Birmingham’s Jewellery Quarter still makes an estimated 40% of UK jewellery and with Europe’s largest School of Jewellery and the World’s busiest Assay Office, it is still a major player in the jewellery world.
However, many of the Quarter’s craftspeople are tucked away and are so busy ‘making’, they have comparatively little time for ‘marketing’ when their skills are in short supply.
In response, the Jewellery Quarter Regeneration Partnership, working with Advantage West Midlands and The Birmingham Assay Office, have launched a Trade Directory to be distributed country-wide to retailers who might need to use the services listed.
A typical small firm in the Directory is Crescent Silver who have recently won a commission for Highgrove producing the silverware collection for the Prince Charles shop at Highgrove.
Andy Munro, Operations Director for the Partnership said ‘The businesses in this Directory are the unsung heroes of the Jewellery Trade many of them making some wonderful products often under licence to London firms therefore, not gaining any recognition.
We hope that this Directory will bring them more work and help them survive the fairly lean times affecting manufacturing generally.”
