I am incredibly proud of what we have been able to achieve with Women’s Jewellery Network. Even though, let’s be honest, it’s progress that we should have made collectively as an industry years ago.

The impacts of a global pandemic coupled with the positive push for true equal rights for everyone, as optimised by Black Lives Matter, created a seminal moment in time.

People everywhere woke up to the idea that if Black people had equal rights with white men, then everyone ‘in between’ would have equal rights too. Across the world, thousands of people took to the streets to demonstrate their strength of feeling. Just like we have seen in recent years with outcries from Extinction Rebellion and the Me Too protests. But this time there was a different energy. A change in the air. And just like that, a moment in time became a movement.

And yet, the jewellery trade has, yet again, been woefully slow in dealing with this latest diversity and inclusion crisis in any real way. And, yet again, I really wasn’t that surprised. That might sound sad or negative, but honestly it’s been my experience of the jewellery trade. Lots of shiny surface-level glitz, but no real substance or sustenance when you get down to the crux of the challenging issues. Whether it’s so-called fair trade or just good old equality for women, the jewellery trade knows exactly its sins. It chooses to be distracted by the flashing lights of precious stones instead.

As a Black woman, my time in the UK Jewellery industry was both brilliant and entirely isolating, sometimes at the same time. There are lots of amazing individuals. There are also a lot of problematic individuals, with quite frankly unacceptable personal beliefs and biases, who seem to only ever be rewarded for their indiscretions and incompetence. And it’s no coincidence that these individuals always seem to be of a certain hue, and almost entirely from one gender.

The time for change is now. Whether the jewellery industry is ready for the uncomfortable conversations to come (including just who owns the valuable assets that fuel a global economy, something that in itself is institutionally all kinds of wrong and which, ironically, finances the continual and unnecessary inequalities we see across the entire world) or not is irrelevant.

Equality is a right that we are all entitled to. Working within public sector, across the private sector and for regional government, including the Mayor’s Office, I am able to truly champion equality for all, taking the ethos and vision of WJN with me.

Outside of the jewellery industry, I get to change hearts, lives and minds from a position of influence, not tokenism. The audience is ready and willing to suspend disbelief and shed sensitivity. And real leaders demonstrate power and vulnerability in their bid to truly lead positive change within their own sphere of influence.

And I get to do all of this with an honest, unapologetic, authentic voice.
It’s exactly the same spirit that we created at WJN; it’s just from a different vantage point.

Read WJN founder Victoria McKay’s open letter on the closure of the association here