For Nigel O’Reilly, it all started with trying to impress his date. Sixteen years ago, the Irish designer, then on a precision engineering apprenticeship, used the lathe at work to make his girlfriend, visual artist Tracy Sweeney, a ring. She loved it. More than that, she asked him whether he had considered a career in jewelry.
Fast forward to 2020, and O’Reilly has a collection of spectacular one-of-a-kind jewels with unusually cut gemstones and showstopping mountings, combining technical prowess and original aesthetics. A few months before the world went into lockdown, he traveled to the US to discuss showcasing his work at a high-end retailer and meeting collectors. He now has a US-based agent, Thierry Chaunu (see box, Page 35), who sings his praises to potential clients.
But in O’Reilly’s case, it’s really the jewelry that does the talking.
A look at his custom engagement rings, which make up the bulk of his work, immediately reveals an attention to detail and a finesse that stand out. For instance, the Polaris ring in 18-karat rose gold (one of the designer’s favorite materials to work with) features a radiant-cut, 3.06-carat diamond and a delicate pavé diamond undercarriage. His solitaires and halo diamond rings are never entirely traditional, as the designer adds a twist and an edge that separate them instantly from their mass-produced counterparts.
As for the jewels belonging to the wearable art category, they make their owners wax lyrical about the “creative genius” of O’Reilly. Sonya Lennon, a Dublin-based fashion designer, commissioned an 18-karat rose gold ring with honeycombed undercarriage, a 16.49-carat pink tourmaline, and blue sapphires. “There is something wonderfully magical about Nigel and his work. He gifts the client the art of experience and ultimately, the experience of art,” she says.
Inspired by nature
Unassuming and humble about his work, the 38-year-old jeweler, who lives in the Atlantic-swept County Mayo in the west of Ireland, becomes animated as soon as he speaks about what he describes as “an absolute obsession.”
Nothing in his personal background prepared him for a life as a jeweler, although he credits his surroundings as a major influence.
“The west of Ireland is hugely inspiring because it’s raw and it’s very real. It’s beautifully scenic. The Atlantic is battering off the coast, and it’s windy and cold all the time. But I do love it,” he says from his studio in Castlebar.
The music of Nirvana and Nine Inch Nails was the soundtrack of his teenage years, but he finds it “too stressful” to listen to nowadays.
That said, “it still has a huge impact, I think, on some of my style. And just lately, I think to bring in a little bit of that kind of edginess back into my work,” O’Reilly remarks.
Fashion magazines brought the fascinating universes of avant-garde designers to this remote spot of Europe. Alexander McQueen and Iris van Herpen are two forward-thinking creators O’Reilly admires. The latter’s dresses, he says, “almost look like they are alive. I would love to recreate that kind of feel when somebody looks at a piece of jewelry. They’re so incredibly detailed and so incredibly complex that it looks like a living piece.”
The ravishing Seed takes Flight ring in 18-karat rose gold, featuring a golden South Sea pearl and 931 diamonds, sapphires, rubies and tsavorite garnets, is the result of the designer’s quest for aliveness in his creations.
“The color from the pearl is bouncing off the rose gold, and it kind of looks like it’s vibrating, it looks like it’s alive” he says. “That is one of my favorite pieces.”
Changing course
A creative whirlwind has unfolded since that day when Sweeney expressed her amazement at the young precision engineer’s ring back in 2004. The following year, O’Reilly was accepted into a highly competitive jewelry-design course.
School had been a challenging experience for him, as he suffers from severe dyslexia — something that encouraged him to choose practice-based subjects.
“I tried to do as many practical subjects as possible so I could do projects, basically making things, so that my skills wouldn’t just be based on writing,” he explains.
Joining the course in Kilkenny marked a turning point in his life and self-perception. “It’s very hard to describe how important it was for me to be actually in an educational arena that I was good at,” he says. “At school, I had just constantly been struggling and trying to hide my work. But jewelry became an absolute obsession. And I haven’t stopped working out and trying to improve my skills since then.”
O’Reilly spent four years training with two German goldsmiths — Rudolf Heltzel, who had moved to Ireland in the late 1960s, and Erwin Springbrunn, who had come in 1983. Their exacting approach to craftsmanship shaped his own high standards. While Heltzel was vehemently opposed to using wax in his workshop, O’Reilly does work with it to give clients a better feel for their commissions.
But it’s his collaboration with Springbrunn that had the most powerful impact on his work, and still does four years after the master passed away. A goldsmith and gemstone cutter, Springbrunn grew weary of the usual shapes and cuts of gemstones, retraining himself as a lapidary artist. Among his clients was actress, gem-lover and jewelry collector Elizabeth Taylor. O’Reilly honors the memory of his mentor by using the extraordinary stones Springbrunn cut in his work. “[The gems] are pieces of art in themselves. So it’s a huge responsibility for me, not messing up, basically, because he was a very important figure to me and I just want to do his work justice.”
In 2009, when an opportunity arose for O’Reilly to train as a diamond setter in Stockholm, he and his new wife Sweeney moved to Sweden, where they spent three years before returning to Ireland in 2012 with their 11-week-old baby boy. O’Reilly then spent a few years traveling back and forth to London, working for Bond Street jewelers while creating more personal pieces on the bench he set up in the family home’s spare room. In this, he followed Springbrunn’s advice to build at least one art jewel a month to create a solid body of work.
Of his London commission work, O’Reilly reminisces that “at one stage, I had 12 different jewelry companies sending work to me. So you see 12 different styles, 12 different techniques. You soak up all that like a sponge.”
America-bound
Since 2016, O’Reilly has been working in his new studio and cutting back on working in the trade to concentrate on his own brand. His small team includes Sweeney, who works on her art and as a studio manager; his older brother, whom he trained as a diamond cutter; a computer-aided design (CAD) specialist; and an assistant.
Experimenting and pushing the boundaries of design is as important as ever for O’Reilly, who is looking at the potential of mixing aluminum and titanium with gold to create striking color effects.
“For your own growth as a goldsmith and a designer, you have to keep changing techniques. And that was what was really good about the trade work [in London], because I was exposed to so many different workshops, with different styles. You have to evolve, and your skills really increase with the tasks.”
Like all the leading high jewelers, O’Reilly pays as much attention to the tops and undersides of his jewels, sometimes even hiding design quirks in unexpected spots. During the lockdown, he increased his consultations on Zoom to help clients design their ideal rings — bridal jewelry, mainly — and filmed videos to help couples understand the importance of good craftsmanship when it comes to such an emotionally charged purchase.
From the windswept coast of Mayo, America feels quite close, and the plan to enter the American high-jewelry scene is still very much on the horizon in spite of this year’s unexpected challenges.
“The US market plans have probably been set back by six months, but there’s no point complaining about it,” O’Reilly says. “This is a worldwide crisis, and we just have to keep making beautiful pieces, and when things get back to normal, we will be ready to show our work to a waiting audience.”
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Images: Richard FosterArticle from the Rapaport Magazine - July 2020. To subscribe click here.