brandenburg not Battenberg
After one last and very final interview with the lovely Vanessa Phelps on my chosen subject, tiaras, just prior to the Royal wedding (I am now a world authority on the snazzy headgear), we managed to escape the pomp, road blocks and silly hats, choosing instead to join the arty set for a gallery weekend in Berlin.
The highlight and reason for going was to see the opening of a new installation by...
BRIT WEEK IN BEVERLY HILLS
We are headed to LA. The Royal Wedding is done and the bunting has been divided out like pieces of the Berlin wall were 20 odd years ago. “I was there and that’s my bit of jack to prove it.”
We are going to LA to continue the celebrations of all things British, only this time in Uncle Sam’s back yard. It’s Brit week in Beverly Hills. Yes, as if the Royal Wedding were...
April 2011
1 post
Hang the DJ
The perfect antidote to a week in Basel has been almost 2 weeks on Boipeba Island in the Bahia region of Brazil. It was trading Swiss obsessive efficiency for something different altogether. You know there is going to be a more relaxed attitude to customer service when the two shirtless young dudes, who meet you from the speed boat that delivers you through the mangroves via “Hell...
March 2011
3 posts
Life after Basel
Before I give my assessment of the 2011 Basel show, I have to mention my amazing team. That show is brutal, 8 days long - a duration dictated by the watch side of the industry - but the SW sales, PR, creative, and operations crews once again worked well and truly above the call of duty.
People have come to expect a certain experience from their SW appointment, whether that be to place orders,...
Stephen's Column for Russian Rolling Stone
Stephen has been writing a column for Russian Rolling Stone magazine for several years… welcome to another part of Webster’s world…
My last column was inspired by explosions and the upcoming B.A.D tour. That reminds me - I must re-size Mick’s old signet ring featuring the band’s original logo - like all other mortals his fingers have got a bit thicker with age.
This week it’s hard to escape...
Paris Fashion Week
Finally on the train to Paris for Fashion Week. Kate and her team set up yesterday, Assia and I join them for the first day.
The focus in Paris is to launch our new woman’s and men’s silver collections. The fine launches wait until end of March in Basel.
The two weeks before the first show of the year are always nerve racking with pieces being finished every day. A tray will come up to...
February 2011
6 posts
Watch
In January 2011 I travelled to Peru on the trail of the world’s first Fairtrade gold to experience firsthand the difference that Fairtrade certification will make to small scale and artisanal mining communities, as well as to trace the origin of this precious metal.
SW BEVERLY HILLS INSTALLATION
I’m proud to reveal our latest stylist of the month window at the Stephen Webster Beverly Hills store.
When we took over the space last year to launch the first SW US boutique there was a window in a very prominent position but it was too large and too high to be used properly to display jewellery. I had an idea. Rather than write it off as next to useless, we could buy a couple of mannequins and...
CARRY ON UP THE URALS
Three years ago we visited Yekaterinburg in the Ural Mountains, the range between Russia and Siberia, most infamous for being the place where the Romanov family were exiled to at the start of the revolution. As we all know, in the end they were finally lined up against a wall and shot in good old Bolshevik style. We were there not as morbid tourists, but to celebrate the opening of the Stephen...
Watch
The hopeless case of the llama and the missing...
We spent last night back in the Majoro hotel outside Nazca. After an excellent dinner of Peruvian bass, Argentinean wine and for some reason a lot of British toilet humour (you can take the boys out of Gravesend but… you know how it goes) we attempted once again to play pool on the table that resembled the terrain we had been driving on, only marginally greener.
There was no black ball, no...
This village is killing us
Chala is the Wild West. Sin City on the Pacific south coast of Peru that services the thousands of predominantly men who mine or work for the mines in this whole vast region. Needless to say by night when the gangs of men rock up by the truck load drinking Pesco till their banjo’d, business is brisk in the endless parades of whore houses which are Chala. Chala by the way in Quechua (the...
January 2011
6 posts
How To Spend It
This week I’m writing a diary for How To Spend It online…
Check it our for a day by day insight into the goings on at Stephen Webster and Garrard.
http://www.howtospendit.com/#/articles/3614-diary-of-a-somebody-stephen-webster
From hot mines to gold mines
Nazca - Relave, Pullo District
Very early start. Left our lovely hacienda totally oblivious to how gruelling and emotional the day ahead was to become. After an hour on the road we turned off right by a roadside brothel called the “Hot Mine” which had paintings of blonde Slavic looking girls over the stucco walls. Most likely what was being mined inside had less of a blonde yield than...
Ethical Fools Gold
Lima - Nazca
Hotel Antiqua Miraflores. Lima.
Met the whole Solidaridad team at breakfast this morning.
Erik from Holland and Gonzalo, Fredrico and Javier from the Lima office. For reasons that later became clear later I was the only one who ordered coffee. I am open to the possibility that my new found fondness of Pret’s Flat White may have clouded my judgment as to what constitutes a good...
The Slow Gold Rush
London - Lima
Having finally hit the sack at 2.30am, the 5am call this morning was exactly what you might expect - painful. A lot of people would have had an early night ahead of such a long trip, but that’s most people and this is our trip not theirs. Also we would have missed a lot of fun at Hix last night, where apart from our party of 7 there were by coincidence another 20 or 30 other...
Peru
Blimey, that past 4 day week felt like at least a 7 day week.
Why does the planning at the beginning of each year make one feel as though it will be the busiest ever? We only make and sell jewellery but with a creative team like my lot, we always seem to have another idea to realise.
Its Sunday, we’ve had a bit of a day but you don’t need to know about that. The week ahead is so exciting...
Pocahontas, travel sickness and I
When I was little (younger not shorter) my dad said he was going to take me to the burial grounds of the Native American Princess Pocahontas. Even at the tender age of 9 or 10 I knew this sounded distant and exotic. Everyone knew Pocahontas was not just any old Native American Indian; she was a Red Indian just like the horseback warriors with feathers, bows, arrows and hatchets we had seen on...
December 2010
4 posts
To drunk to f**k
Landing at Terminal 5 for the final time in 2010. Having started in Puerto Rico, this trip continued in Palm Beach and Miami and finally concluded in Beverly Hills with the opening of our first flagship store in the USA. It does feel good to be heading home even with my nomadic tendencies.
Tonight is the final Seven Deadly Sins party and hopefully the most dramatic finale to what has been a world...
The Cardigan
A short story written at 35,000 ft
Through virtually the entire boarding process there was just myself and a tiny old lady in our row. Having come to terms with my economy status and the flow of passengers having slowed to a halt I placed all my reading materials, BB and glasses on the empty chair between us. Sort of marking the territory; indicating that the seat may not be empty. I desperately...
Nuns on the run
Today is 1st December. Officially we were planning to open the store in LA exactly one month ago and now the opening party is the 6th December. You know how it goes . While concrete and glass are still being laid I feel this is the kind of material for a reality TV show as I’m writing.
Nonetheless today is also a day when I feel so lucky that my job involves so much travel. I left London in...
SW... Hungarian playmate of the month?
About to land at Heathrow; my spiritual home.
It’s cold and we have been promised snow by the weekend, 6cm’s say the Independent and 6ft says the Daily Mail. Either way I am looking forward to my next trip in a few days to Puerto Rico.
The last two days have been spent in Vienna; a city which does Christmas like no one else. We were there to officially open our latest boutique. Positioned on...
November 2010
1 post
November is a busy time for jewellers
Today is the 20th and we’ve finally taken off after wing de-icing required due to the first proper snow storm in Moscow. I’ve been in Russia for a week taking the Seven Deadly Sins rings for their first outing to the north east.
November started for me far from any kind of precipitation, in LA. I was there for the fifth time this year checking on the progress of our now imminently opening...
October 2010
2 posts
From one desert to another
LA. This is my third visit to see our new store and still no work has been started. I am going to get them all in one room and start picking on the smallest one first. Although I may leave it at that as it finally looks as though the message is getting through… after an all team meeting I have been promised that works will commence at midnight (Beverly Hills doesn’t like to see...
The Seven Deadly Sins and the Bible Belt
Flying over Kansas City on my way to LA from Columbus, Ohio.
This trip started in Rochester NY for the for the Seven Deadly Sins event. The theme has definitely resonated with the retailers. I think I will give an award for the best in store presentation of the rings. Every marketing department has pulled out all the stops and made the SW sins event their focus for the season. I wouldn’t...
September 2010
9 posts
Leaving LA on a Southwest jet plane
Leaving LA on a Southwest jet plane. It’s the west coast version of sleazy jet. First come first served. Does it really cost more to assign a seat? Probably.
With hind sight 5 days in the Palihouse hotel is a couple of days too many. There is definitely a scene in the lobby but I soon discovered this is a thin veneer to a kind of up market hostel. Don’t get me wrong, if you are the right...
Portland Maine - Croton-on-Hudson, NY
Well it isn’t easy but we managed to raise a little hell in Portland Last night. We are just about coming round now which is 6pm.
Determined to shed a little of the old gits image that we found came so easily on this trip, we were looking for some trouble, well a bit of a laugh would do.
Started with martini’s at the hotel happy hour. It said it on the board “martini’s in...
Northeast Harbour - Portland, Maine
Absolutely pissing down this morning. I’m talking biblical proportions.
Had breakfast with all the other old people in camp B&B. Most of them didn’t seem to mind the rain as they were only waiting to die anyway.
Got to get out of here. Hit the road running at 9am having been woken early by all the old people making a lot of noise shuffling around.
First stop; The Hinckley yacht...
Quebec City - Northeast Harbour, Maine
Woke up to teaming rain. Even went to Le Gym (see how good my French has become).
Over breakfast Jeff breaks the news; he has lost his bottle. Wants to stay put for the day. This is not a good sign; we are on a road trip. Quebec is a nice place but we have to get back on the road.
Something happened to Jeff in his room, he has just announced that he has changed his mind and we are moving on....
Montreal - Quebec City
It was only supposed to be a three hour drive but to the 59 Thunderbird time is of no importance. It will sail in when it sails in. We reached the 11,000 mile mark that Jeff and I have travelled since the renovation of the car 4 years ago.
As we were about to leave Richard Young in the city to fly back home we hung around with him for as long as we could take. With him gone there were two...
Day 3
To be honest even though this trip started in NYC with the launch of the Seven Deadly Sins collection at Saks 5th avenue;,the actual road trip has hardly been sinful at all, apart from a little gluttony maybe. It really has lived up to the subtitle of “no journey for young men”.
With a collective age for the three of us at 165 it’s not surprising that the trip has involved more naps...
Day 2
After unloading at the Bowery hotel I headed over to our NY office in Soho. The streets were absolutely mobbed. Its NY fashion week which brings with it the weird and wonderful fashion brigade with a lot of pushing and shoving in every store. There seemed to be an urgency about shopping. Perhaps there is going to be a clothes shortage sometime soon.
Had a martini in the new Crosby hotel then...
Seven Deadly Sins US tour incorporating a seven...
On my way to NY with my travelling companion Richard Young. Got off to a dodgy start. Half way to Heathrow I realised for the first time in my life that I had forgotten my passport. Having already cut it fine time wise I figured I would be missing this one. While Assia was getting dressed and about to follow me round the M25 with the thing in hand, I went to the BA desk to tell them I was here but...
Rocks against Cancer
Off to New York next week to support my great friend Dr Farber at the launch of the Farber Centre for Radiation Oncology in New York.
Dr Farber is on the cutting edge of cancer treatment and we’ve designed a bespoke ‘Rocks Against Cancer’ bracelet from which all of the proceeds will be donated straight back to the charity.
Check this out – after all, everyone knows someone.
...
August 2010
2 posts
Post Ibiza Blues
Post Ibiza week can give some people the blues. Personally I see it as a chance to hear some music with lyrics.
Considering its August we have a million things going on at work. We have finally got the applications in for the building and electrical permits in order to start construction on the new shop in the heart of Beverly Hills. No2 Rodeo Drive. How posh is that I ask you?
We finally...
Balearic Beatnik
I have been tweeting so much lately I feel like a Cockney Sparrow. It’s nice to get back to a medium with a few more characters than Hollywood.
Since the last blog I have been on holiday with all the family to the Balearic Island that dances to the beat of its own drum Ibiza.
It’s the best place for a holiday. You can chill at a villa or a beautiful beach, or you can drop the sort of cocktail...
July 2010
4 posts
La to Dallas
Row 34A American AirlinesLA-Dallas. Guy next to me is literally half over my seat, this is gonna be a long one.
He is huge. Don’t let anyone say I have lost touch with the common man, I am in touch with a little too much of this one and boy is he heavy. Had a great couple of days in LA putting the team together for our new project. Can’t tell you details yet but will very soon. ...