Lauren Bell-Brown

Lauren Bell-Brown is a Nottingham based independent jewellery designer maker.

Lauren graduated in 2016 with First Class Honours Degree in Jewellery Design and Related Products from the internationally renowned School of Jewellery, Birmingham City University.

​As a child Lauren spent many hours in her grandparents’ garden, finding ways to create fairy houses from nature. Images of Cicely Mary Barker’s Flower Fairies from 1923 and the ethereal fairy prints of Arthur Rackham (1867-1939) covered her bedroom walls, so it is no wonder that they provided her with inspiration and that her love of fairies and nature flows through her work today.

Lauren has a treasured collection of Victorian story books, finding beauty in their delicate floral decoration, gilded covers, timeworn faded colours and personal inscriptions. Many of the books in her collection are 19th Century Grimm Brothers and Hans Christian Andersen original fairytales, which influenced and inspired her graduate collection ‘Unravelling the Fairytale’, in particular Snow White, and continue to inspire her today.

Lauren creates jewellery dedicated to her interpretations of these books and the tales within, portraying the evocative imagery they provoke.

Lauren creates her pieces by combining cuttlefish casting techniques with hand-sculpted wax and the ancient lost wax casting process. She embellishes her work with ethically sourced gemstones or handcrafted shibori textile florals, set imperfectly, portraying a seeming fragility and a transitory beauty.

Decorative Baroque curves, bold florals, foliage and furls, asymmetry, rich colours and texture are carefully layered and fused to create a statement piece, or there’s the simplicity of a petal jewel solitaire with a tall branch-like ring shank and handcrafted petal claw setting.

Whatever the piece Lauren embraces the imperfections and textures of nature to create a collection that is filled with natural, organic form.