Chupi Sweetman celebrates 10 years in business with her most luxurious - and sustainable - jewellery collection yet
Founded in 2013, Chupi was founded by now CEO, Chupi Sweetman, who first started designing at the age of 17.
“I always dreamt big,” says Chupi Sweetman of the early days of her eponymous brand.
“Your job as a founder is to find brilliant people who can do things better than you can. I really think about what we make and how we make it and am obsessed with our customers. It’s all about people - the ‘who’ being strongly aligned with the ‘how’.
Part of Sweetman’s ‘how’ has centred on the local and the sustainable, and the pieces in the Chupi collection are made within a 100km radius of the brand’s Dublin HQ.
“I am really proud of how we have honoured our values as we have scaled,” she says.
“We have kept our talent and skill in Ireland and I am proud of, and grateful for, the people we have worked with over the past decade. People choose our jewellery to mark big moments in their lives so it is important that our pieces are made locally and with love.”
CLIMATE & SUSTAINABILITY HUB
She is also grateful for her customers both in Ireland and abroad where Chupi has sold to many thousands of customers in over 70 countries worldwide.
“I am incredibly proud of being part of people’s most precious moments. It’s such an honour,” she says. “If you want to restore your faith in humanity, spend a few hours in our place and hear the stories of love, resilience and hope.”
Chupi’s new collection is one of the most exclusive yet with prices ranging from around €989 to a cool €28,780 for a limited edition engagement ring featuring pink and white diamonds.
Having founded the brand in her twenties, the Chupi brand has grown up in tandem with its founder and solid gold pieces now replace gold-plated designs.
“Really it’s about following my own North Star,” says the designer whose conversation is peppered with on-brand jewel and star references. “If jewellery marks the most precious moments in our lives there’s nothing quite like gold and diamonds.”
New packaging has a more grown-up feel too. Sweetman employed the expertise of renowned French packaging designer Vincent Villagér, who has worked with some of the world’s most illustrious brands, to design the packaging to be luxurious but also easily recyclable (though it’s unlikely anyone would want to do so). The result is a monogrammed blush pink suite of packaging which includes elements of kineticism whereby, for example, a clamshell gift box lifts the ring box on opening.
“We came to Vincent with a ‘look and feel’ for the new packaging but we really wanted to take it to the next level,” says Sweetman. “It was a two-year process but bringing it out into the world is a joy. It’s about not just the next decade but the next 50 years. It was important that the box and bag had a timeless feel. It’s exciting to think that these boxes will still be sitting on someone’s dressing table in 50 years’ time.”
Attaining sustainable goals is an ongoing process for many brands and so too at Chupi. “Sustainability is an interesting one in that, not everyone measures things in the same way that you do. For us at Chupi, we are passionate about doing the right thing. It’s not good enough to say we are doing the right thing.”
The new ‘One in a Trillion’ collection employs carbon-neutral recycled 14k solid gold and lab-grown diamonds.
“I think lab-grown diamonds are the future,” says Sweetman. “I tell the story of my grandmother’s fur coat. When I was 20, I wore that coat and thought it was beautiful, but I wouldn’t wear it today. I think the future of diamonds will centre on really good mining practices and lab-grown diamonds.”
However not all lab-grown diamonds are equal, she says. “It is really important who we partner with - our lab-grown diamonds are carbon neutral and we are looking at carbon-negative diamonds for the next collection. If you can get the same sparkle and beauty from something with minimal sustainability implications why wouldn’t you do it?”
As she celebrates the brand’s 10th anniversary, a recent cash injection of €3.75m is something that Sweetman is proud to have secured for her business: “Ten years may seem like a very long time, but in the jewellery game it is a very short window. This will be a brand and a business that will be around for a long time so it’s incredible to have the backing of our partners to help grow the business and brand.”
Sweetman is keen to emphasise how our relationship with jewellery has changed. Commemorating “love, hope and everything in between”, she says that Chupi is about celebrating “life’s perfectly imperfect journey”.
“We are the first generation of women to buy our own jewellery. Our mothers, grandmothers and aunts didn’t do that. Jewellery was the language of love - it was the day you got married, the day you had a baby… Now women exist in the world in a way that our grandmothers didn't so we mark our own moments. And what better way than diamonds to celebrate those big moments in your life?”
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