Theo Fennell enters his Fulham Road showroom with a booming, posh "Righty ho!" As he bounds about the place, brandishing the diamond skull rings beloved of clients Elton John and Liz Hurley, it seems hard to believe that at this time two years ago, things were dire for him, according to www.diamonds.net.
With his flashing blue eyes, floppy hair, bobbly cardigan and spotty cravat, Fennell, 58, has an eccentric, aristocratic air about him — Willy Wonka crossed with Richard Branson.
"I left the company and everything in the world fell apart," he says with a grin.
His return has already turned into an unlikely recessionary comeback story, based on the dramatic turnaround in the company's fortunes. He doesn't dwell on this blip.
"The nature of it was distressing," Fennel said. "But once it happened, I realized how important I thought it was to do something with integrity. Jewelry is not going to save the world, but you should do it well."
He spent his involuntary sabbatical doodling and experimenting with new ideas. Now he's back to form designing essentially pointless, but highly desirable, objects for those who have everything.
His latest invention is a leather-bound, sterling silver, fish-and-chip set —complete with silver vinegar holder — for approximately $2,370 (GBP 1,530). This matches his infamous silver Marmite lids and now, sterling silver Quality Street lids. One customer has just bought one to top off a giant jar of jelly babies for a christening present.
This happy state of affairs was unimaginable back in early 2008, when the departure of the "king of bling" from the jeweler bearing his own name coincided with the beginning of the global recession.
"It wasn't my decision to go," he says of the episode, "but it was untenable for me to stay."
The path to Fennell's return began in March 2009, when chief executive officer (CEO) Barbara Snoad, who herself left the company in 2007, was reinstated. In the meantime, an ambitious global expansion plan, which Fennell had opposed, backfired. This was partly due to the recession and partly, Fennell argues, because it was not what was right for the brand.
Fennell feels strongly that a lot of luxury brands lost their way by overexpanding in recent years.
"What's wrong with having just 20 terrific stores worldwide?" Fennell said. "Everyone thinks it only works if there is a 'brand.' But all the advertising rams it down your throat. It always seemed to me that if you could buy the same product in Toulouse Airport as on Peterborough High Street, then somehow that devalues it. The big profusion of 'stuff' has had its day. Now, it's about buying one handmade suit or one beautiful handbag."
And in support of his point, at this time last year, Theo Fennell plc was facing losses of $4.6 million (GBP 3 million). Now, retail sales have jumped 25 percent since the Christmas period, possibly because of — or despite? —Dannii Minogue wearing his wares more than once on "The X Factor." Overall sales are up a satisfying 9 percent on the previous year, compared with this time one year ago, when sales were down 21 percent.
Fennell has always had a real affinity with the flamboyant celebrity clients at the heart of his business and he is legendary on the party circuit and revels in a reputation for high camp. Despite this, he has been happily married to his wife Louise for 33 years and they have two daughters, Emerald, 25, an actress, and Coco, 22, a graphic designer.
"When we first met, it was a genuine thunderbolt. I saw her at a friend's party on a Friday and as I drove down to the country with my friend for the weekend, I said to him, 'I'm going to marry that girl.'"
The following Monday, he took Louise on their first date, promising he had the hottest tickets in town — which was a lie: he had none. By 6:30 that night, the only tickets he could get were for Bruce Forsyth.
"It was not really what she was expecting," Fennel said. "When we got to the theater, there were 25 coachloads of old ladies. It was an acid test. If she still wanted me after that, we could get through anything."
Nonetheless, he loves to joke about his sexuality. His daughters once forced him to take a quiz entitled "How Gay Are You?" on which he scored 92 points out of 100.
"The next time I saw Nicky Haslam, he said, 'So, which question did you get wrong?' When I told him I forgot the name of Ethel Merman's husband, he said, 'How could you?'"
Fennell grew up in an Army family — "a lot of boarding school" — feeling inferior to his two older sisters, who went to Oxford. "I was the stupid younger brother. And I was incredibly lazy."
Drawing saved him: He has described himself as the only person from Eton to go to art school in a decade. Upon graduation, he took up an apprenticeship with a jeweler's in Hatton Garden.
One day, an item brought in for repair fired his imagination. "There was this 18-karat gold champagne glass from the 1920s, engraved with the words 'Good morning, Diana'. I immediately thought, 'The idea of that whimsy and quirkiness has gone nowadays.' I wanted to make things that would give people a little jolt of pleasure when they walked into the room," explained Fennell.
In 1982, he launched his own business, attracting celebrity clients who would wear his designs on the party circuit. "I quickly learned that you needed to be a cross between a banker and a gynecologist as a jeweler. You don't talk about your clients."
But "Elton" was always a vocal supporter: "What would be called celebrity endorsement now was just word of mouth then. Elton went out of his way to say, 'Theo made these.' He's the best friend a girl could have." He giggles again.
There was a worrying side to these times, too, though. "In the early days, I had this very Micawber-ish view: 'something will turn up.' It was a combination of rampant optimism and total ignorance," Fennell said.
"I probably partied a little bit too much. And then my kids got to an age where they didn't want to see their father doing his Betty Grable impersonation with his trousers on his head. I thought to myself, 'I can carry on until they scrape me off the sidewalk. Or I can get a grip.'"
Ten years ago, he gave up drinking.
"It's not a defining thing in my life," he shrugs. "I still love parties and I don't give a hoot if other people drink around me."
In any case, he adds, his Rita Hayworth impression was always better than his Betty Grable. (The mind boggles.) These days, he is theatrically obsessed with his designs.
"Some are 1,200 quid; some are a quarter of a million," said Fennell.
My eyes start to glaze over as he painstakingly demonstrates every single piece — and I wonder if I will ever be allowed to leave the shop. He talks me through a series of one-off rings, costing around approximately $54,196 (GPB 35,000).
"Very few people make these now, like they did in the twenties and thirties. They are individual pieces made to suit a stone or a person," he commented.
They look incredibly flashy, with tattoo hearts picked out in black diamonds, but they also have a strange ingenuity. One has a hidden pill compartment underneath the ring's stone. Increasingly, we want meaning in luxury goods, Fennell said.
His new designs include "touche-bois" necklaces made from reclaimed wood from the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, poison bottles dredged up from the Thames and phial necklaces that you can fill with earth from your garden. These quirky pieces are what must replace bling, he added.
"There was a lot of lunacy that happened in the past ten years. One forgets how many thousands of businesses went down the tubes. People got lost in that madness — if it wasn't worn by Beyonce at every opportunity and if it wasn't a huge global brand, it wasn't meant to be a success. My aim for my business now is for everyone involved to be happy and be proud of it. Beautiful jewelry is not about saying, 'Look at how rich I am.' It's just about saying, 'I love this — don't you?'"
