Shortlisted. Again. Commercial Jewellery Designer of the Year

We're going to try not to make a big deal of this.

Lucy Lee, our founder, creative director, and the person responsible for every piece of jewellery that leaves this studio, has been shortlisted for Commercial Jewellery Designer of the Year at the UK Jewellery Awards 2026. For the second year running.

We know. We know.

Being shortlisted once felt like a moment. Being shortlisted twice, in consecutive years, in the same category, by the same independent panel of industry judges, starts to feel like something you can actually say out loud without immediately touching wood.

So we're saying it out loud.

About the awards

The UK Jewellery Awards, now in their 34th year, are organised by Retail Jeweller and are widely regarded as the most credible industry recognition in British jewellery. Around 600 designers, retailers, brands, and suppliers gather each year for the ceremony, and being shortlisted, in any category, means something. The judging is independent, rigorous, and based on genuine commercial and creative achievement.

The Commercial Jewellery Designer of the Year category is for designers working within jewellery brands. People whose work has to function in the real world: sell well, connect with customers, stand up to production, and still mean something.

Design that has to perform commercially.

This year's shortlist includes designers from some of the largest names in UK and international jewellery. Lucy, running an independent studio without outside investment, is among them. She was shortlisted in the same category in 2025 too.

Her strength is creative vision paired with the practical skill of pulling the right people in around her. She works with CAD specialists and hand wax carvers who turn her sketches into finished pieces, all manufactured ethically in recycled sterling silver and rhodium plated for tarnish resistance. Over 350 charms in the Lily Charmed collection, and counting.

A Bit About LUCY

Before founding Lily Charmed in 2011, Lucy spent years in television production, including work on Strictly Come Dancing, which, it turns out, is surprisingly good training for jewellery design. Both involve understanding what people are watching for, what makes something feel special, and what an audience actually responds to versus what you think they should respond to.

She launched Lily Charmed because she couldn't find charm jewellery that felt genuinely personal, pieces that told a real story rather than a generic (mass produced) one. Fifteen years later, with over 350 charms in the collection, that remains the brief.

In 2016 she launched Scream Pretty, a sister brand with a completely different design identity, focused on ear styling and bold jewellery. Two brands, two distinct voices, one designer holding the creative thread across both.

She also designs for other jewellery brands, clients she doesn't name, but whose pieces you've probably come across. If you've bought British jewellery in the last few years and liked it, there's a reasonable chance Lucy had something to do with it.

Some of Lily Charmed's best-loved collections come from Lucy's collaboration with her sister, the artist Jessica Pearce. Together they've created the Manifest, Zodiac, and Goddess Collections. The Goddess Collection in particular took months of research into symbolism and mythology, and it shows in the detail of every charm.

Design that tells a real story rather than a generic one. Fifteen years later, that's still the brief.

What she's been up to

In case a double shortlisting in the industry's most prestigious design category felt insufficiently busy, here's what else has been going on:

Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Businesses at Saïd Business School, Oxford. A fully funded, highly selective programme run by Goldman Sachs in partnership with Saïd Business School at the University of Oxford. It's for established, high-growth businesses, not startups, not sole traders. Fewer than 2,000 UK business owners have graduated since it launched in 2010. Lucy is one of them.

NatWest Women in Business. Lucy has been invited to speak at NatWest's Women in Business events, sharing what it actually looks like to build two national jewellery brands from scratch, the parts that work and the parts that don't.

Rosie Nixon's Reinvention Retreats. Rosie Nixon, former Editor-in-Chief of HELLO! magazine, runs retreats for women going through big professional and personal transitions.

Lucy has spoken at them on creativity, personal storytelling, and what reinvention actually involves.

How She Actually Designs

It starts with listening

It starts with listening. Lucy's process is collaborative because it has to be, not because it looks good on a values page. She talks to customers, stockists, friends, colleagues. She listens for the things people wish existed. A charm gets made when several people, in separate conversations, describe the same feeling or moment or object that they'd want to carry with them. That filter, does this mean enough to enough people? That's what keeps the collection unique, and real.

The result is jewellery made to last decades, manufactured ethically. Bought once. Worn forever. Handed down, if you're lucky.

Designing two distinct brands at the same time, Lily Charmed's warm, narrative-led charm world and Scream Pretty's bolder, fashion-forward aesthetic, requires a kind of creative code-switching most designers don't have to do. Add the confidential commercial client work, and her range as a designer is considerably broader than any single brand suggests.

If You're Here for a Different Reason

Some people find their way to this blog because they're looking for a jewellery designer for their brand, or a speaker for an event, or they want to understand how an independent founder builds something meaningful in a market dominated by much larger players.

If that's you, hello. Lucy does work with a small number of external clients on commercial design projects, and speaks at events where the audience and subject feel like a genuine fit. She's talked about entrepreneurship, creativity, reinvention, and sustainable business with audiences ranging from NatWest Women in Business to Rosie Nixon's Reinvention Retreats. She supports women in business, is an Ambassador for Buy Women Built, and is planning to host a 'female founders' stories' podcast later this year.

The UK Jewellery Awards 2026 ceremony will take place later this year. We'll be there with the team, quietly optimistic, trying not to make too much of a fuss.

Whether or not Lucy's name is called on the night, the shortlisting already says something we're proud of: that small, independent, purpose-led jewellery businesses can design at the highest commercial level. That's not nothing.