{"id":470987,"date":"2025-10-03T11:44:13","date_gmt":"2025-10-03T11:44:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/470987\/"},"modified":"2025-10-03T11:44:13","modified_gmt":"2025-10-03T11:44:13","slug":"the-edinburgh-jeweller-quietly-rebuilding-her-business-post-brexit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/470987\/","title":{"rendered":"The Edinburgh jeweller quietly rebuilding her business post-Brexit"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n Nowhere embodies both the challenge and the possibility quite like Edinburgh<\/a>. From the heritage boutiques of Thistle Street to the gleaming St James Quarter and the relentless hum of Fort Kinnaird, this is where Scotland\u2019s retail story is being rewritten. Edinburgh is more than a backdrop \u2013 it is a stage where global brands brush shoulders with independent pioneers, and where female entrepreneurs such as jeweller Laura Bond show world-class innovation doesn\u2019t only belong to London or the Golden Triangle. It belongs here in Scotland\u2019s capital.\n<\/p>\n

\n On Thistle Street, a cobbled stretch built for luxury when the New Town first rose from the ground, Laura Bond has carved out her place. Her shop sits in a Grade B-listed building, once home to another iconic female-founded brand, Jane Davidson. Now it is where customers step through the door not only to buy jewellery but to experience it. I would describe her business as experiential jewellery because the pieces are intimate, personal and designed to be curated and worn for life.\n<\/p>\n

\n \u201cI felt like we were a boutique brand, and George Street or Princes Street just didn\u2019t fit,\u201d Laura told me. \u201cThistle Street has history \u2013 it was built for luxury shops and when you walk down it you can feel that heritage.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n That heritage now carries a new face: a woman-led business that bridges Edinburgh\u2019s old world elegance and the modern consumer\u2019s demand for authenticity and quality.\n<\/p>\n

\n Her story began not with a pitch deck or venture capital but a quiet act of rebellion. As a teenager at boarding school she embraced piercings as her own form of expression, a small but defining gesture of independence. Years later, while travelling in New York, she noticed the kind of delicate solid-gold jewellery she had always wanted but found it prohibitively expensive. Back in the UK no one seemed to be filling that gap, so she resolved to create it herself.\n<\/p>\n

\n (Image: Laura Bond)\n<\/p>\n

\n With \u00a35,000 scraped together by mortgaging their flat, Laura and her husband Doug launched online in June 2019. On the first day they sold just under \u00a31,000, and within four months she had left her job to focus on the business full time. Then came Covid. While manufacturers faltered and packaging supplies dried up, web traffic soared. By 2021 she had hired her first three staff and opened an office in Edinburgh. Today the business holds stock worth hundreds of thousands and employs a predominantly female team, something in which she takes deep pride. \u201cOne of the things I\u2019m most proud of is giving opportunities to young women in Edinburgh. I wish it had existed when I started out.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n However, resilience is hard-earned. Brexit wiped out much of Laura Bond\u2019s EU market almost overnight, reducing European sales from around 15% of turnover to barely 2.5%. Even attempts to absorb customs and duties on behalf of customers have failed to restore confidence. Her answer, though bittersweet, is to look outward: the 2026 roadmap includes a flagship opening in Amsterdam, creating jobs, and paying taxes within the EU \u2013 employment that could have been in the UK but is now the only route to rebuilding that market.\n<\/p>\n

\n And then there\u2019s gold. Since 2019 the price has more than doubled, pushing margins to the limit. \u201cIf you\u2019re Cartier, you don\u2019t worry about whether your customer can still spend \u00a310,000 on a watch,\u201d she explained. For a brand like hers, however, the challenge is far sharper \u2013 there is only so far prices can be pushed before accessibility is lost. Her response has been to innovate. A new diamond range has attracted customers stepping down from higher-end competitors, and she is already planning exciting new collections that will broaden the brand\u2019s reach while staying true to its quality and values.\n<\/p>\n

\n What sets Laura apart is not just clever positioning but principle. She was frustrated by the cycle of buying jewellery that tarnished or broke after a single season and resolved to create pieces built to last \u2013 solid gold, recyclable and hypoallergenic. Customers are encouraged to return old products for credit towards new ones, with the gold melted and reused. Collections are deliberately limited to three a year, designed to be layered, curated and worn across seasons.\n<\/p>\n

\n \u201cIt\u2019s always meant to be an intentional purchase,\u201d she explained.\n<\/p>\n

\n Her price points, from \u00a335 charms to \u00a3500 diamond earrings, are accessible by luxury standards, but what she is really selling is confidence, individuality and permanence in a world where fast fashion has made disposability the norm.\n<\/p>\n

\n \u201cOur customers want pieces that feel like them \u2013 jewellery they can curate over time, that they know will last.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n In an economy where Brexit, inflation and global uncertainty keep shifting the ground beneath us, Laura Bond is a reminder of what resilience looks like: starting with \u00a35,000 and a dream, weathering shocks from pandemics to politics<\/a>, and creating a thriving business rooted in authenticity. On Thistle Street, you can feel that story in every detail \u2013 the heritage building, the cobbles underfoot, the women-led team inside and the quiet confidence of a founder who has turned rebellion into resilience. Just around the corner, the Scottish Enlightenment once sparked ideas that changed the world. Today, in its own way, Thistle Street continues that tradition, a place where imagination and enterprise meet.\n<\/p>\n

\n Perhaps that is the real lesson for Edinburgh and for Scotland: that even when markets falter and borders close, this city still has the power to nurture ideas, to build lasting businesses, and to prove small beginnings can spark extraordinary futures. \u00a0\n<\/p>\n

\n \u00a0\u00a0Dr Antoinette Fionda-Douglas is co-founder of Beira, and assistant professor at Heriot-Watt University<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Nowhere embodies both the challenge and the possibility quite like Edinburgh. From the heritage boutiques of Thistle Street…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":470988,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5226],"tags":[802,748,2000,299,5187,1699,4884,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-470987","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-brexit","8":"tag-brexit","9":"tag-britain","10":"tag-eu","11":"tag-europe","12":"tag-european","13":"tag-european-union","14":"tag-great-britain","15":"tag-uk","16":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115310065359302134","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/470987","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=470987"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/470987\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/470988"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=470987"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=470987"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=470987"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}