Cast on the windward shore.
Aurelia began in 2014 as a single bench in the back of a Bridgetown framer's shop. Imani Adekunle, then a recent graduate of the Birmingham School of Jewellery, had returned home to Barbados to find that no one was making fine jewellery on the island for the people of the island. She set up the bench. The first piece — a 22-karat band cast from a wax model of a coral sprig she'd pulled out of Carlisle Bay — sold within an hour of being put on a velvet tray.
Twelve years on, the bench is still in Bridgetown, now in a bright corner of Pelican Village a short walk from the harbour. The team has grown to three. The materials are still sourced within the Caribbean basin where possible. And the coral sprig — pressed flat and framed in a small shadow box — still hangs above the polishing wheel.
The atelier
Every piece begins as a sketch — usually in a small bound notebook that Imani has carried since her second year in Birmingham. The sketch moves to wax carving, then to the lost-wax casting furnace, then to the bench for stone setting and finishing. The full cycle from first line to finished piece runs between ten and twenty days, depending on complexity. There is no faster way to make something that will last a century.
The atelier keeps a deliberate scale. A production run is twelve pieces at most. When a piece sells out it is retired unless the original mould survives and the demand is sustained — and even then, a second run carries a different serial number. The Barbadian climate shapes the work: the salt air means every closure is over-engineered, every surface treatment is chosen for durability as much as for beauty.
The makers
Imani Adekunle
Master Goldsmith & Founder
Trained at the Birmingham School of Jewellery; returned home to Bridgetown in 2014.
Desmond Clarke
Stone Setter
Specialises in tension and bezel settings; has worked exclusively with Aurelia since 2017.
Sasha Pierre-Louis
Bench Jeweller
Handles finishing, polishing, and the final quality review on every piece leaving the atelier.
The gold
All gold used in Aurelia pieces is sourced through accredited Caribbean refineries operating under the Responsible Jewellery Council framework. We do not buy on spot markets without provenance documentation. The 18-karat alloy we use most often — a warm yellow with a slight red shift — is blended to our specification by a refinery in Trinidad that has supplied Barbadian craftspeople for three generations.
Conflict-free sourcing is not a marketing position for us; it is a condition of working here. Imani grew up in a region whose history with extractive industries is long and complicated. The choice to work only with verified, traceable metal is one that the atelier made on its first day and has never revisited.
What we make
Three collections, each with its own character. Browse them below or visit the full atelier.