The exclusive brands only available at Elka London are heirs to a long legacy of handmade jewellery. Our expressive costume jewellery and fashion jewellery uses organic, sustainable ingredients and artisan techniques to bring you designs that are both modern and timeless. At the same time, our ethical jewellery can be worn with pride.
Handmade jewellery is an indelible part of the human experience. In fact, there are early records of Neanderthals crafting handmade jewellery. Perforated beads made of stones and sea shells, some of the earliest known accessories, have even been dated back 115,000 years.
Metals, which today form a mainstay of jewellery-making, were first used 7,000 years ago with the introduction of copper to the process. The production and trade of metal jewellery exploded as far afield as Ancient Egypt and the Greek world, introducing more and more intricate designs and focusing on the manipulation of the materials themselves, such as twisting, to generate detail and precision. Gold, coloured glass and gemstones were some of the exciting new materials incorporated into handmade jewellery at that point.
We still use many of these aesthetically rich components today, alongside a number of others to add variety and creativity to our ethical jewellery. Incorporating diverse materials such as Swarovski, pearl and bone and innovative features such as vegetal fibres allows us to create handmade jewellery items which will appeal to everyone.
by Jake Goldman