Jeweller Tessa Packard beckons us into her gardener’s world
‘I grew up in Scotland on a farm in the middle of nowhere, and spent most of my childhood collecting bugs and making grass soup,’ says Tessa Packard. The jeweller’s latest fine jewellery collection takes a magical meander through her own imagined secret garden, one abounding with fantastical flora and fauna, inspired by landscape architecture and children’s literature. ‘What a garden personifies has always interested me,’ she adds. Here, we get a guided tour along Packard’s garden path…
‘There’s an otherworldliness behind the idea of an enchanted garden. It harks back to creatures we believed in as children, like trolls, nymphs and unicorns… Everything in the collection is inspired by things I’ve read, seen or believed in, like Tom’s Midnight Garden by Philippa Pearce or Frances Hodgson Burnett’s The Secret Garden.’ – Tessa Packard
Canopy earrings, 18-ct yellow gold, black rhodium, Verdigris brass and yellow agate
‘There’s an irregularity behind this ring. White enamel dots on the petals resemble the markings of toadstools. I wanted pieces to subvert the normal understanding of what botanical specimens might look like. In my imagined garden, creative possibilities are endless.’ – TP
Midsummer ring, 18-ct gold, black rhodium, enamel, Verdigris brass and yellow sapphire
‘I used rhodium plating to cover the brass key pieces, to ensure they hark back to a different age. The keys are all replicas of Victorian or Georgian designs. I wanted them to have a different colour to the other botanical pieces in the collection. The key pieces unlock my secret garden, and the other pieces live within it.’ – TP
Hide Seek earrings, 18-ct yellow gold vermeil, black rhodium and brass
‘Verdigris brass nods to structures in Victorian gardens which have been in existence for a long time, where their ironwork has been left to oxidise and develop a wonderful patina. The material also resembles the bark of a tree or the texture of moss on stones. The pieces also remind me of what jewellery would look like if it was hidden in a garden for fifty years.’ – TP
Anemone earrings, 18-ct gold, Verdigris brass, black rhodium, enamel and yellow sapphire
‘The pieces are also inspired by Renaissance Gardens in Tuscany. At Villa Lante there is an incredible grotto with three waterfalls, which cascade into a frothing algae-filled pool. These Rock Pool earrings nod to this scene.’ – TP
Rock Pool earrings, 18-ct gold, Verdigris brass, black rhodium, white enamel and citrine
‘Georgian landscape architects like Capability Brown wanted to do something different with the natural world. They even placed exotic animals in the English countryside. This collection is also romanticisation of nature.’ – TP
In The Greenhouse earrings, 9ct gold, Verdigris brass and citrine