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‘A Heart of Gold’ Jewellery Collaboration, Raising Awareness of Heart Disease in Women

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‘A Heart of Gold’ is a unique jewellery collaboration between Kerrie Kent, founder of the Gold Hearted Club and Emma, jeweller behind the Narratorium which aims to raise awareness of heart disease in women as well as raise vital funds for the British Heart Foundation.

Emma's Story

I’m a self-taught Jewellery Designer & Silversmith who’s had a long creative career as an Art Director/Graphic Designer & Marketing Exec. My training in graphic design, passion for conceptual thinking and visual storytelling is a major factor in my approach to jewellery design.

Like many other jewellers, my obsession with jewellery started as a little girl, rummaging around in my grandma’s jewellery box, looking at her many unusual, dazzling treasures which she’d collected over her lifetime. 

However, it wasn’t really until about 2005 that I actually started making jewellery as a hobby, and I would spend my weekends in bead shops buying lots of gorgeous gemstones to get creative with. My designs were pretty simple and just used basic beading skills, which I then started to sell to friends and family, and also had a go at selling on a simple website.

My jewellery making then went on pause for a bit as I pursued my career as an Art Director, but then in 2014 (as a slightly frustrated creative!) I decided to take my hobby to the next level and make it a side hustle, by taking a short business course at the ‘School for Creative Startups’. Then in 2015 I officially launched the Narratorium, which got off to a great start but then went on pause again for a few years whilst I started a family! 

On returning from maternity leave, I joined the lovely Jess at Jewellers Academy working part time as a Digital Marketing Coordinator and Graphic Designer, alongside running Narratorium - as and when I could find the time. 

And now that my little ones are growing up and heading off to school, I’m building things back up again and have started some exciting projects.

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About Narratorium

Narratorium was ultimately born out of and inspired by my passion for travelling & storytelling. I came back from a trip around China full of ideas inspired by various cultural traditions and symbols, and loved the idea of translating these narratives and meanings into a collection of jewellery.

I’d describe my style as contemporary, simple or graphic. My jewellery is handmade and I like to work ethically with recycled metals and vintage stones. I also like working in mixed metals. And ultimately at the heart of all of my collections, there is always a concept, narrative or meaning.

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"It was this life-changing experience that led her to create the Gold Hearted Club, a platform she successfully uses to raise awareness of congenital heart disease and connect with others living with a similar diagnosis..."

Gold Hearted Club

I met Kerrie (founder of Gold Hearted Club) at a local maker’s market at Trinity Theatre in Tunbridge Wells in April 2022. She fell in love with one of my gold hearted Lovelock bracelets and we got talking about her love for gold hearts, which stems from her experience of living with congenital heart disease.

Kerrie was born with CHD and has had seven open heart surgeries to date. In May 2021 she also fell gravely ill with sepsis caused by infective endocarditis. Her chances of survival were slim, but thankfully she got through several heart surgeries, as well as being placed in a medically induced coma for 20 days.

It was this life-changing experience that led her to create the Gold Hearted Club, a platform she successfully uses to raise awareness of congenital heart disease and connect with others living with a similar diagnosis. It also enables her to raise money for the British Heart Foundation, which has directly helped to save her life through their ground-breaking research. 

"Each heart charm would be individually sculpted/created by hand with its own very unique, subtle differences. Each one perfectly imperfect and symbolic of the many different precious hearts that have been shaped in different ways by heart disease..."

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"As fellow creatives (and designers) passionate about storytelling, Kerrie and I made an instant connection..."

The Inspiration Behind The Collaboration

As fellow creatives (and designers) passionate about storytelling, Kerrie and I made an instant connection. I was really moved by Kerrie’s incredible story, her passion for fundraising and raising awareness, so loved the idea of collaborating on a piece of jewellery which would help her achieve this.

This motivation to work together was also reinforced by my own personal connection to heart disease, having lost my Dad very suddenly and unexpectedly to a catastrophic aortic dissection in 2020. Something which we later learned could have potentially been prevented, had he known what symptoms to look out for before it was too late.

Also, when we started working on the project, I was really shocked to learn that ‘women are twice as likely to die of coronary heart disease, the main cause of a heart attack, than of breast cancer in the UK’ – British Heart Foundation.

Which is why the main idea and focus behind our collaboration was ultimately to design a collection of jewellery which would spark a conversation, raise awareness of heart disease in women and hopefully educate, with a portion of each sale being donated to the British Heart Foundation to fund more important research.

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"Each heart charm would be individually sculpted/created by hand with its own very unique, subtle differences. Each one perfectly imperfect and symbolic of the many different precious hearts that have been shaped in different ways by heart disease..."

The Idea Behind The Jewellery

I knew I wanted Kerry to be integral to the jewellery making process, but I also knew that silversmithing would be too hard to teach in a short space of time. So, Kerrie and I started by experimenting with our ideas and designs in wax. We began with carving in the blue wax and then we played around with the red mould-a-wax. We soon realised that the red wax gave us the chance to create something really unique each time we made a new heart. As it captured lots of different textures and details such as fingerprints.

So, we came up the idea of designing a series of unique, one of a kind, gold heart necklaces, where each heart charm would be individually sculpted/created by hand with its own very unique, subtle differences. Each one perfectly imperfect and symbolic of the many different precious hearts that have been shaped in different ways by heart disease.

We liked the idea that these slightly unusual shaped heart charms, sitting on a necklace in a very visible position on the chest (and by the heart), will potentially spark all-important conversations about heart disease and encourage more women to take their heart health more seriously.

We hope that they will be worn not only to empower those already affected by heart disease but also those simply connected to and passionate about the cause, who would like to help raise awareness of heart disease in women and ways to prevent it.

And because of the accessible nature of the red wax, we also decided to create a bespoke kit to ‘make your own heart of gold’, whereby you can create your very own, completely unique heart necklace. We felt this idea was really lovely for anyone who had a loved one affected by heart disease, perhaps a child born with CHD, who would like to capture fingerprints in their design.

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