Having spent 12 years in some of London`s finest kitchens, in 1996 former chef Ashley Marshall decided it was time to swap one palette of ingredients for another. Led by his passion for native American spirit and culture, Ashley embarked upon a life changing trip to South America, Mexico and Guatemala. The trip, preceeded by three years studying jewellery design at Sir John Cass university, was expected to be a chance to gather ideas for future jewellery collections, but a chance meeting led to an immediate colaboration with a small fairtrade workshop in Guatemala staffed by indegenous Mayan indians. Over the next 4 months the first collection began to take shape, and Azuni was born. The brand's first collection of hand beaded costume jewellery hit the French and London fashion scene by storm, selling to Le Bon Marche, Emanuel Engaro, Browns, Liberty, Paul Smith and Whistles, and over subsequent seasons Ashley was commissioned to design further collections for well known brands such as Jigsaw, Edina Ronay, Ronit Zilka and Paul Smith, and he continues to collaborate with a number of U.K. and European fashion labels.
Today Azuni uses precious metals and semi precious stones carefully sourced from around the world, and blends these materials using an array of hand techniques such as beading, hand polishing and wire work to produce a unique combination of colours and textures. Ashley continues to travel for inspiration and to seek out unusual materials for new collections.
Twelve years on and Azuni`s mission is still to create highly wearable jewellery embodied with individuality, meaning and the Azuni spirit. Behind every collection is a story: every item we make is born from the desire to create beautiful pieces at a reasonable cost, which will complement our customer.
Whether you are a Boho traveller, fashionista, or retro chick the Azuni world meets yours.
I hope you will find something to inspire you from one of my collections. Something that will be cherished and loved for years to come.... Let me know if you have any comments . I would love to hear from you . Ashley Sinclair Marshall
This summer we welcome aboard a number of new stockists across the country including Benningtons in Warrington, Jewels in Droitwich Spa, the new Bloomsbury store in Bristol, Eden Rose in Chorleywood in Hertfordshire, The Potting Shed in St Martin, Jersey, Serenity in Porthcawl, Closet in East Grinstead, Magi in Brockley, Vain Glorious in Hitchin, Jilly Saunders in Buckingham, One by One in Callington, Cornwall, La Luna in Bister, and soon Foundation in Stow in the Wold and Cheltenham. Welcome to you all, the Azuni team.
Caring for your jewellery is essential to keep it looking as good as the day you bought it. Sterling silver naturally tarnishes over time, due to contact with the air and pollutants, and the best and reccomended method of cleaning all your jewellery should be with a silver cleaning cloth that can be bought from any hardware store. Gentle rubbing will remove any discolouration and restore the lustre to your treasured pieces, and has no negative effects on the metal. Try to avoid using silver dip, which leaves a residue on the metal which in turn will discolour over time.
In addition remember jewellery is delicate, and should be removed before any sporting, gardening or housework, or activities that will lead to contact with hard surfaces. Finally try to avoid your jewellery coming into contact with any chemicals such as perfume, deoderant or hairspray.
Should you like any piece of Azuni jewellery you own professionally cleaned, then please contact us for a quote.
Having launched successfully at the end of 2009, we're now undertaking the first major set of improvements to our web site, the first of which will be an article section. In this we intend to offer our visitors a detailed set of descriptions for all the gems and semi-precious stones we use in our jewellery, some guides regarding hallmarking, jewellery care, and even a few articles about our thoughts on the state of the UK retail market, jewellery trends, and some predictions on future fashion trends. Please bear with us whilst we write these, and come back to see how we're doing!
The Azuni Team
July 2009
New for Autumn 2009, we've developed a 9 piece locket story entitled 'Brave Heart'. Picking up on the growing trend for lockets, Azuni has designed an enamelled sterling silver range featuring bracelets, earrings and necklaces in three sizes due for delivery to our retail partners from 1st September. The reaction to the first samples shown in May has been really strong, and we see this range as being a great seller for Christmas because of the great colourways, perfect wearability, and nice prices.
