Messika

Valerie Messika started her eponymous brand in 2005 because she couldn’t find any fine-jewellery brands making fun diamond pieces for young women. Using diamonds supplied by her stone-dealer father, she set about making pieces that were playful and for everyday wear. Her first collection, Move, was a runaway success. The signature motif was a round-end rectangle made in gold in whose centre diamonds moved back and forth along a rail. This motif Valerie then hung from pendants, turned into rings or placed at the centre of bracelets. It was exuberant, kittenish, had a healthy dose of French insouciance and everyone wanted it. Fast forward 15 years and Messika is acknowledged as a game-changer; shifting the perception of fine jewellery as unattainable to something women now throw on, with their leather jacket, when they leave the house.