At the beginning of September we made our annual pilgrimage to London to attend International Jewellery London.

Every year like Vikings from the north we raid Earls Court to show our new collections and begin taking orders for Christmas, but this year we left Orkney with a sense of trepidation in our hearts wondering if anything could beat the buzz of excitement that surrounded us last year during Great Britain’s Olympic summer.

International Jewellery London show-floor

We weren’t disappointed!

It was a fantastic few days but as always we didn’t get to see much of the city itself; The IJL is about working hard as we don’t get to the capital very often and the British jewellery trade is very much focused on London.

Janice, Maureen and myself manned the stall from the first to the fourth of September and had a lot of fun meeting customers face to face and discussing our collections.

Sheila Fleet stall

One of our favourite parts of the show is looking at the other designers’ work in order to try and spot trends and to say hello of course!

There was a lot of optimism for the next year amongst the jewellers that we spoke to; it certainly seems that business is booming and the retail sector is showing great signs of recovery.

We’re certainly happy with the great amount of orders that we took during the week and we’re excited for a busy run-up to Christmas

Creel Collection

We thought it would be rude not to browse the products on offer whilst at the show and, as a result, you’ll be seeing some funky new packaging in time for the festive season.

Watch this space.

All in all another very successful year in London, but while it’s lovely going away it’s even nicer coming back to our beautiful island home!

Orkney from the skies

Whilst in London Sheila Fleet Jewellery made The Professional Jeweller Magazine’s Top 100 for 2013! Read more about this fantastic news here.