Fifteen months ago, I launched Nudie Jewellery.
On Wednesday night, I walked onto a stage at Olympia London and collected the Professional Jeweller Award for Emerging Jewellery Brand of the Year 2026.
There are probably more eloquent ways of starting this blog, but unfortunately I still haven't really processed that sentence.
I genuinely didn't think we'd won.
We were sitting in a room with around 200 people from across the UK jewellery industry, alongside five brilliant brands shortlisted in our category, and I had already decided that simply being there was a fairly ridiculous achievement for a brand that only launched the previous summer.
And then they said Nudie.
From a Herefordshire Start-Up to an Award-Winning Jewellery Brand
The Professional Jeweller Awards took place on 2 September 2026 at Pillar Hall's Idalia at Olympia London, bringing together around 200 industry professionals for 21 awards celebrating businesses and people across the UK jewellery industry.
Nudie was one of six finalists for Emerging Jewellery Brand of the Year, alongside ANJNA London, Caroline Creba Fine Jewellery, fejn, Growe (Mireya UK) and Vanchi Jewellery.
And somehow, we won.
Professional Jeweller's Emerging Jewellery Brand of the Year announcement
Professional Jeweller describes the award as recognising a brand that has entered the market within the past two years but has already established "a strong identity, uniqueness and future promise."
I think that's why this one feels particularly special.
Why This Award Means So Much
I didn't come into Nudie after a career in the jewellery industry.
I came into it because I had a problem.
I've struggled with severe sensitive skin and dermatitis since childhood. Jewellery became one of the ways I could still feel put together when things like make-up weren't always an option, but jewellery came with frustrations of its own.
Irritation. Tarnishing. Necklaces spinning around. Clasps I couldn't fasten.
Eventually, those little frustrations became the beginnings of Nudie.
We officially launched to customers in June 2025 with a simple idea: jewellery should feel as good as it looks.
Fifteen months later, having the jewellery industry itself recognise the identity we're building feels slightly surreal.
Particularly because most of building it hasn't looked anything like an awards ceremony.
The Bit You Don't See in the Awards Photos
There's a lovely photograph of me holding an award at Olympia.
What it doesn't show is the considerably less glamorous 15 months that came before it.
The evenings behind a laptop. Weekends spent standing in fields. Packing orders. Loading and unloading vans. Product development. Stock spreadsheets. Rejected ideas. Trying something, discovering it doesn't work, and trying something else.
There has been a lot of learning on the job.
Since launching, Nudie has grown through our website, independent stockists and events around the UK. We've gone from a pre-launch Theo Paphitis #SBS win to winning the Fashion category of Pitch Live at Autumn Fair, seeing Nudie jewellery on the BAFTAs red carpet, and gradually building a network of stockists around the country.
None of those things were particularly foreseeable when I was sitting at home trying to work out how on earth you launch a jewellery brand.
So being recognised for what Nudie is becoming, rather than simply one product or campaign, feels different.
What We're Actually Building
The funny thing about winning Emerging Jewellery Brand of the Year is that we're still very much emerging.
There is so much I want Nudie to become.
Our starting point is jewellery designed with skin in mind: hypoallergenic, waterproof pieces in gold vermeil and recycled sterling silver, with thoughtful details that tackle some of the annoyances we've somehow decided are normal in jewellery.
That means necklaces designed not to spend the day with the clasp migrating towards your chin. Clasps that are easier to fasten yourself. Different sizing options because wrists aren't universally one size.
It also means thinking about skin beyond the jewellery itself. We don't retouch the skin of the women in our photography and we don't use AI-generated women as models. For every piece sold, £1 goes to the British Skin Foundation to support research into skin disease and I'm proud that this partnership began when Nudie was still a concept.
We're only 15 months into figuring out what a genuinely skin-first brand can look like.
Apparently we're doing something right.
And Then Herefordshire Heard About It
As if winning wasn't surreal enough, the following days involved opening my phone and discovering other people were telling the story too.
Your Herefordshire covered the win, tracing Nudie from my own experiences with sensitive skin through to building the business here in Herefordshire and eventually collecting the award at Olympia.
Read the Your Herefordshire feature
The story was also picked up by the Hereford Times, another rather lovely reminder that although Nudie is increasingly travelling around the UK, it's still being built from Herefordshire.
Read the Hereford Times coverage
Seeing a small brand you've built from scratch discussed by the jewellery trade is one thing. Seeing it come back home and be celebrated locally is another.
Both mean an enormous amount.
So, What Happens After You Win Emerging Jewellery Brand of the Year?
You go back to work.
Emerging Jewellery Brand of the Year is a slightly dangerous award to win because the clue is very much in the word emerging.
We haven't emerged yet.
We're 15 months in. There is an enormous amount I still want to build, improve, design and probably get wrong at least once before getting it right.
But for one evening at Olympia, I got to look backwards at what this little brand from Herefordshire has managed to do already.
Thank you to the team at Professional Jeweller, to everyone who has stocked us, shopped with us, recommended us, followed along, stopped at a stand in a field, told a friend about us or simply watched this slightly chaotic experiment unfold.
Nudie - Emerging Jewellery Brand of the Year.
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