Stephen Webster’s Thorn Addiction jewellery is the ultimate 90s revival

Wrapped close to the beating coronary heart of Stephen Webster’s renowned jewellery get the job done is the thorn, a motif that studs an pretty much 25-year archive of edgy, daring items. Today, the British jeweller celebrates the enduring icon and pioneering aesthetic with the Thorn Habit assortment.

The initial thorn was inspired by tattoo magazines Stephen experienced picked up although honeymooning with his spouse Anatasia in Rio, Brazil in 1999. He drew the intricate thorn style and design, like that of all those iconic 90s armband tattoos, on the stretched pores and skin of Assia’s pregnant stomach. On returning household from the vacation, he produced the first Tattoo Thorn collection. This is the 1st full collection they’ve revived – a men’s selection, but styled gender neutral – with fashionable new twists.

When we capture up with Stephen and his daughter and collaborator Amy Webster above Zoom, he’s a week into a vacation to Bangkok for stone obtaining and checking out producers – a journey he employed to make consistently pre-pandemic. Now, the excitement is back, and Stephen is looking for inspiration. “The company is escalating in the far more bespoke region, persons want issues that come to feel meaningful,” he states. “They want hidden messages, birthstones, engravings. It’s possible it is pandemic induced – wanting to truly feel close to other people – but there’s a demand from customers for a thing extra personal.”

“Going into the archive and choosing up the thorn motif, observing how we can twist and modernise it to attraction to the up to date jewelry wearer, was so interesting. We bought to go to town!” suggests Amy. Amy, who commenced out as a movie editor, joined her father’s organization a few several years back and has formulated in trend exploration, advertising, and styling strategies. It’s a compact but mighty staff that will take the function familially and individually.

“When you are at the front-conclusion creatively you just can’t stagnate, but you also cannot skip the opportunity to glance back again and mirror and revive. Amy and her technology can do that,” provides Stephen.

A wiley, artistic way of doing the job evokes jewellery that has captivated an epochal clientele of icons and idols from Elizabeth Taylor to Elton John, Ozzy Osbourne, and Angelina Jolie. Webster aided to visually define one particular of 2022’s wildest pop culture moments but – that, currently being Device Gun Kelly’s proposal to Megan Fox. The ring, developed with MGK by Webster, is a toi et moi design ring of two interlocking thorn bands to be a part of the couple’s birthstones – diamonds and emeralds. Soon after the proposal, they drank every other’s blood. Who else to imagine a rock and roll ring that displays the additional-as-hell goth few-du-jour’s eternal adore than jewellery rebel Webster?

“He’s a phenomenal canvas and collaborator for us,” Stephen suggests. “He highlights those extremes you can consider it to, but also how you can uncover comfort and ease in your personal type.”

As he says, “we’re in a renaissance time period of jewellery”. It’s an fascinating house to be, as gender norms are obliterated on the runway and the pandemic invigorates a collective want for items that are sentimental, particular, and tell a story. And ofc, rock is owning a minute – from the theatrics of MGK-Fox and Miley, to the nocturnal aesthetics of Indie Sleaze leather-based, studs, and latex at Versace, 16Arlington, and Coperni, and standard post-pan party excessive. 

The Thorn Habit selection speaks to Webster’s hardline, ferociously cool aesthetic and a deft potential to capture a zeitgeist. Character and personalisation come ahead of gender, and the collection celebrates the line’s traversing of masculine and feminine aesthetics – a sensibility his jewelry has performed with long in advance of the mainstream cultural landscape, exactly where MGK stacks his rings about painted nails, or Harry Variations wears pearls.

“When we first launched the men’s collection much more than 20 many years ago, there was not much on the sector that was developed and accessible for gentlemen,” states Stephen. “It was sort of odds and sods seriously, and I think that built it feel really thrilling. Adult males, I imagine, found it fairly complicated to fully grasp getting jewelry and had an uncertainty as to what suited them or was suitable. We’ve been a portion of an schooling in this entire world. Now with this assortment, we’re equipped to lean even much more into the gender neutral, be far more absolutely free creatively.”

“It’s remaining worn in ways that I have in no way noticed ahead of – it’s much much more theatrical and worn in much more adventurous methods,” adds Amy. “Thorn Addiction arrived alongside at the appropriate time.” 

Thorn Dependancy will come in sterling silver and 18K gold, building it as accessible as it is buildable and adaptable to styles. The signature Thorn linked chain is woven via signet rings, doggy tags, ID bracelets and razor tag earrings. The items can be customised with polished metal, pave established, or with inlaid stones this sort of as Malachite, Lapis, and Tiger Iron. 

“We’ve released extra silhouettes and colour – I’ve constantly genuinely enjoyed colour in my women’s jewelry. There’s a glamour and age that feels like it’s for anybody, with the icon of the thorn having centre stage,” Stephen claims, including that Amy has been instrumental in expanding how the model demonstrates a particular person of her youthful generation obtaining their private put for their jewelry. 

“Even my close friends who I would see as super imaginative, fashionable, and outgoing can be intimidated by the strategy of obtaining jewellery. A element of the assortment is about encouraging accessibility. Silvers are a quite excellent entry issue, especially for persons who want to do that layered search,” Amy claims. “We’re introducing some abnormal stones, like the Lapis – it’s deep blue with gold specks. Malachite is this stripy green and Tiger Iron appears to be like like it has metallic rivers jogging as a result of it. It is all unique, effortlessly personalised, no gender norms. It looks all-natural, uncooked, and organic, which also displays that closeness people today want to really feel to mother nature these times. And, Stephen’s love of gem-hunting of study course.” As the assortment proceeds to develop and acquire, Stephen hopes to introduce an thrilling material – fossilised dinosaur bone. 

Aged environment craftsmanship is modernised with Webster’s underground-encouraged touches, all with ethical generation in thoughts. Again, anything Webster was doubling down on ahead of sustainable action was predicted and demanded. This collection is crafted using recycled silver and 18ct recycled gold. “We have a eco-friendly crew,” says Stephen. “It’s all facets of the enterprise.” He was one of the initially jewellers to obtain a Good Trade Gold Licence, and won Grosvenor Britain and Ireland’s initial sustainability award previous yr. 

“As a jeweller, we’re about the ‘slow fashion’ – I want to make amulets, family items, objects that are going to very last a lifetime,” Stephen states. “That’s a duty as a inventive human being and a sustainable enterprise.” Like a thorn, Stephen Webster stays sharp on fashion and material – don’t sleep on the sleepers or the signets.

Thorn Addiction is obtainable to watch completely at Stephen Webster’s No Regrets Lounge, Mount Road London. Selling prices start off at £50