‘Water Holds Memory’ a response to Sah Oved’s emotional jewellery.
My designs have always taken watery, fluid forms, my Ebb & Flow collection grows every year. This watery necklace with moonstones was created in time to show at the Beyond the Sea Showcase at FORGE London June 2025.
One of my Grandmother Casty’s closest friends was a jeweller called Sah Oved, known for her unusual 'emotional jewellery'. I made the necklace shown above in response to Sah’s designs and as a tribute to the lifelong connection she had with my grandmother.
‘Life Began in Water’ Necklace by Sah Oved c 1950 in the V&A “The piece marked the start of the idea that jewelry can be art, a strong statement in a Britain reeling from the devastation and austerity of war”.
Sah has a beautiful necklace in the V&A called ‘Life Began in Water’ which has a wonderful sense of movement. Although my moonstone necklace looks nothing like this, the a-symmetric fluid form, dripping with gems is what I was trying to echo.
I started googling Sah’s work just before a winter trip to the Italian coast, soon after a researcher got in touch to find out about Sah’s connection to my family.
Sah Oved’s designs seeped in to my unconscious during walks along misty, coastal paths and the design for my moonstone necklace bubbled up. I scribbled down the shape of the necklace in the middle of the night when I couldn’t sleep.
Much of Sah’s later jewellery has an expressive, organic feel, as though her designs grew on the workbench rather than being overly planned and structured. My necklace had no definite plan, I improvised as I made, I played with the wire shapes until the elements seemed happy together.
Sah and Casty met in the 1920s at a time when there were few women jewellers. Very close in age (born around the turn of the centry), both Sah and Casty were trained by Arts & Crafts jewellers (Sah by John Paul Cooper and Casty at The Central School by Edmund Thomas Wyatt Ware). Both were happy to break with tradition and experiment with materials and design, mixing unconventional less precious gems like agate and quartz with silver and gold.
They worked together at Cameo Corner a well known antique jewellery shop near the British Museum run by the eccentric collector and jeweller Moshe Oved (who Sah married). Moshe was described as the “charismatic owner of the celebrated antique shop, which boasted treasures in precious materials, objets d’art and cameos, a varied international clientele of collectors, intellectuals, artists and royalty.
Mosheh presided over his kingdom wearing a long purple velvet robe and a large amethyst on gold rope hung from his neck. Queen Mary was a regular visitor and her Daimler was often seen parked outside, with a red carpet stretching from the shop door to the pavement”.
In the 1960s after Moshe Oved died, Sah moved to Grantchester, Cambridge to be with her new husband, another good friend of Casty’s, architect Hugh Hughes. They lived just a few miles from Casty, and saw each other often. By then Casty was teaching more than making jewellery and Sah was the director or Primavera Gallery.
They spent time at Hugh’s windmill by the sea at Burnham Overy Staithe one of Casty’s favourite places, were she’d visited since her student days.
They remained friends until Sah (by then using her given name Gwendol) died in 1983.
See more of Sah Oved’s jewellery on curator.org and Bonhams.com
Read more about Casty here
Read more about Moshe Oved here