“The Vivienne Westwood of jewellery design”

Currently residing at the bottom of Park Street, is the Vivienne Westwood of jewellery design. Diana Porter creates quirky and unusual, but wearable designs, using precious metals and jewels.

Since winning UK Jewellery Designer of the Year in 1999, Diana Porter has made a name for herself as one of the top jewellers in the country, being invited to join the elite Goldsmiths’ directory. 

Diana started out making jewellery in her living room 21 years ago. In 1999, she won the prestigious title of UK jewellery designer of the year – an honour she has since shared with the likes of industry giant and celebrity favourite, Stephen Webster MBE.

“My style is quite organic and very meaningful. I write on things, so the writing on my designs is always is always mine. I use a technique called acid etching.”

Diana’s original jewellery collection was a set of pendants called ‘Sybls’ with different power words on them, like calm or fulfilled.

“The idea was, that you could wear one and you could feel that,” Diana explains.

“When I left college, I couldn’t afford to make anything in silver, so I made the Sybls in a very cheap metal called pewter and took them to shops in sets of 21 and I sold them. That’s how I got going. They’re brilliant – I still make them now.

“Sybls have taken me everywhere. I went to New York once on an airplane, right at the beginning, and I had all 21 sybls around my neck and the air stewardess asked, ‘where did you get those?’ And by the end of that flight, she took me in her car to a shop in Long Island where she thought they would like them – and they did.”

 
Diana has always been interested in words and their meanings, or more aptly, double meanings.

“If you saw a ring with on and ‘on and on and on’ on it, you’d know it was mine. The idea being of eternity, but it also means, ‘oh you can be interminable, boring, I don’t want to listen to you anymore…’ all the things that are real in life, actually. To me, that’s what on and on means; as well as infinite and romantic.“ 

Diana now operates out of her Bristol shop, which also sells collections from up to 80 different designers.

“It’s still very much hands-on,” says Diana. “I still make new designs, and I do an awful lot of commissions.”

The shop also doubles as a gallery, putting on exhibitions around four times a year. In fact, Diana has recently returned from an art show in Munich, where she says has found some incredible designs for their next exhibition, ‘Objects, Shapes, Forms’ which will take place in the shop from May 1- July 31.  

“There’s anything from a jelly ring for ten pounds, to high-end engagement rings,” says marketing manager, Harriet Camille.

“We like to invite people in to come in and have a look at all the different jewellery designers, it’s not just ‘come in and spend your money.’”

www.dianaporter.co.uk
33 Park Street, Bristol, BS1 5NH