Dominic Jones is a young jeweller who is making the macabre desirable and luxury.
Tucked next to Papillo’s pizza parlour and an immigration solicitor’s on a dank Hackney thoroughfare, stands a curious little shop. Scrubbed badger skulls, carnivorous plants and a two-headed baby skeleton adorn the panes, and, rumour has it, they have an AK-47 in the cellar.
Dominic Jones, the twenty-five-year-old luxury jeweller who is fascinating people like Florence Welch, Vivienne Westwood and Alice Dellal, was a regular here when he first came to London; he squatted round the corner, and has by accident or design the same macabre aesthetic running through his veins.
His perfect birthday present would be a colony of Dermestid beetles: ideal for eating the meat off bones for purposes of taxidermy. Amongst other strange objects, Jones sources giant squid jaws from Californian fishermen for his designs, and recently made a model retch at a fashion shoot after beautifying her neck with a collar of fresh cow’s intestine.
He is a regular on the London party scene, hanging out with Jack Penate and making custom jewellery for Florence Welch, which can be seen on the ‘You’ve Got The Dirtee Love’ duet from the BRITS, and her ‘Drumming Song’ video.
“At an after party at Kai from the Mystery Jets’ house they were all sat around playing away, bouncing off each other. I was annoyed that my talent wasn’t instant...so in my fucked-at-five-in-the-morning state I was like, ‘I hate this, I’m going to make you a ring!’”
Heavily involved in the graffiti scene for years, growing up in Buckinghamshire, local hero ‘Rain Man’ - apparently due back in court soon - painted Jones a few times, who also hung out with Banksy at anti-war marches.
It is fair to say that Jones is becoming just as a phenomena as Banksy on the jewellery and fashion networks. His twenty-two-karat gold-plated fang necklace was recently modelled by Megan Fox on the cover of Harper’s Bazaar, and his black gold plated thorns studs, claw rings and knuckle dusters adorned Thierry Mugler’s 2010 A/W catwalk show.
It was his 2009 ‘Tooth And Nail’ collection that made him US Vogue Editor Anna Wintour’s tip. It featured solid gold versions of vampire bat and crocodile skulls and jaws, giant Humboldt squid beaks and vulture skulls cast in luxury perfection. His latest collection promises to be bolder than ever.
Hilariously, he dropped out of the Sir John Cass School of Art and Design, when he was told to ‘think outside the box’, even though then he was creating inventive work. Inspired by the puffer fish, he used magnets to make an innocuous broach flower into a giant red balloon at the touch of a button.
It is a shame that the likes of Rihanna have now jumped on the Dominic Jones bandwagon, though maybe he could ask her to model for him - after hearing about a recent shoot, it seems perfect.
“When we were sawing through the large fish heads [for a necklace] it split and guts poured out on to the studio floor and while we were holding it against the girl, bits of its brain and blood were spilling all over her.”
Go for it Rihanna, but bring an umbrella!
Words by Miguel Cullen
