Stephen Webster: the outlaw rock star of Britain’s fine jewellery industry

Wednesday lunchtime at The Colony Grill Room in Mayfair’s Beaumont hotel and Stephen Webster MBE, 59, is holding court in a leather booth. His short-sleeve polo knit exposes half of a tattoo that says ‘Bez Sozhaleniy’ (‘no regrets’ in Russian), and he wears a Japanese kabuki mask ring on his finger. Webster has a reputation for being the outlaw rock star of Britain’s fine jewellery industry and his blue ear studs, perma-tanned skin and pearly whites make him every inch the rugged maverick — just as capable of taking you down a gem mine as entertaining royalty.

And he has done plenty of both during his illustrious career, which started at Medway College of Design in Kent, grafting his way through Hatton Garden before being offered a unique job opportunity in Canada’s Rocky Mountain resort town of Banff (more on which later) that would bring him creative independence. As Webster’s star rose he would take on celebrity clients as diverse as jewellery doyenne Elizabeth Taylor, Madonna, Ozzy Osbourne, Steven Tyler, Sir Elton John, and Pink and Christina Aguilera at the height of ‘Lady Marmalade’ fame — his technical prowess paired with a fusion of the baroque, rock ’n’ roll and punk. And yet in spite of his anti-establishment oeuvre, Webster would also become creative director and later chairman of Garrard & Co, warrant holder to the Prince of Wales.

‘A client once said, “If you’re not living on the edge, you’re taking up too much space,”’ chuckles Webster in his estuary accent as his plate of pork belly hits the table. ‘I said, “That is the best mantra I’ve ever heard,” because that’s exactly how I feel.’ He has racked up five million BA air miles and has homes in London and Miami in addition to his refuge on the edge of the White Cliffs of Dover. ‘You couldn’t get more near the edge,’ he chuckles. ‘You don’t really need to travel to be a jeweller but if you’re interested in the materials and meeting with clients then you’ve got to get up off the bench and go somewhere.’

This pioneering spirit is what initially spirited him to the wilds of Alberta with his first wife-to-be, Kathy, to work for the non-conformist ‘rock hound’ Mike Ridding. ‘He was an adventurer, but his real passion was minerals,’ Webster says of his boss, who instilled his love of gemstones. ‘He would go off to Afghanistan, Pakistan, all over Brazil, Africa… and was basically selling rocks and crude bits of jewellery, so he wanted to find a really good jeweller.’ By this stage Webster had his full British apprenticeship training and made a good go of it for three-plus years in Canada in spite of the mental and physical fallout he would suffer from the isolation.

‘I had a homesickness that became so extreme it went into a depression, which led to an eating disorder,’ he says of his time in Canada. He weighed eight stone at his leanest. ‘In the Eighties in Canada, anorexia was a word that was sort of a bit like Aids. No one really knew what it was. A guy who didn’t eat was a bit weird. But for me it was awful because basically you build up to a panic attack three times a day. I used to get antidepressant tablets and they were crap — they made my eyeballs shake. So you sort of spiral. But you can also learn to live with an eating disorder. Which I did.’

Looking around the dining room he adds: ‘You can spot [sufferers] a mile off, and I feel for them because it’s such a lonely, difficult thing to share. But nowadays there’s a lot more openness about it.’ As for his own recovery? ‘I think I was getting bored. I’d done it so long. I’d been back in England and I had no real reason other than an eating disorder to be depressed any more. My business was on the verge of taking off, and I think I found that bigger than the problem.’

At this time he met his second wife, Anastasia (Assia), a beautiful, blonde Russian who had worked for Christie’s and is now PR director of Stephen Webster. One night she cooked Webster, a 14-year vegetarian, beef stroganoff: ‘I thought, “Oh, f***! I really fancy this woman. I can’t tell her I’m fussy with food, that’s going to be shit.” Russians had no concept then of being fussy with food. Anorexia almost did not exist in Russia. Food was such a basic thing.’ Taking a sip of his latte he adds: ‘I was ready to give up, and then what happens is you gradually eat normally.’

Webster’s next stop with Ridding was California and his first celebrity client, Elizabeth Taylor. One day she stopped by their Silverhorn store in Santa Barbara and left with a lavender chalcedony ring, later commissioning a pair of matching earrings and a bracelet, although Webster laments that he never met her.

Ten years later, back in London, he almost missed his second date with diva destiny. A friend of his who manages Radiohead took his catalogue over to Madonna’s house with his details attached. The next day Webster left for the States for three weeks. His mobile phone, as it turns out, was not chargeable overseas. He returned to missed calls from Madonna’s assistant. He apologised profusely and made a date for the following day.

‘I had two gin and tonics before I went round because I was going to meet what was definitely the most famous woman on the planet,’ he recalls. ‘I was waiting in the entrance hallway and I could smell burning and see wisps of smoke coming up from downstairs and out of that walked Madonna. I thought, “Wow! That’s how Madonna enters a room!” And she went, “I’ve just burnt the toast.” That was an icebreaker.’ The Material Girl bought one of his now signature Crystal Haze rings.

‘Then some time later I was in a Chinese takeaway in Deal,’ he says. ‘I ordered a number 28 and opened the Daily Mirror. First page inside was a picture of Madonna and Guy Ritchie. The first picture of these two ever taken together.’ She was holding a champagne glass, wearing his ring. ‘It sort of changed my life because everybody wanted to know who made that ring,’ he adds of the calls from American Vogue and Tory Burch that followed. He later made the famous couple’s wedding rings.