I grew up with a mother who is an artist and a father who is an entrepreneur — so a certain way of seeing, and a certain way of building something real out of it, were both just around me early on.
For years, my own creative outlet was photography — looking closely at light, form and composition long before I ever picked up a piece of wax. Alongside that, I collected and loved jewellery for years, long before I learned to make it myself.
I didn’t grow up dreaming of becoming a jeweller. It’s more honest to say that a few different interests — art, craft, business, a photographer’s eye, a lifelong love of jewellery — eventually converged into it. Maison Char is what that convergence turned into.
My process is tactile and intuitive. I work directly in wax — building and shaping each piece by hand rather than working toward perfect symmetry. That’s what naturally produces the organic, slightly ancient or weathered forms that are becoming recognisable in my pieces. Each is finished in metal only once the shape in the wax feels right, not before.
Handmade rather than made to look handmade.
Maison Char isn’t about conventional fine jewellery perfection. My pieces deliberately retain evidence of the hand that made them — texture, asymmetry, irregular borders, sculptural forms.
Tool marks and small irregularities from the wax are left visible, not polished away.
Pieces are built by eye, not measured to mirror-perfect symmetry, so no two ever sit quite the same.
Every piece begins as a small sculpture in wax, long before it’s ever cast in metal.
The character in a piece is deliberate, but so is how it actually lives on you. I’ve been an avid jewellery collector for twenty years, so I know a piece’s pros and cons long before I put my own hand to making one. A few things I think about in every design:
The inside of every ring band is rounded and smooth, so it feels comfortable to wear, not just to look at.
Claws are set close and low, holding a stone securely without catching on hair or clothing.
Where a chain is recommended for a piece, it’s chosen for how it holds up day to day, not just how it looks.
Each gemstone is selected for its own colour and shape, rather than cut to fit a standard template.
Maison Char is an independent, one-person jewellery studio. From developing designs in wax and sourcing gemstones to refining, stone setting, polishing, packing your order and answering your messages – it’s all me, Charlene.
I don’t believe something made by hand should be rushed.
Each piece is given the time it needs, whether I’m creating something entirely bespoke or making one of my existing designs especially for you. The organic textures and small variations you see in Maison Char jewellery are part of that process – evidence of the hands that made it rather than something produced identically by a machine.
I work with a specialist casting house to transform my wax pieces into precious metal, but every piece begins at my bench and returns to me in its raw cast form to be refined, finished and, where required, stone set by hand.
This means your jewellery may take a little longer to reach you than something taken from a warehouse shelf. That’s intentional. Maison Char is made slowly, thoughtfully and one piece at a time.
When you choose a piece from Maison Char, you’re supporting an independent artist and allowing me to keep doing what I love — creating jewellery with my own hands. Every order is genuinely special to me, and I hope that feeling carries through to the piece that eventually becomes yours.