PODCAST: Season 3, Episode 2: Melanie Morris & Annoushka Ducas

Work Rest Slay is a monthly podcast hosted by IMAGE Contributing Editor Melanie Morris, who speaks to some of the most compelling Irish and international people in business, spilling the truth on the real secret sauce for a successful career.

Our next episode in the series launches on Saturday, March 2, 2024, and features Annoushka Ducas MBE, a seasoned entrepreneur and founder of renowned fine jewellery brand Annoushka.

Work Rest Slay: In this episode…

For anyone interested in the luxury world, leading British jewellery designer Annoushka Ducas MBE should definitely be on your radar. Years ago, she founded Links of London and grew it into a small empire, eventually selling the business in 2006 for a reported 50 million pounds. Just a few years later, the mum of four tapped into her passion for jewellery design and started fine jewellery brand Annoushka in 2009, which she, again, grew into a thriving well-known brand in the industry.

In this episode of Work Rest Slay, Annoushka shares her diverse experience, from working in real estate to taking over her mum’s fish business, and eventually, finding her stride as an entrepreneur in the luxury space.

Pursuing her passion

When Annoushka founded her namesake brand, it catered to a unique niche of women by creating a whole new category of wearable, stackable, precious jewellery with style, personality and individuality. “In 2006, the landscape for jewellery was very, very different to what it is now. There was very little between Links of London and the high jewellers. To find something that was very individual […], you had to commission it and it would start with six figures. So, there was an opportunity to design jewellery for women who wanted to buy jewellery for themselves. Nowadays, it’s something like 85% of women who are buying for themselves.”

As someone who commissioned to have her own jewellery made long before she even entered this space, wearability was also extremely important to Annoushka. In fact, to this day, she’s often sporting bracelet stacks from her sample pile to ensure that her products are just as functional as they are beautiful. “I end up wearing a lot of the samples. I don’t think a lot of people wear their jewellery hard like I do, so it’s a good way to test. There’s normally a good stack of sample bracelets on my arm.”

Family business

Very much a family business, the brand is looked after by both Annoushka, who is the founder and creative director, and her husband John, who, as a lawyer, has helped guide things from the beginning and is now acting chairman. They have four children together, who often compete to have the ‘best jewellery collection’, Annoushka laughs.

In 2023, Annoushka jewellery has grown to have a strong online presence and has boutiques in all landmark department stores in the UK including Harrods, Liberties and Harvey Nichols, plus its flagship stores in London and Hong Kong. Most recently, the founder has just hired a new CEO and is “excited and energised” for the changes to come in 2024.

For more on Annoushka’s career journey, listen to the newest episode of Work Rest Slay below:

About Annoushka

Annoushka Ducas MBE founded Annoushka in London in 2009. The founder and creative director of her eponymous jewellery brand, Annoushka grew up in London, later studying French in Paris, and moving to Hong Kong in the late 1980s. There she began to work with local artisans, designing jewellery for herself and her friends and family. Three decades on, she continues this passion and exploration with Annoushka.

During the 1990s, Annoushka’s work was widely recognised and rewarded with various awards and accolades; amongst others, she was the winner of several prestigious jewellery industry awards, including Jewellery Designer of the Year, Gift Designer of the Year, Brand of the Year (twice), and she was shortlisted for the Veuve Cliquot Businesswoman of the Year. Annouska has also taken an active role in searching out and nurturing young creative talent, instigating and overseeing a very successful annual jewellery design project with students at Central St. Martin’s College of Art and Design. In 2020, Annoushka founded a grassroots fundraising initiative called The Brilliant Breakfast, which raises vital funds for girls and young women helped by Women Supporting Women programmes at The Prince’s Trust.

When it comes to jewellery design, Annoushka is intuitive. Her creative process is prompted by curiosity and exploration. She harbours an inexhaustible enthusiasm for discovering new ideas. Her superior flair for interpreting colour, her ability to render texture, illuminate colour, and lend movement and mood to jewellery is the result of spending 30 years working alongside master craftsmen plying age-old and innovative techniques at the jewellery bench.

Watch the full episode

This season of Work Rest Slay is in partnership with Range Rover. Every Range Rover leads by example with modernist design, connected, refined interiors and electrified performance driving unrivalled luxury – inspired by exemplary design since 1970. As part of a sustainability-rich vision of modern luxury by design, every Range Rover is available as an electric hybrid. A fully electric Range Rover will arrive in 2025 and a fully electric Range Rover Sport in 2026.