Jessica McCormack Is Making Fine Jewelry Feel Cool Again

In an act of divine intervention or sheer luck, I found myself in London with a forecast predicting sunshine for more than two days in a row. In the fashionable neighborhood of Mayfair, across from the stately Connaught Hotel and rows of boutiques like The Row and Moynat, I stepped into the world of Jessica McCormack at just the right time — around 2 p.m., as the sun filtered through her four-story townhouse. It’s now her global headquarters, complete with offices upstairs, a workshop in the basement, and a three-level boutique in between.

The typically icy world of jewelry shopping — think white-box stores with cold lighting, transactional white-glove service, and anonymity until the receipt is brought out — finds its antithesis in her Carlos Place space, which radiates warmth and familiarity. The wooden floors, plush velvet jewelry cases, and natural light are complemented by an impressive collection of artwork that could rival Tate Modern’s — her collection is as diverse as her references, including a Nick Cave Soundsuit, an Opaline cabinet by Roberto Giulio Rida, and abstract paintings by Katy Moran. As I browsed, a client was perusing rings while chatting with her sales associate about her recent lunch and weekend plans. It felt more like a fireside hang than a shopping experience — something McCormack prides herself on, she tells NYLON: “Being able to give people that full experience is really important to me because it helps them understand collecting, curating, and craftsmanship.”

Her love for craftsmanship started at a young age, growing up on the South Island of New Zealand with an antique-dealer father driving her around to auctions, picking up random costume jewelry along the way. Fast-forward to age 25, when McCormack landed an internship at Sotheby’s in London, working in the jewelry department. It’s impossible to put a young woman in the same room with Russian crown jewels, vintage Cartier, and Lalique without expecting her to fall for timeless pieces — at her apartment, she still has the reference books from those days. She launched her brand in 2008, creating timeless pieces — something many modern jewelers claim to do but often fall short of. McCormack’s take on Georgian settings, Victorian-era cuts, and tarnished gold places her among vintage jewelers, but with a modern twist, seen in collections like her Ball ‘N Chain and Gypset lines, which have become contemporary must-haves (and counterparts to the same gold jewelry pieces the 1 percent often wears).

In the last several years, however, her brand has gone from a small British secret for those in the know to a globally recognized (and worn) mini empire. Her engagement rings in particular — Zendaya infamously debuted her East-West style on the Golden Globes red carpet earlier this year — have inspired many trends. McCormack knows she didn’t invent the Georgian setting, but she indubitably brought it back into vogue. One of her longtime clients happens to be Zoë Kravitz, and they formed a relationship beyond buyer and client. When it came time to present her jewelry on a larger scale, McCormack says it was important to “make it feel more welcoming in a way and easy to wear.” Nobody embodies that better than Kravitz, queen of both nonchalant street style and red-carpet slays. “I was always like, ‘Oh, once you’re ready to come to the small guy, we’ll be here,’” McCormack told Kravitz, and after Kravitz’s big-time directorial debut with Blink Twice, McCormack commends how Kravitz went “off-piste” and chose to become a brand ambassador for a relatively small company.

It was a groundbreaking choice, one that shows McCormack deeply cares about making her clients feel comfortable and like they can see themselves in the brand’s messaging. The casual way in which Kravitz styles the jewelry (with the help of Danielle Goldberg) takes the often rarified air around precious stones away, giving them the feeling that they’ve been in her collection for years. The partnership also shows that Kravitz is willing to turn right when everyone else turns left. Case in point: When Kravitz embarked on her Caught Stealing press tour this summer, she sent McCormack a vintage reference photo of someone in an arm cuff (a trend we duly pointed out, FWIW) and asked McCormack to recreate it. “As a muse and an inspiration, she said, ‘If we’re going to do our arm cuff, we’re going to go big.’ I had clients ringing like, ‘Where do I get the arm cuff?’ We’re looking at adding one in our next collection. It’s so great that she can be my crash-test dummy.”

Her other testing ground, beyond the arms of Kravitz, are her flagships, where client feedback and scouting is everything. This is why opening her New York store earlier in 2025 was paramount, as many customers are here — and, most importantly, ones that differ from her London store. Her latest collection, Rush Hour, takes cues from city life and modernizes the working wardrobe accessories, with sinuous lines and curves, and it’s already been seen on the likes of Emma Stone and Lindsay Lohan. Where many jewelry designers aim to be everything to some people, McCormack wants every person — from minimalists like Rosie Huntington-Whiteley to sartorial risk-takers like Ayo Edebiri — to find something in the store. “I’m focusing on how different women can wear the same piece of jewelry and it can look completely different. Every time you go somewhere, people are interested in different pieces or parts of the collection.”

As both the collections and the list of A-listers in her pieces grow, so does her desire to expand her footprint — but on her own terms. “The idea is to have a legacy — I don’t know how that looks, but the idea that in a hundred years time, we hope you’ll be able to see, ‘Oh, Jessica did her Tapestry collection in 2024.’ I went and saw the Cartier exhibition at the V&A, and I’m like, ‘This is over 100 years of designs and craftsmanship, and that’s amazing.’ We’re only about 15 years in, so it feels like a long way to go, but it’s nice to have that intention.” No doubt the Jessica McCormack retrospective will have her beloved Gypset earrings and bespoke arm cuff for Kravitz on full display, ready to inspire the next generation of jewelers looking to make modern heirlooms.