For Meadowlark, Running A Decades-Long New Zealand Fine Jewellery Brand Requires Being Made Of Tough Stuff

Pressure makes diamonds, but for Auckland jewellery brand Meadowlark fun is what produces the real magic. Tyson Beckett catches up with co-founders Claire Hammon and Greg Fromont to find out why the brand founded in 2006 prioritises re-inventing each season.

From day dot a creative tension has set Meadowlark’s jewellery apart.

There are its abstract strawberry rings, curving bulbously almost as bold knuckle dusters, but ones specked with 21 round brilliant gemstones in a minimalist Swiss setting, or its limited-edition release of perfectly imperfect pearl necklaces - unique forms carefully hand-dyed in candy-coloured hues and strung on a delicate silk thread, classical knotting separating each pearl and showing off its pocked surface.

A frisson seems to fuel founders Claire Hammon and Greg Fromont too – artistic freedom and commercial challenges dancing around each other, both constricting and compelling.

You’re unlikely to notice the to and fro from a cursory glance around the Auckland brand’s impeccably curated Newton showroom. Initially it seems the contrast lies solely in the calm interiors set against the busy motorway adjacent locale. First impressions are slick, fitting for a design-focused brand with outputs as sculptural as the artworks, architecture and natural forms that inspire it. A rippled Ultrafragola mirror beams out from the corner of the room, propped against the wall just behind a shining ivory and glass USM Haller modular case which displays a suite of pared-back fine jewellery essentials, experimental seasonal collections and sparkling ceremonial showstoppers.

But step through a non-descript door in the wall, past an atmospheric Emma McIntyre painting, and you find a yin and yang at play internally too. There, metres from the solace of the minimalist showroom, a wood-tinged workshop buzzes with physical activity. Jewellers bow over benches strewn with a practical clutter of tools and materials, their nimble movements soundtracked by the mechanical whirs involved in forging and refining these wearable artworks. The process of producing these polished pieces is pleasingly unpolished. When Meadowlark say its pieces are made-to-order at the studio in Tāmaki Makaurau few probably think it means the process is as hands-on as this.

“We don’t talk a lot about our workshop,” designer and creative director Claire says when I share my disbelief at just how in-house their designs are. “People are surprised when they come in. Jewellery still has mystery around it. People don’t really think about how it’s made.”

Keeping close to home feels natural for a brand that started on a makeshift counter in the rented house of the founders in 2006. In many ways the husband and wife team are the brand, or perhaps more accurately - the brand is them. That’s maybe why they struggle to distil two careers’ worth of evolved design nous and inherent values into a succinct and marketable elevator pitch.

To Claire’s eyes and mind Meadowlark exists with the purpose of adding beauty to world. “It sounds cheesy but that is the truth. Giving people things that take the pain away for a minute or whatever and hopefully not add any ugly stuff to the world. Ugly trash, there’s s***loads of that.”

Director and jeweller Greg adds that “being creative gives us a moment of not having to deal with the world and its s***. I think that’s what comes down to and hopefully we pass that down through our work”.

The brand’s styling reads as a timeline of a couple maturing and navigating their way through life’s uncertain trajectory in a collaborative artistic partnership. A frenetic-tinged gothic style that underpinned early collections has naturally given way to more self-assured, though just as off-kilter designs.

“It’s just matured with us,” Claire reflects. “We were in our 20s when we started and now, we’re in our 40s.”

Rings, now a “massive” part of their collection, and sales, wasn’t a design they offered at launch. The first engagement ring Greg manufactured was the one he gave to Claire. “Isn’t that weird?” Claire laughs. “We started with studs, necklaces and a brooch. We were seven years in before we did ceremonial in 2013 and when we did it was really alternative.

“Most brands slowly re-iterate the same concept, which is probably what you’re supposed to do. We reinvent every season,” Claire says. “But there is a signature that is always there, that is us.”

Greg thinks Meadowlark’s signature is actually Claire’s worldview, manifest in precious metals. “The way that I think of how Claire works is that there’s this body of knowledge in her head which she’s adding to all the time, there’s always references going in and then Meadowlark is product of that lense,

After almost two decades of constant orbit, professionally and personally, making it work takes less work. “We don’t have massive disagreements,” Claire promises. “Partly because we have very delineated roles but also were just on the same page. We share a life and that’s what we’re working towards - having a creative life.”

“The reason we’re here, doing this together, is because that’s the only way we can exist - trying to have fun,” Greg adds. “I don’t think either of us is cut out for a regular job which is perhaps ironic because at times this is harder than a regular job!”

The spirited nature that saw them tell Viva in 2008 that they moved through creative impasses with dance battles is still there, it’s just funnelled more directly into their work now. Greg says the fact they’re “both really childish at heart” benefits the outputs. “A lot of learning happens in creativity. The more playful you are the better. Our best work iswhere we’ve had time to play and have multiple goes at making something.”

Their symbiotic approach can be felt keenly in recent collections such as 2024’s Visions, Part Three which sees spiral motifs interrogate the mathematical precision of the universe alongside the spiritual depths of human consciousness. Across pave earrings, pendants and uncoiling statement rings they focused in on a shape that serves “as reminders of life’s perpetual motion and the cyclical nature of existence, urging us to embrace change and renewal”.

Where to then, for a forward-focused brand approaching 20 years in trade in perhaps the toughest economic circumstances of their tenure? Nowhere fast. They’re staying true to their values, and close to home - rooted in their community. That’s where the market is.

“Online, international has always been about 20-25% of our sales but it’s hard to be in the international market from NZ, and to stay there,” Claire explains when I ask how the domestic market compares to offshore trade. “We’re doing well in Australia, stocked by Bassike stores. Internationally we’re in Saks and a couple of Japanese stores, that’s a growing market. But international is not huge for us at the moment.”

Claire and Greg know first-hand what getting a foothold in that international market takes, and what it costs. In 2018 their pieces were picked up by Net-A-Porter, the global retailer that stocks over 500 brands on their e-commerce platform. The agreement required a foundational shifting of the Meadowlark production model, one that did not last more than a few seasons. Greg describes the mechanics of such one-click-wonder agreements involving single orders the same size as a year’s worth of domestic sales as having “all sorts of swings and roundabouts”.

In the current market, Claire thinks they’d prioritise ongoing relationships with smaller stores. “Production-wise, we were leading up to that for a long time but then the pressure just goes on. They want to see so many collections in a year, it’s very much like fast-fashion. It’s all about numbers in the end, we want it to be about nice design and looking after the customer.”

Greg would much prefer their global outreach worked like it did in NZ “where the customer can contact us directly.” A desire for direct-to-consumer retail is a little surprising given that outside their in-studio showroom, the brand hasn’t operated stand-alone brick-and-mortar stores. That too, may be a position in evolution.

“It’s just such a massive overhead to go and open a store and be so far away from your product. We for many, many years were like ‘we’ll never do that’ but since opening the showroom we have considered it. It’s tough out there in retail and if I was to open a store there would be certain things I’d want from it - like jewellers on-site,” says Claire.

There are other external factors influencing their current direction. Claire estimates the price of raw metal is “probably three times the price now than when we started” and the price of a test and learn approach in the hyper digital age is potentially even higher.

“Starting out we made some samples by hand, photographed them quite badly and together had enough skills to launch something - there was no social media, not many people had e-commerce websites - it was almost kind of undocumented the mistakes we’ve made. Now there’s so much pressure I don’t know how you’d do it. You’d have to invest a lot if you didn’t have the skills already - there are higher expectations. I think you could still do it but it’s more a case of how much you’d hold yourself back to be slick.”

Eighteen years in, Greg says “running a business in New Zealand is learning things the hard way.” It may be hard, but for Claire and Greg the importance of fabricating in Aotearoa remains paramount. Some of their charms are created offshore, for cost and efficiency reasons, but they see their commitment to producing as much as they can in-house as a means of supporting local artists and embodying the personal values of their loyal customers. Greg says it also benefits their creative process.

“The more you’re directly involved in the manufacturing process you realise you can’t make inroads into developing something new, or figuring out how to make something better if you’re not doing it here. I would find it really hard to develop if we were just sending off our ideas.”

Another challenge is presented by the fine skills workforce and traditional jewellery industry ecosystems undergoing concurrent decline. In the past courses offered at Manukau Institute of Technology or Peter Minturn Goldsmith’s School provided a diversity of training approaches, today’s courses are focused almost solely on contemporary art practices and fewer jewellers exist to offer hands-on internships.

Greg says most of the jewellers they hired recently have been trained at Whitecliffe. What they lack in divergent skills is made up for in malleability. “They come out of school with basic training and we get them up to speed with how we work in terms of production jewellery. We’re much more focused on training now, I’d like to think when they leave here they’re in a position where they can start their own business.”

Claire says the economy has necessitated a push on the frontier of personal creativity too. Budget constraints have seen her step behind the camera to take film photography for the brand’s recent campaigns. “I’ve had to step up, I don’t know if I want that to be a career [Claire has said in the past she envisages her life as encompassing five careers] but it’s nice that I’m getting the photos I want.”

Greg’s been dabbling with other processes too – taking to the realm of 3D printing to experiment with display forms.

Claire playfully teases he’s a computer nerd but for Greg creating things serves the purpose of their creative partnership. “Whatever you can see in your head, Claire, I’ve always tried to have the ability to bring it to life, to create it and have it be as close as possible to what you’re imagining. It means whatever we can think of we can make. That’s cool place to be in.”

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