Choosing Fair Trade Wedding Jewellery

George Watts: Vivien, thank you so much for joining us on the show today. I have to ask first of all, where is the name Fifi Bijoux come from? Vivien Johnston: Well, Fifi is really my nickname. My family called me Fifi and bijoux is French for jewelry. George Watts: In terms of you background, how did you get involved in designing jewelry, engagement rings, and wedding rings? Vivien Johnston: Well, I trained at Glasgow School of Art in Silvers Making and Jewelry and then after my degree there, I worked for five years as head of designed for a jewelry company and during that time I started becoming interested in the process and the supply chain and the way that does work. I’m being interested in ethical aspect of that and I was actually approach by a Scottish politician who was keen a human rights activist, an environmental activist. And he approached me and asked me could it be done, could I design for him a fair treat ethical engagement ring for his girlfriend. So that was really the beginning of it. I started at that point and how to then source the platinum and the diamonds that you wanted and works through from there. So that was the start of my business concept. I was an ethical jewelry designer. George Watts: So Vivien in the workshop, I'm very excited about the gold what happens here? Vivien Johnston: Well basically, what happens here is we have the gold delivered. This is in its raw form. So just have it comes to me and this then gets melted down into wire which is formed by alloying the gold and this would get drawn into wire, sulfur, something like this piece. This would be made from three bonds of wire and then these are connected here and this is actually the beginnings of this almost string. George Watts: So Fifi Bijoux doesn’t slightly different to other companies? Vivien Johnston: Yes exactly. I supplied chain as all source from small scale mining projects and the ethics behind that are these projects were set up with fair trick protocols in place, an environmental policy in place, so essentially the whole supply chain of gold and the diamonds and gemstones I used for my designs all come from the socially and environmentally responsible minds. George Watts: And how long does it take you from this point of an issues and concepts or idea to the actual finish product? Vivien Johnston: Normally it takes around eight to 12 weeks when I’m working with a client because we have to have some meetings within there and then we have to wait and sort of develop that process along. So it fits in with their time scale but that’s the kind of usual time and then it was come here to the workshop and I would talk through the designs workshop manager and they would then begin contracting the ring to the technical drawing. George Watts: In terms of putting the actual finish product together, your design is signed off and then I assumed that’s it can all be designs maybe you call them that work here. Vivien Johnston: Yes the workshop here, we have a few muscular smiths who are responsible for actually constructing the ring and for working the whole process. Sometimes pieces are casts, some pieces are made by hand and it really depends on the nature of the designers towards most appropriate but yes there’s some very highly skilled goldsmiths involved at that stage and that’s a really quite involved process to get to the technical capability and then you have setters and you have mounters and polishers with deal with you know, sort of the specialist diamond settings and special art sort of unusual settings as well. So there’s really a quite of involved process at that stage. George Watts: Do you think that a lot of people as long as you come to you because you have this ethical background and maybe they feel more comfortable about wearing a ring and they know where it has come from. Vivien Johnston: Absolutely that’s something that’s really important to a lot of couples of the moment and something that people appreciate having that link back to where its actually come from and it’s a way of making a real difference to this projects to these minors lives and their livelihood, so its not just about the end result being something that’s completely beautiful that people will love and wear forever and treasure. It’s also that you realize that you’ve actually made a quite important contribution to someone else’s life and their livelihood as well. And that that’s making an impact on these mining communities as suppose to a negative impact which unfortunately a lot of gold mining and gem mining can actually in their past. George Watts: And what have we got here? Vivien Johnston: Well here, we have a couple of less rough diamonds and these again are just little diamonds that comes straight from the mine and the moment these are for two different people’s engagement rings. So they’re having a little set in gold. George Watts: Fantastic. Well I’ll tell you this is been an amazing insight to me. I know where I’m going to go for to get a ring. Thank you so much Vivien for joining us on the show. Vivien Johnston: Thank you very much.