Sabine Roemer
Conversations with Her:
SABINE ROEMER
With Phadria Prendergast
Credit: Sabine Roemer Philanthropist, multiple award winner and the youngest ever female masters graduate from Germany's well renowned Pforzheim Goldsmith and Watchmaker school, Sabine Roemer shares her outstanding journey of success in the jewellery industry, how she ended up being given the chance to go to South Africa and work with the Nelson Mandela Foundation and launching in Harrods.
I think everyone is worried. I think it was during the first week (of the lockdown), when it really hits you and you have to change the way you think and the way you do things. Instead of complaining, I try to make the best of it. I'm quite enjoying the extra time with family and that I don't have to fly around the world, so I'm reflecting on the positive things. Before the lockdown, I didn’t have enough time to sit and be creative and do a new collection because I was constantly doing client drops. Now, I have the time to pause, stand still and create again. Additionally, with my other business – Atelier Romy, a ready-to-wear fine jewellery brand my business partner Hermione Underwood and I are in the 4th year of building – the lockdown finally gave us a much-needed opportunity to reflect and implement so many things we wanted to do years ago. So, it is a great time to stop, rethink, and strategize.
Credit: Sabine Roemer It's funny because I think normally, being a goldsmith is a family tradition, so it's very random to be the first generation. My mum is very creative but from the point of view of building houses and architecture. I grew up with two brothers. She spent a lot of time paying attention to us and observing things like what we liked and what our strengths were. I grew up in a very small town in Germany where we didn’t have easy access to a lot of fashion brands, but I wanted to use fashion as a way to stand out in and show my personality. My grandmother was very tall and for her generation, so she always had to make her own clothes. When I was around 14, she showed me how to do patterns and showed me how to actually make things and I was like ‘oh my god, this is so boring’. I couldn’t stitch a straight line. Everything around soft materials and fabric was like ‘nope, that's not for me’.
Credit: ATELIER ROMY When my mum was building houses or redecorating, I was always with her and she would say that I was really good with crafting. When I was 15, we had to do a 1-week work experience at school. My mum had the idea that perhaps I might like jewellery because I was good with my hands. So, we walked around and knocked on some of the jewellery shops until one of the jewellers said, ‘yeah we will take you’. They showed me some of the tools and what to do. The owner told me on the first day that if I work hard, I might finish one ring by the end of the week. He was amazed when I was done by the end of the first day! I finished 6 new pieces during that week, and I remember thinking ‘this is what I want to do for the rest of my life’! It just felt natural to me. I loved cutting, filing, piercing and bending metal into shape. As much as I loved clothes and fashion, I didn't like the craftsmanship side of fashion. Metal was just love at first sight. I started working full time for the same owner 2 years later after finishing my school degree. I did a formal apprenticeship with him and finished when I was probably 18 or 19. Then I won a scholarship with my final piece, which meant that the German government paid for another two years of further education.
So, I spent the next two year travelling around the world, working in different workshops and studying at different jewellery schools. I came back Germany two years later to do my masters. Normally in Germany you have to work 8 years within the trade before you can go back to do your masters. So, it was absolutely unheard of that I got accepted to do my masters with only two years of experience. I was only 23 years old when I completed my masters while everyone else in my class was around 35-40 years old. After graduating I moved to London to work in a workshop. I was 24 years old.
I think what I've learnt during my apprenticeship in a small workshop in Germany is that we had to do everything from start to finish - it was my boss, myself and one other jeweller, so we sat down with every client, we proposed the designs, drew it up ourselves and then we created the piece, set the stones and polished it. The bigger the companies, the more they spread these roles out. So, they would have a client consultant, someone in the design department, some illustrator and then the workshop but that was strange to me because I was used to doing everything end to end. After working for bigger workshops for two years in London I decided that I wanted to go back to doing everything from start to finish and the best way to do that was to launch my own company.
@sabineroemer“I finished 6 pieces in five days, and I remember thinking ‘this is what I want to do for the rest of my life’!”
@sabineroemer“I've done this since I was 15. Sometimes people didn’t understand the commitment it takes to master a craft… the years of hard work…no personal life…no nothing”
I started to work on the side and I took part in design competitions. I In 2007 I won the “new talent of the year” award in New York where I met a diamond company. They gave me incredible diamonds to make into a mini collection of unique pieces, which we launched at the Cannes Film festival that year. That year one thing just happened after the other. It was amazing to get the recognition that goes with the ‘young designer of the year’ award, but since I've had been doing this since I was 15 I felt that people sometimes didn’t understand the commitment it takes to master a craft… the years of hard work… no personal life, no boyfriend, no nothing… it is always work. I started to work with Formula 1 because my flatmate at the time was a race driver, so we made jewellery from their old car parts which they gave us after every F1 race. Next was the Monaco Grand Prix, where I made a Formula 1 baseball hat which was fully diamond encrusted. When I came back, I met Mr Al-Fayed and he offered to launch me in Harrods. I was like ‘ok bear with me, because I'm just about to go to South Africa to meet Nelson Mandela, let me call you next week’. I forgot to call to be honest but thank god we reconnected later and made that launch happen in 2010. It was a bigger project than I had expected, and it took me 3 years to create this collection and establish myself so I could look after myself financially.
With my launch in Harrods and being picked up by Walpole I learned I needed to become much more commercial. But I actually realised that I didn't want to become a brand or what some people perceived to be a brand. I think there's no word, jeweller, artist, whatever you want to call it. I paint with my hands, I do sculptures with my hands, I do jewellery with my hands. I think I'm an artist and not a brand. It’s just me and I create whatever I feel like with sometimes no collection, matching pieces or strategy behind it.
I have to say having the chance to work with the Nelson Mandela and his foundation had a profound impact on me. They called me to South Africa to create something for his birthday - that was more of a collaboration. We auctioned this “mini-sculpture” off to raise money for his foundation and because it was quite successful, I did something for his birthday every year afterwards. It was a life changing moment to meet him. Of course, you first take this opportunity to meet Madiba but then after raising so much money through my art, I think it showed me that everyone can do something to make a real difference in the world. Previously I was thought, ‘I am just a jeweller, how am I going to help a hospital’? I raised £150,000 with one piece so I was like ‘oh I can do something, and I think that was really nice to see’.
Credit: Sabine RoemerI think after meeting him (Nelson Mandela) I wanted to see what I could do to make a difference. In 2009 a really close friend of mine and I went to Botswana to work with the San Bushmen women and we did a very beautiful project there in the Kalahari Desert. Of course, we were making jewellery, but it was giving these women something. They could wake up every morning and go somewhere to work and keep their children in a safe environment - so it was much more and that kind of idea, we wanted to continue. We wanted to do it every year, somewhere around the world but unfortunately, the year after we went to India, we got caught up in the biggest natural disaster in the history of that area– a cloudburst that completely flooded Pakistan, Ladakh and parts of China. It was horrendous. After we got out alive, I really wanted to help this region and so many lost everything. We found this little school which we actually wanted to go visit on the way to Manali, India where the Dalai Lama teaches every two years. We started to financially support these children. We wanted to build a school there but then an earthquake happened, so everything got destroyed again and we had to start from scratch.
Since then, I got married and had two daughters and I think having two girls changed how I think about that school. The person who is our local contact at the school also recently had a baby girl and we decided that we are going to push harder on the idea that we all take for granted that girls should be educated at the school as well. Normally only boys get educated in this area. So, it has been a few years of a struggle with the monks and lots of negotiations. I think they are finally listening so it will just take a little but more to restructure.
After working over 25 years with many jewellery brands and some of the biggest fashion houses in the world as a freelancer, I wanted to create a more accessible “Brand” so everyone can more easily enjoy high jewellery - well crafted, effortless, and well made everyday jewellery.
I remember it being my mum’s birthday and my brother and I put money together but there was actually no jewellery out there we wanted or could purchase for this budget. I didn't want to simple buy her a bag because it was her 60th. I could have made her something, but I was like ‘why is there nothing in the price range from £50 to £500 where you want to invest in it and it actually looks like fine jewellery – and that you want to wear and mix in with your diamond pieces’. There was nothing out there so I need to find someone who could create the concept around that idea. In 2014 I met Hermione Underwood and she was exactly what I was looking for – she is the opposite and the best team member you could find. She is like a brand architect, PR, influencer, all of that and I'm like ‘omg that's brilliant’. We hit it off straight away and she is one of my closest friends to date - she is even the godmother of my first daughter who is called Romy. After we met it was clear we are in this together and we launched the brand “Atelier Romy”.
We started to dream soon after our first meeting of a brand “from women for women” where pieces are beautifully crafted and having a strong design language and having this direct to consumer price tag between 50-500 GBP.
The name says it all – we met while I was pregnant with Romy and this vision was our baby – we added Atelier, which is French for workshop, to show the link to my background.
We are now in our fourth year and we rebranded it this January. With the help of so many friends we are finally getting there and having the vision we had in mind all those years ago. We are still in our baby shoes but proud of our female-led company and of those beautifully crafted designs which bring affordable luxury into your life.
Credit: ATELIER ROMY