Stephen Webster: the rocks god

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10 April 2012

Wherever he goes, Stephen Webster is surrounded by admiring stars, Harley-Davidsons and a serious amount of bling. Lydia Slater joins the circus.

It is dinner time at the jeweller Stephen Webster's Marylebone flat. He is sitting at the table sipping vodka and reciting punk poetry to graffiti artist D*Face. Stephen's Russian wife Assia, in velvet minidress, fuchsia fishnets and Hilda Ogden slippers, is hovering anxiously over a fish stew.

A giant crab, made from black diamonds and a spectacular faceted opal, twinkles on her finger. I'm sitting on a leopard-print-upholstered elephant's foot, with Gnasher, the black poodle the Websters adopted from Ozwald Boateng, on my knee. He's as blinged up as the rest of them in a pink leather collar with diamanté skulls. It is all very Stephen Webster.

I first met Stephen in 1998, after he'd phoned me to pitch for an interview on the back of winning Jewellery Designer of the Year, an accolade he's now received four times, plus four awards as Luxury Jeweller of the Year. I'd never heard of him. Since then, he's revolutionised a fairly staid industry in which nameless jewellers toiled in backrooms wearing overalls and magnifying specs. Theo Fennell aside, few had any kind of a public image. Let alone one to rival a rock star's.

When Stephen goes on a road trip - he's done over two million miles with BA, flying between 150 outlets from Siberia to Seoul - there is always a lavish, alcohol-fuelled party. He works the room, handsome in a raffish, gypsy-like way, tattooed, tousled, ears glinting with black diamonds, the ringmaster of a crazy circus. At some point, a Harley-Davidson may appear and he will be expected to sit on it. People will misbehave. 'It's what they expect of a Stephen Webster event,' he tells me matter-of-factly. 'It's become this package; people buy into us and our life. It's driven our business.'

Even so, their party organisers occasionally go over the top. When the Websters went to open their store in Ekaterinburg, Siberia, Stephen was chauffeured to the event in a stretch Hummer which had two log fires inside, driven through the banner-hung streets to a nightclub and escorted to a throne onstage. There, he was forced to endure a lap-dance in front of 300 guests, including his wife.

'Assia was shouting in Russian for this woman to keep her knickers on,' he goes on, wiping tears of mirth from his eyes. 'Can you imagine how embarrassing that was? The most ridiculous events happen in Russia. When I told Harvey Weinstein - I had dinner with him the other day - he was laughing his head off.'

Most of us would need days to recover after one of these binges. But Stephen gets up the next day, flies somewhere else and does it all over again. On the week we meet, he's flying to LA twice, then heading on to Vegas. His stamina is extraordinary, but still... the man is hitting 50 this August (Lisa and Anton Bilton have lent him Tyringham Hall for a party and Christina Aguilera will be doing a set). How can he maintain the pace? 'I find it exhausting,' he admits. 'Sometimes I don't know how I get up in the morning. When I'm not on the adrenaline, I can feel tired for a very long time.'

Part of the reason for his exhaustion is that, since November, he's found himself not only having to steer his own company through the recession, but having to do the same for Garrard, where he is the new creative director.

As Yucaipa, the US private equity firm that bought Garrard in 2006, also has a sizeable investment in Webster's own company, the suspicion is that Stephen had his arm twisted hard to take on the Garrard role. He certainly had enough on his plate already, and revamping the venerable jewellery house is no sinecure. 'I knew the job was a double-edged sword,' he admits. 'Over the last ten years, Garrard has been systematically pulled apart.'

Once the grandest of British brands, it was bought by money-squandering Prince Jefri of Brunei (he with the yacht named Tits, with tenders Nipple 1 and Nipple 2) in 1995 and merged with Asprey in 1998. Then, in 2002, Jade Jagger came in as creative director, attempting to convert the royal clientele to diamondstudded revolvers and gold chain-mail underwear. After it was acquired by Yucaipa, it dropped Jade Jagger and Asprey, but also lost the proudly held title of Crown Jeweller, which has now gone to a small, Kent-based firm, Harry Collins. 'That guy's probably never made a crown,' says Stephen dismissively. 'This place has made crowns that are in the Tower of London. If the Crown Jeweller can be a shop in Tunbridge Wells, that means it's not important any more.'

So despite his edgy reputation, Webster was welcomed by the beleaguered staff with open arms as a proper jeweller who knew how to create as well as design. And there is a neat symmetry to the appointment, given that Garrard was the first place in the UK to give him a one-man show in 1995.

(Right) Stephen with Christina Aguilera

He feels the place should be like a British version of Tiffany, and to that end is determined to lower the entry price point. 'I'm making it more democratic,' he says. 'There's not been enthusiasm from the company but sometimes it takes a while for people to understand what's going on. I got all the salespeople together, and said, "What have we got if someone walks in with £1,000?" And they had two things. That's rubbish. Because that's a lot of money. You can easily get complacent in the fine jewellery business, just adding zeros, but people need an easier way in now.'

He also wants to increase the range of engagement rings on offer. 'Historically, if you were getting an engagement ring, you would think of Garrard. But that hasn't been addressed for a while. My message is that if anybody is getting engaged, they should consider Garrard, and that's about the price as well as the design.'

There was much excitement and speculation earlier in the year when Assia was spotted chatting with Prince William in a nightclub. 'I think Assia's spoken to him about commissioning some jewellery,' he says. 'She probably frightened the poor bugger.' (Assia, an indefatigable promoter of her husband's brand, is undoubtedly its next most valuable asset after Webster himself.)

If Wills does invest in a Webster rock for Waity Katie, he'll be in good company. Stephen Webster's unique, beautifully crafted and brilliantly coloured designs are worn by everyone from Madonna to Johnny Depp, Charlize Theron to Cameron Diaz. 'People do migrate towards you,' he agrees. 'Kate Beckinsale came in the other day, buying a ring for her husband,' he says. 'I got out my rings, and one of them's called London Calling. She said, "My God, that's our song! He'll think I'm so clever!"'

(Left) Stephen's wife, Assia

His new Jewels Verne collection - of which Assia's crab ring is a spectacular example - has been seen on everyone who can afford it. Kate Moss arrived at the Garrard launch wearing an articulated lobster constructed from brown diamonds and coral. 'Everybody in jewellery is saying, "Go safe," but that's bollocks. This really isn't a safe collection and it's done well. If people are used to making statements with their jewellery, they're not suddenly going back to minimalism.' A flagship store, designed by his friend Kelly Hoppen, is just about to open on Mount Street, with a 6m central showcase, custom-built to resemble a snake's spine. There will, of course, be several launch parties. Does he ever wonder how he has got where he has? 'All the time.'

Stephen Webster was born and brought up in Gravesend. His father Tom, one of the nicest and most self-effacing men you'll ever meet, was a draughtsman; his mother Jean a housewife. He has a younger brother, Dave, who now works for him. Webster loathed Gravesend. 'It was quite an aggressive place,' he says. 'Quite quickly, I wasn't comfortable with it. Every time you went out, you got into a fight. I thought that was normal.' He probably didn't make things easier for himself by dyeing his hair shades of pink and blue.

He inherited his technical precision from his father; from his mother, who died of cancer a few years ago, artistic flair. 'She was a housewife, so she didn't have many ways of expressing herself,' he says, 'but anything she did, she took it to a place where people would say, "Wow! That's amazing!" My birthday cakes were the best in the neighbourhood.'

He attended Gravesend Grammar School for Boys - 'I was rubbish, I hated it.' At 16, he was advised that he, too, could be a draughtsman at the dockyard. Instead, he took himself to Medway College, showed them his drawings and got in. 'I loved it immediately. I couldn't believe that jewellery design was a career.' In his spare time he made earrings out of Day-Glo Perspex, selling them to friends at £5 a pair.

He talked his way into a job at a designer jeweller, John Donald, then, after two years, set up on his own. 'I didn't have any customers,' he admits. So he was lured over, along with his jeweller girlfriend (later wife) Kathy Dowden, to Alberta in Canada by a gemologist, to make jewellery for the affl uent skiing crowd. 'I'd never been on a plane before.'

Professionally, the three-year stint was a success as Webster experimented with semiprecious stones and a flamboyant style. Personally, it was a disaster. 'I was an insane workaholic,' he says. 'I'd be there till 11pm, not give myself any breaks and I started to turn inwards. And I was very, very homesick. I drove myself into depression, and then I just stopped eating and became a basket case.' At the time, even women anorexics were considered a new phenomenon. 'Nobody knew what to do with me. My friends found it embarrassing. And my personality changed. I became very serious. Poor Kathy. She put up with a lot.'

It was only when the gemologist relocated to Santa Barbara that Stephen recovered. No doubt the California sun and the swimming pool helped. 'And professionally, I started enjoying myself because I'd developed a style, and I started to get fans. They'd come to the shop an unhealthy number of times and want to hang out. It gave me a lot of confidence.'

(Right) Stephen's elder daughter Amy and his father Tom at a launch party last year

He made jewellery for Elizabeth Taylor and Goldie Hawn and created the Crystal Haze, still his most popular design: faceted crystal sandwiched on to a coloured semi-precious stone, which gives a wonderful smoky glitter and has been copied by absolutely everyone.

But while his reputation was growing in America, and he'd been picked up by Neiman Marcus, still his biggest client, he was unknown here. Divorce from Kathy, with whom he has a daughter, Amy, had also impoverished him: he had to move out of the family house in Barnes into a flat on the Holloway Road. 'I didn't even have a car, just a motorbike,' he says.

So he was starting almost from scratch again when he met Assia Vatnitsky, who was working in Christie's jewellery department, at a lunch at Goldsmiths' Hall. The attraction was instant. 'She was the youngest person there by about 30 years,' he recalls. 'I thought she was great - she laughed a lot, and she was full-on. And I'd never met a Russian before.'

Assia was married to an American banker. 'He was very straight, and that was never going to work for her,' he laughs. They had lunch in California the following week, and within months she'd given up her affluent lifestyle to move into his North London flat.

The question remained: how to build up his brand in Britain. His friend Brian Message, who manages Radiohead, realised his passion for his work, allied to his laid-back manner and piratical looks, made him a natural frontman, and suggested it was time he emerged from his workshop into the limelight. So he started ringing round the newspapers, and developed a distinctive personal style --Victorian dandy cum punk - which the Americans loved. (Today, he prefers the standard rocker's uniform of studded belt, black T-shirt that shows off his tattoos, and jeans.)

In 1999, while he was showing off his collection at a trade show in Phoenix, he was telephoned by Trish Summerville, then stylist to Madonna, Christina Aguilera and Pink, who was styling the 'Lady Marmalade' video and wanted to use his jewellery. Assia flew to LA the next morning with half of the collection. Since then, both Pink and Aguilera have become clients and friends, while Madonna snapped up several of his bling rings, before, in 2000, asking him to design wedding bands for herself and Guy Ritchie. Whenever he and Assia have a free weekend together (which is not all that often) they head off to their eccentrically decorated Georgian house in Walmer, Kent. There, they adopt a lifestyle that's almost comical in its contrast to their normal jet-setting existence: they play cricket in the back garden with their ten-year-old daughter Nika, go rockpooling and prop up the bar at the local pub. 'I probably couldn't cope if I didn't have that safety valve,' says Webster.

Two nights later, he phones me from LA, where he's been partying till 7am with Mickey Rourke. It's all part of pushing Brand Webster.

Stephen Webster: the rocks god

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