The Ellie Air Story
The beating heart of Ellie Air is its founder Lauren. Trained in traditional and modern jewellery making techniques across apprenticeships and creative roles in Cambridge, London's Hatton Garden, Florence, Italy and New York, Lauren's unique style combines timeless aesthetics with a delicate yet striking modern flair, transparent supply chains and a fierce passion for a sustainable, ethically responsible future.
In 2013 Lauren founded Ellie Air from a tiny homemade workbench in her parents' attic. She initially focused on natural shapes and semi-precious stones, working around a full-time job and showing at local craft fairs and gaining her first few stockists in the UK.
Then came a move to London, more jobs in the jewellery industry's famous Hatton Garden, a slightly bigger bedroom workbench and Alchimia, the first collection to showcase the blacks and golds, oxidised metals and minimalist shapes that would go on to become Lauren and Ellie Air's signature style.
By 2015 Lauren's best-selling Kite Signet Ring marked her move into fine jewellery, a progression recognised with an invitation to the International Jewellery Show London and a nomination for "New Designer of the Year" at the UK Jewellery Awards.
By 2017, after a stint working in New York, Lauren took Ellie Air full time, with her own small studio in East London. The business continued to grow and Lauren soon found herself working every waking hour to keep up with demand.
In 2018 she moved the business first to rural Devon and then in 2019 to West Dorset on the Jurassic Coast where Ellie Air continues to this day. In Dorset Lauren grew the team, taking on a new studio, apprentice jeweller, office manager and in-house PR.
With 2020's Covid-19 pandemic came an enforced pause for breath, as the world and jewellery industry froze Lauren found herself unable to buy materials or have any of her work hallmarked for sale. At the same time the realisation dawned that she was happiest alone at the bench, making jewellery rather than managing a jewellery business. Ellie Air changed once more, this time, to a simpler, more personal setup capable of delivering high quality whilst keeping things intimate.
In 2022 Lauren became a mother and these days she balances motherhood and family life with her continued passion for creativity and sustainability. Taking things back to basics has rekindled Lauren's love for the simple creative escapism of jewellery-making and she's looking to the future of Ellie Air with a renewed sense of her own priorities: family and sustainability and their impact on the world and environment her children will grow up in and, let's not forget, making people's jewellery dreams come true.
