Andrew named as jewel in crown of his industry

IT isn’t that long ago that Andrew Geoghegan was making jewellery from a shed in his parents’ garden.

Now he has been named Designer of the Year 2013 in the British Jewellers’ Association awards and runs his successful business, AG, from a beautiful converted farmhouse in the middle of the North Yorkshire countryside.

“It’s an incredible achievement,” says Andrew of his win. “You are selected as a finalist by the industry and then it is opened to the public vote so both my peers and the public are saying I am good which is fantastic.

“My aim has always been to create mesmerising designs at the very height of opulence and luxury, essentially putting my all into every piece and creating something which helps people to express their love.”

Andrew, who moved to West Yorkshire when he was just two years old, has developed his AG brand – a collection of bridal jewellery, cocktail rings, pendants and earrings.

It is all a long way from the garden shed in his parents’ Leeds home, where he first developed his innovative style.

“As a young boy I was very artistic; always drawing and making things. I was also interested in destroying things and then putting them back together again.

“I was always a bit of an inventor, solving problems and making things,” he explained. “I have really fond memories of being in my dad’s garage surrounded by hammers and saws.”

Andrew was encouraged by his art teacher at Leeds Grammar School and, when he was finally allowed access to fire and anvils, began sculpting in metal.

“I am fascinated by the way you can work metal. I suppose I am a bit of a control freak and it does give you a sense of power to be able to control metal. You do something to it and then you create something and get it to stay in that form. It gives you an incredible feeling.”

After completing a foundation course at Jacob Kramer (now Leeds College of Art and Design), he took a degree in 3D design at Preston, specialising in tableware and silversmithing. Jewellery was not on his radar until he began his dissertation on mixing materials and discovered the artistic pleasures of working with silver and diamonds.

“I found working with stones and metal fascinating,” says Andrew.

After leaving university he landed an apprenticeship with a jeweller in Manchester. Everything went swimmingly for three weeks.

“I was cocky, arrogant and impatient,”says Andrew. “Basically, I was 22 and thought I knew everything. We’d been encouraged to be very experimental at university and I think that made me even more confident which didn’t suit my position as an apprentice. In fact, I knew nothing and was soon found out. But I learnt more in that time that I had in three years at Uni. I was just absorbing everything.”

But his new life was over before it had begun and he was forced to move back to Leeds to live with his parents.

“They didn’t want to see me failing, and yet it was all I wanted to do and so they bought me a 10x10 shed which they put at the bottom of their garden.

“I started creating my own pieces and honing my skills.”

Without any traditional jewellery training, Andrew was free to experiment and create new ways of solving design problems; and basically had to invent his own ways of doing things.

He spent four years in that shed, developing his own unique and contemporary style.

During that time he received a lot of knock backs from retailers who declined to stock his jewellery collections.

“There was a lot of knocking on doors and it was quite soul-destroying because my pieces are all about personal expression and love. I still get affected when people say ‘no’. I had an air of confidence, but it was a facade.”

And when the shed was burgled he was forced to move to more secure premises.

“I call it ‘Shedgate’,” says Andrew. “I left some things in the shed which I shouldn’t have done. I thought Dad had been into the shed to get a strimmer, but then I noticed the door was all busted up. They took some rings and other pieces I’d been working on and it made me realise it was time to move into a secure unit.”

Andrew bought a house in Sheepscar and created a workshop on the top floor before renting an office in Chapel Allerton where he stayed for nine years and then last year he moved to Sicklinghall.

All the hard work and determination has paid off. Andrew is now a renowned jewellery designer with a team of craftsmen turning his designs into reality.

While 2013 was a particularly busy time for Andrew – as well as moving to his new premises and winning the Designer of the Year title, he was busy with his one-year old son Arthur – 2014 doesn’t look like being a rest.

In the UK more than 60 retailers now stock his jewellery and this year AG is set to make its international debut in Munich as the business starts to explore the export markets

But with a love of meditation and yoga Andrew, who lives in Oakwood with Arthur, his wife Lindsay and his Hungarian Visla Wilbur, manages to keep a calm head .

“It is a really exciting time both personally and professionally,” says the 39-year-old.

“It feels like it has been a long time coming but it has been worth waiting for.”

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A labour of love inspired by calm

Andrew Geoghegan says he gets his best ideas when he’s calm and he therefore finds meditation and yoga a great help.

Once he has come up with the design, he develops it on screen with the help of computer aided design technology.

A resin version is then made, tweaked and then remade in wax before a master cast is created.

The final piece can take months, even a year to complete, although Andrew says in an emergency and he his team of craftsman can turn something around in a few weeks.

Andrew says all his designs are inspired by love and that is why he specialises in engagement and wedding rings, although he does have other jewellery in this collection.

As well as being stocked in 60 retailers across the UK, Andrew can design bespoke pieces. “I love what I do,” he says.” I don’t really even think of it as a job and I think that is why people love the pieces we create so much.”