Francesca Grima Archives

Andrew Grima’s legacy

Published on September 24, 2022

The innovative imagination of the sixties revived with Maison Andrew Grima ♦

It’s nice when the myths continue. La Maison Andrew Grima, jeweler that marked the sixties, and died in 2007, he continues its journey through the work of his wife Jojo and the daughter Francesca. Andrew Grima has an original story. He was born in Rome to Italian parents (with a kinship with the family Farnese). He grew up in London, where he attended St Joseph College, Beulah Hill, but he studied mechanical engineering.

Anello in oro con opale e diamanti, 1974

Andrew Grima was the trendiest jewelry designer in London’s West End in the 1960s and 1970s. He sold the jewelry in his gallery at 80 Jermyn Street, Mayfair, furnished with the world’s first perspex spiral staircase, built by Peter Rice and Ove Arup. In 1970 Grima also designed a collection of watches, About Time, for Omega. And in 1976 a collection of golden Led digital watches for Pulsar. The British designer has won numerous awards for his contribution to the jewelry industry. For example, he was the only jeweler to win the Duke of Edinburgh Award for design and he won 13 De Beers Diamonds International Awards, more than any other jeweler.

La regina Elisabetta con una spilla con rubino di Andrew Grima

His father was a designer of fabrics and the Andrew brothers became architects. His jeweler work was much appreciated by the British royal family: among others, for a brooch with rubies purchased by Queen Elizabeth II and another gold for the Princess Margaret. Among her fans there are also designers like Miuccia Prada and Marc Jacobs. Fortunately Francesca Grima has inherited from her father a good dose of creativity, while the mother Jojo has worked extensively with her husband, so much to learn the style and manufacturing techniques. In a nutshell: a man has disappeared, but it lives what he has created. After two decades in Switzerland mother and daughter returned to London and continue in the unmistakable style of the Maison, which includes abstract forms and unusual combinations of materials, stones and geometric shapes often irregular. Each year are introduced only 20-30 new pieces.

Collana in platino con un berillo ovale e diamanti, 1973

Orecchini in oro con citrini madeira, 1970

Anello con citrino di 47,54 carati su oro, 2022

Anello in oro con diamanti, 2021 — Anello in oro con diamante taglio vecchia miniera, 2021

The last news from Grima

Published on June 26, 2017

Showroom

Francesca Grima, anello Arabesque in oro e diamanti

The new jewelry by Maison Grima showed at Masterpiece London ♦ ︎
Every year the Maison Grima produces 20 to 30 new pieces. Few, no doubt, but it is the tradition of the brand created by Andrew Grima in the 1960s to reduce the novelties. Only to few expert goldsmiths are entrusted with the designs and the realization of the jewels that are now being carried by the wife of the designer of Italian origin, which became Londoner. Many pieces are now classic that are replicated from time to time, and other pieces are added. They all have the same denominator: they can only be viewed by appointment or at Masterpiece London, the yearly fair dedicated to art, antiquety and to selection of old or new high quality jewelery. Even 2017 was no exception and Maison Grima presented a mix of classics and novelties, that is, pieces designed by Andrew Grima and those designed by his wife Jojo and the daughter Francesca. Like the Arabesque ring, which manages to use a modern styling key in a context that, who knows why, recalls the seventies.
Read also: Grima the ongoing revolution

Andrew Grima, anello con rubini e diamanti del 1967

Anello Gherkin di Francesca Grima, oro giallo e quarzo fumé. Si ispira a un'architettura di Norman Foster — Anello Gherkin di Francesca Grima, oro giallo e quarzo fumé. Si ispira a un’architettura di Norman Foster

Collana del 1972, Supergusci collection, conchiglia con oro e diamanti

Collana Lei, oro e diamanti, vincitrice nel 1965 del concorso De Beers

Orecchini in oro giallo e diamanti di Jojo Grima, 2015

Andrew Grima, anello in oro e perla 1970

Orecchini in oro bianco e giallo di Jojo Grima, 2016

Aliens Jewels aliens by Francesca Grima

Published on November 28, 2015

Showroom

If you have nostalgia for the eighties, and for video games like Space Invaders, for sure you can love the jewels of Francesca Grima. Her collection better known, in fact, borrows her design one of the most famous game for computer and console. But the game in which the designer is involved is very earnest: she behind, in fact, a long history of defending, spanning four generations. She is, in fact, the great-great grandson of Sir Thomas Cullinan, the one who discovered the large mine in South Africa and from where you extracted the famous diamond, the largest ever found: 3,106.75 carats (approximately 621 grams). Her father also was Andrew Grima, home of the British royal jeweler and founder of the eponymous jewelry. With this legacy behind, Francesca Grima decided to continue the tradition, but in her own way. Since she was 18, after joining the family, she began designing jewelry. One of her first works was a finalist at the De Beers Diamonds International Awards. A good start. In 2014 she founded his own brand, Francesca Grima. Inspired, in addition to video games, to architecture and fabrics, with a style very 3D. In fact, che primarily uses Cad software to compose. The jewelry is made of gold, yellow, pink, but also black, together with small princess-cut stones. Lavinia Andorno

Anello in oro di due colori, Francesca Grima

Pendente di Francesca Grima, oro e diamanti

Pendente Pixel Heart, oro nero e diamanti