When David Anthony was young, his father was a traditional watchmaker with Shepard’s Jewellers in Rundle Mall, Adelaide. He would go to his father’s workshop and watch him hand-making tiny parts for old style watches. This inspired Anthony to create ‘works of art’, initially rings out of old wire coat hangers, then later making other types of jewellery from scrap metal by melting lead with a blow torch, pouring the molten led into a dessert spoon and filing and shaping the led into pieces. These experiences were of a young jewellery designer in the making.
Formal education in the jewellery industry included on-the-job whilst attending trade school one day a week at the School of the Arts, Stepney Street in North Adelaide. This was a four-year jewellery apprenticeship and was complimented by a ten week course in diamond setting. Anthony added to this education by completing a Masters class in Matrix CAD drawing five years ago. As a master jeweller, Anthony gained extensive experience designing and manufacturing jewellery, researching local and international trends, and producing and supplying jewellery for the retail jewellery industry.
Anthony then worked for the largest specialty jewellery retail company in Australia, where he developed his potential for designing and handcrafting unique and personalized pieces of jewellery. Today, with 35 years of experience in the jewellery industry and a commitment to detail in designing and manufacturing high quality and unique jewellery, Anthony is a specialist in his field. With his main office and design studio located in Adelaide and the second office located in Bangkok, Thailand, eponymously named David Anthony Jewellery Designs, he combines the latest technology with traditional hand craftsmanship to create high quality and unique pieces of jewellery in either one-off pieces, or high volume manufacturing.
To research the latest in design trends, he travels extensively internationally throughout Europe, America, and Asia and works with the world’s best gemstone cutters and manufactures to select beautiful gemstones and quality metals which can be created into his clients’ specifications.
Selecting these quality raw materials also allows him to create contemporary modern jewellery of a superior quality for his design collection.
Anthony’s collection for both men and women includes earrings, bracelets and a range of rings ineither silver, platinum, white and yellow gold. He has a wide variety of ring designs including celtic, roman, engagement, gemstones and more.
“We have over 35 years’ traditional hand making experience, combined with our CAD design, helps us produce exact scaled masters, that can then be put into production for various trade clients, depending on their requirements,” Anthony says.
If you love beautiful, contemporary jewellery, David Anthony Jewellery Designs can design and manufacture the perfect jewellery piece for most markets. This is the essence of his business philosophy which is about quality service with an exceptional high quality product to match the service.
“It’s not about being the lowest price and trying to undercut your competition,” he says.
But even as a respected and established jeweller, Anthony says he joined the Jewellery Association of Australia (JAA) to “gain more exposure to the jewellery industry as well as having the support of the JAA behind me when it comes to clients wanting a credible manufacture. This has helped us secure a manufacturing contract with Guild Jewellery Designs Pty Ltd, who produces the DC Comics Jewellery Range including Batman, Superman and Wonder Women.”
Anthony says it has helped his business in Adelaide as “it has given me more confidence to seek out larger clients and helped gain a much larger client base.” He sees participation in the JAA awards as important as he is “able to meet other competitors and see different new upcoming designs be born.”
His advice to emerging jewellery designers: “There are no shortcuts, it’s all about hard work and having the motivation to keep going while doing long hours every week just to stay ahead. And, of course, there is the 10% rule – luck!”
For Anthony personally, his greatest achievement outside his jewellery design business is the creation of possibly the next generation for the trade with the birth of his son, Edward Anthony Rendall. “Nothing will ever come close to that,” he says.
