Award-winning author, writer, curator, stylist and art director.
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Annoushka:
Hi, Annoushka here. In this series, I'd really like to take the opportunity to tell you a little bit about The Brilliant Breakfast, an initiative that I set up two years ago to help the Prince's Trust support disadvantaged young women. It really can be as simple as putting the kettle on, inviting a few friends around, or hosting a breakfast for the team at work, and asking everyone to give what they can to help change a girl's life. That's The Brilliant Breakfast starting October the 10th this year. For more details, visit the brilliantbreakfast.co.uk. Thank You. I'm Annoushka Ducas and welcome back to My Life in Seven Charms. For me, there are so few things which can evoke a memory like a tiny detailed charm. In this new series, I'll be meeting seven extraordinary women and hearing their stories, through this very special 18ct gold biography.
Annoushka:
Today's guest is an authority in the world of jewelry. She has written a definitive book on key designers, and rights for the Economist, Vogue and Vanity Fair. One of her earliest memories is twirling around her grandmother's garden, wearing all of her jewelry, and being captivated by the experience. I'm delighted to welcome Melanie Grant to My Life in Seven Charms. Okay, so your first charm, great bunches of pink roses, wild and free, you describe them. Because they're little charms, I haven't made them all carved in opaques and opals. I really made them three dimensional in yellow gold, green tsavorite leaves, and then different colored graded pink sapphires. But tell me about these roses.
Melanie Grant:
My grandma, Eileen, was kind of one of my closest friends. She was one of those phenomenal women who everyone felt that they were her favorites. She loved you so profound that you felt that you were the only person in the world for her. As the oldest grandchild, we just got on, we just became friends. She was a fantastic cook. She had this big kitchen and we were always cooking together, well I say cooking, I was the soup or the gravy stirrer. My job was stir gravy. She used to make gravy from bones, from scratch. I used to have to stir it for hours. She just... I was mesmerized by her as a child, because everyone loved her, but she just gave all the time. She was so selfless, but she had a streak of steel, which I really admired. She was that rare combination of steely, but loving.
Annoushka:
Sorry, was she your mother's mother?
Melanie Grant:
Yeah.
Annoushka:
Okay. Am I right in thinking that she collected lots ofjewelry?
Melanie Grant:
She had secret compartments.
Annoushka:
In what?
Melanie Grant:
In her boudoir. She had a very nice chest, and there was a lot of talcum powder. She had lots of small pots of things, like small pots of creams, and talcum powder, and small pink things. As a child, you were intrigued by these things because actually you were allowed to go into them when she was there. Whereas my mom, wasn't really that kind of person. She didn't really care about things like that. So my granny would say, "Come into the bedroom." Then we'd look at all her things. She'd get out beautifully tidied handkerchiefs and jewels and creams, and we'd sit there and we'd sometimes put a bit of lipstick on, and it was wonderful.
Annoushka:
It's a girl's dream.
Melanie Grant:
It was a girl's heaven.
Annoushka:
I mean, that is girls' heaven, isn't it?
Melanie Grant:
I was allowed to wear the jewels and then you-
Annoushka:
Oh, hang on. What about these jewels?
Melanie Grant:
She had 1920s costume jewelry, which she really liked, and it was mesmerizing.
Annoushka:
Do you think your love of jewelry, did it start from there, do you think?
Melanie Grant:
I think she ignited it. Yeah.
Annoushka:
Without having any idea.
Melanie Grant:
It felt happy. It summed up happiness for me.
Annoushka:
You spent a lot of time with her cooking and did she have a lovely garden with... I'm just trying to get to why the roses.
Melanie Grant:
Yeah, she had a garden. It was that time, in the old days, back in those days, you played out as a child. You were never in. Somebody called your name when it got dark and you went home, but you were mostly out just running about.
Annoushka:
No screens.
Melanie Grant:
She was always sort of in the garden. I just had these memories of it being sunny. She was pottering about doing things with roses, or she just was always happy. It was a very happy feeling. You're a kid, because your parents are often telling you off, your grandparents they're just like your friends.
Annoushka:
Yes. Yes.
Melanie Grant:
You just gave her everything you had, because she was always giving. Whatever she wanted you just... If she wanted to be quiet, you were quiet because you just wanted her to be happy. But those moments where we were together, for me, represent a really idyllic part of my childhood, playing, sunny, jewelry, Nanna, food. My parents probably somewhere in the background, but it was just that freedom to roam and be beautiful.
Annoushka:
Your second charm is a lioness intertwined with an M. I love the idea of that. I actually so enjoyed working out how to do that. Basically I've done a three dimensional lioness in yellow gold textured to have the feeling of the fur, and I think black diamond eyes. Then a capital M, is quite hard if you can't see this to visualize it, but a capital M small pavé rubies, all the way across it. It could be gorgeous actually. I think I was excited by that. Will you tell me why you've chosen a lioness?
Melanie Grant:
My mom, Mordy, is quite a character. She's definitely wild. She's probably my best friend. She's very naughty. So growing up, I was definitely the sensible one and she was the wild one. For many years, people have said to us, "You're the Saffy to her Edina," from Absolutely Fabulous. It makes a lot of sense. I was always saying, "I don't think we're going to do that." She's like, "Well..." I always remember her coming to the gates of school to pick me up and she was always wearing this very long camel coat with this wild blonde hair. She just would glide in, and all the other mothers were wearing... I don't know.
Annoushka:
Perfect.
Melanie Grant:
Well-
Annoushka:
Bit...
Melanie Grant:
Just sort of anoraks. She wasn't an anorak person and she was always a bit... She had these fantastic [Dave Mednervich] glasses, these red glasses. I just remember being so excited waiting for her to come and pick me up, because we had such good chats on the way home. I just remember seeing this column of... This caramel column with the blonde hair, and I waited for that moment.
Annoushka:
Oh my goodness. That's why you've chosen lioness, because she was wild and blonde.
Melanie Grant:
Yeah.
Annoushka:
In my head, because that's so interesting, I thought it was because she was Leo.
Melanie Grant:
Oh, she's also a Leo.
Annoushka:
Oh, she's... Okay. I assumed it was the Leo.
Melanie Grant:
Yeah. She's, as I say, a character and I never really at school understood people with normal mommies. Annoushka:
That's so interesting, because so many children, young children, were desperate for a normal mommy. They wouldn't want anybody who would be in any way not normal. I mean, I remember my mother coming to school with pink hair and I just desperate for her to stay at the end of the drive.
Melanie Grant:
Please don't come.
Annoushka:
Don't embarrass me. Don't embarrass me.
Melanie Grant:
You couldn't be embarrassed with my mom. I have no ability to be embarrassed now.
Annoushka:
But not even when you were little?
Melanie Grant:
No, I never cared what anyone thought. That was partly because of her, because she always said to me, "Do whatever you want. You can be anything you want, just don't listen to anyone. Do whatever you want in your heart." It never occurred to me to care that other people's opinions that would affect what I wanted to do, I always did whatever I liked.
Annoushka:
God, that's an amazing ability to instill that in a child.
Melanie Grant:
Yeah. I think that's the biggest gift she gave my brother and I, that we just followed our dreams really.
Annoushka:
How old's your brother?
Melanie Grant:
My brother's... Well, I'm not supposed to say. He's a lot younger than me. He's eight years younger than me. He lives in America.
Annoushka:
Okay. What does he do?
Melanie Grant:
He's a record producer and a fashion designer.
Annoushka:
God, wow. What your mom said, "You can do anything."
Melanie Grant:
We believed it.
Annoushka:
You clearly believed it.
Melanie Grant:
Yeah.
Annoushka:
Let's just get a scene for what everybody else around you was doing. I mean, first of all, where were you at school? You're being brought up in Chiswick or?
Melanie Grant:
No. I grew up in Hornsey and went to a school called Highgate Wood. There was a school called Highgate School, which was the posh school. We were the other school, which wasn't posh at all. There were no expectations when I was at school, in my school.
Annoushka:
In your school?
Melanie Grant:
Yeah. There were no expectations you would do anything interesting. The expectation was really that you would go and be useful, working in a factory or something which was practical and useful, where you would probably have a job for life, if you were lucky.
Annoushka:
Right.
Melanie Grant:
Me saying, "I want to be a journalist," was met with fascination really. They didn't really know what to do with that.
Annoushka:
But did you go and see anybody about careers and things, and did they...
Melanie Grant:
Yeah, a careers advisor came to our school. I think when I was about 10 or something and said to me, "Now-
Annoushka:
10?
Melanie Grant:
10. Well, quite young.
Annoushka:
Careers at 10?
Melanie Grant:
Yeah. Well, you had to choose your GCSEs. They were like, "What do you want to do?" I said, "I want to be a journalist." She said, "I think you should be a baker's assistant."
Annoushka:
What?
Melanie Grant:
I said, "But why?" She said, "Because people will always need bread."
Annoushka:
Oh my god.
Melanie Grant:
I realized at that point I said, "I just don't want to do that." It was so limiting. My school wasn't the school that you went to university from that school, you went and did a trade. They were like, "You'll hurt yourself if you try and aim too high."
Annoushka:
But this must have come, this real ambition from your side, must have come from your parents, did it?
Melanie Grant:
No. My parents, my mom was a secretary and my dad was a painter decorator. I remember watching news around when I was about seven or eight, and being transfixed by it and thinking, "I just want to tell people stories. That's what I want to do." It started at that point, but then of course leaving school, most of the people in my year didn't go to university. They just got jobs, or got pregnant, or went to prison mostly.
Annoushka:
I mean, we're going to go on to talk about how you really went on to do what you've ended up doing. Just tell me a bit about your dad. He was a painter decorator?
Melanie Grant:
Yes.
Annoushka:
Very present at home always?
Melanie Grant:
Yeah. When I grew up, I was one of the first mixed race children, really, of that generation. A lot of people would say to me, "Where are you from?" I was like this weird, freaky other. You've got a lot of that. There was a lot of curiosity. My mom would walk down the street with me as a baby and people would just be a bit shocked.
Annoushka:
She's totally blonde, your mom?
Melanie Grant:
Yeah. She had that as well.
Annoushka:
Okay. Yeah.
Melanie Grant:
My dad was at home, and I remember one day, one of the boys from school said to me he didn't believe that I had a black dad. He said like, "You just don't have one. You just made that up." I said, "No, I really do have one." So he came to my house and we looked through the curtains and he was like, "Oh my God, he's there." I said, "Yeah." "He's black." I said, " I know." He was like, "Oh." He was so shocked. That was interesting, and obviously that side of my life being a Jamaican side and having my dad there, it really affected the culture I grew up in because I was really into reggae music for a very long time as a teenager. I had a real balance. A lot of my family that I was close to were English and white, and my dad's culture really... I felt really at home in that culture, it was very accepting. No one said to me, "Where are you from?" They just accepted you. If you were part black or black, you were just black. There was no... No one asked you, they just accepted you. Culturally, a lot of my friends and a lot of the things I did were within that musical landscape. But family wise, it was all roast dinners and-
Annoushka:
They were accepting though, were they? They might not have seen...
Melanie Grant:
Yeah. I mean, my granddad had traveled a lot and lived in India and things during the war. Because my dad was a big cricket fan and my granddad was obsessed with cricket, and we'd have to go and watch him play cricket all the time, they bonded over cricket. There could have been some shade. I mean, no one ever said that to me, but I think compared to how I'm sure a lot of people... what they had to face, they seemed very accepting.
Annoushka:
Yeah. Is he still alive?
Melanie Grant:
Yeah. He's... Well, again, he won't thank me for saying this, but he's nearly 80 and he lives in North London.
Annoushka:
God, how lovely that they're both very much around.
Melanie Grant:
Yeah. They're both... The funniest people I actually know are my parents, my dad is a complete and utter character. I don't know actually how two such entertaining people managed to find each other.
Annoushka:
They found each other, but am I right to think they divorced at some point?
Melanie Grant:
When I was about 20, 21. Yeah. They broke up.
Annoushka:
Right. Right. But then they're good mates?
Melanie Grant:
They're still... I've never seen them argue and they're still hilarious, the two of them. Sometimes before COVID, they used to come to my house. I used to say, "Come round and potter about." It was just... It's weird, because as you get older, they just seem to get smaller. They shrink your parents, don't they? They seem to be these God life size, huge-
Annoushka:
Yeah, larger than life.
Melanie Grant:
... characters and then you get older, and they're shuffling about over there. You're like, "How did you get so small and shuffley?" They're sort of shifting amongst themselves. They're just... Yeah. They are funny.
Annoushka:
They must be incredibly proud of you and your brother.
Melanie Grant:
Yeah. They don't really know how it happened. I have a lot of conversations where they say, "But how did this happen?" I'm like, "I don't know." "How did we have you? How?" I'm like, "I don't know, it just..." We were always a bit different.
Annoushka:
Your third charm's awesome. I love this. This is an exploding heart with words bursting from it, you said. You said to me, you really love the work of Roy Lichtenstein, pop artist. I mean, I taken it as red, really? It's yellow gold heart with the word pow-
Melanie Grant:
Great.
Annoushka:
... pow engraved on it, surrounded by orange and yellow sapphires, which are pavé set. Then I love the way you said, "Well, perhaps the word... Maybe the words could move, or the explosion spin." I'm quite good at making things spin, but I don't think I can make them actually explode as such. I'm not doing very good at explaining this, because I think you might be able-
Melanie Grant:
I think it's a great charm.
Annoushka:
... to explain it better, being the writer. How could you explain that?
Melanie Grant:
Well, a lot of what I write about is about power.
Annoushka:
Yeah.
Melanie Grant:
I think an explosion kind of sums it up really.
Annoushka:
It totally does.
Melanie Grant:
I feel that words exploded into my life. I was the first person in my family to go to university. That for me was like a grenade going off in my life. I went from growing up in North London with all the people I knew, and I went to university in London, but it was like a different dimension, an alternative universe. I had no concept that learning could transform you in that way. It was like... I remember going home the first day thinking, "I just can't believe how good this is."
Annoushka:
Can I come back to that? Because just step back one bit, because we've talked about being at school and the fact that they told you need to go and be a baker's assistant or whatever.
Melanie Grant:
Yes.
Annoushka:
At what point did you suddenly think, "Okay, I want to go to university." Where did that all kick in, given that none of your family had been?
Melanie Grant:
I had a conversation with my grandma. She said, "I had to leave school and I was very young. I had no choice. If you have a chance to be educated, you've got to take it." I just didn't know what to do. I was quite scared, and there was this pressure, everyone around me just wanted to leave school and earn some money and move out, and like go clubbing on the weekends. I just thought, I could sense there was something bigger out there, but I couldn't see it because no one I knew had done it. I just thought, "I've got to trust Nanna, because she knows a lot more about the world." So I went for it
Annoushka:
Any doubts?
Melanie Grant:
It was terrifying.
Annoushka:
Terrifying. In what respect was it terrifying?
Melanie Grant:
Everyone on my course had a lot of money. I didn't have any money, so I was working a night job and a weekend job.
Annoushka:
What were you doing?
Melanie Grant:
I was working in [Do-It-All], on the saw mill. Annoushka:
What? Sorry?
Melanie Grant:
Making doors.
Annoushka:
You were making doors?
Melanie Grant:
Yeah. Builders would come in and say, "I want a door like this." They had this massive saw mill. Because I was really tall, they put me on it and I just loved it. It was quite creative really, and get into it. They were like, "But where's your boss?" I'm like, "I'm making the door, my friend. Do you want one or not?" They're like, "Well, why is this girl making my door? Isn't there a man somewhere?" I'm like, "No, it's me." Then-
Annoushka:
That's extraordinary. Okay. That's one job.
Melanie Grant:
I loved that. Then I was packing yogurts at night in Sainsbury's, and very, very sobering doing that because it was freezing cold. I mean, I knew I couldn't do that as a job. I knew that was what I was staring at if I messed up the degree. That was quite a good moment. Yeah.
Annoushka:
You really, worked for that degree.
Melanie Grant:
Yeah, that was real hard.
Annoushka:
You really ground it out.
Melanie Grant:
Yeah.
Annoushka:
Did you come across any bias at university?
Melanie Grant:
Yeah. I mean there weren't many of us. In my entire year there was four of us. Also, my school was pretty much a complete mixture, so I'd never really in a system where I wasn't just one of lots of other people who were completely different. That was interesting. I joined the Caribbean society and I met lots of people, and that was really nice experience. Connecting with other black people doing a degree. Because in those days, I didn't even really know only other black people doing degrees, it just was unusual. Especially from... I lived in a counselor state, there was so few of us. Some people were quite threatened by it and said, "But you're... Again, you're going to hurt yourself. They won't let you win." I remember someone said that to me. Annoushka:
Did you think that was right? Did you believe that?
Melanie Grant:
I knew what they meant, but I had to find out for myself and I had to try.
Annoushka:
On leaving uni, did you try then to start to go into writing or into a newspaper, magazine?
Melanie Grant:
I thought writing was going to be a step too far because at uni, the only people in the writing section were really, really posh. I thought I probably couldn't do that. I just wanted to get any job in the media really. I approached the BBC, Mom wrote me a very, very good letter, because as a secretary, she was very good at that. They said, "We don't have an internship program." I just went one day and-
Annoushka:
Hang on, went to the BBC?
Melanie Grant:
Went to the BBC, because again, that's kind of who I am. Some says, "No, you can't do that." I would, "We'll see."
Annoushka:
I love that. Yeah.
Melanie Grant:
I went to the BBC, kind of how hung out, and they gave me some photocopying to do. I snuck in-
Annoushka:
You were just in reception? I've just trying to get a picture.
Melanie Grant:
No, I kind of snuck in. Because security in those days wasn't what it is now, with terrorism. My dad was sometimes a bouncer and sometimes I'd go to clubs and that bouncers would be, "Oh yeah, no, your dad works for that person, that person." So I think there was a bouncer who I recognized from a club and he was, "Oh yeah, you can come in. But just don't do anything silly."
Annoushka:
Don't say I let you in.
Melanie Grant:
Then they realized that I wasn't really supposed to be there. They said, "But who are you?" I said, "I just really want to just help out. You don't have to pay me. I just want to learn." They said, "You can stay for a couple of weeks, because we really need the help." Then I did that two summers running, and then they made it into a job. Then I didn't get the job.
Annoushka:
What do you mean, didn't get the job? You were doing the job.
Melanie Grant:
I know. They did an internship program.
Annoushka:
Thanks to you.
Melanie Grant:
Thanks to me. Then they advertised for it, and I went for the interview, and I didn't get it. Somebody internally got it, he was doing another job.
Annoushka:
Then what happened?
Melanie Grant:
I went to a very small publishing company in Islington above a Chinese takeaway. Now, this is the stuff of comedy. I worked for a woman and a man who were partners in this tiny production company. They were both married and both having an affair, together.
Annoushka:
With a each other? Oh, nice.
Melanie Grant:
Any one time you go to work and they'd either be making out in the conference room-
Annoushka:
Oh, cool.
Melanie Grant:
... or they wouldn't be speaking each other and they'd say, "Can you tell her that I need this right now." I'd have to go into her room.
Annoushka:
Oh my God.
Melanie Grant:
She was like, "Can you tell him that he's a complete asshole and I'm not going to speak to him today." You never knew what you were going to go into.
Annoushka:
That's hilarious.
Melanie Grant:
But they let me do lots of things. Kind of let me do anything I was interested in because-
Annoushka:
So this is a massive opportunity, actually, hasn't?
Melanie Grant:
Yeah. It was great because if they weren't speaking to-
Annoushka:
If they've been having affair maybe-
Melanie Grant:
No, I would probably be much more limited.
Annoushka:
Yeah. God, Mel, it's an incredible story. I mean, that just wouldn't happen, now, the bit and particularly about the BBC.
Melanie Grant:
[crosstalk].
Annoushka:
I mean, you could never sneak in now.
Melanie Grant:
Yeah. There was a freedom at that time that if you had a bit of gumption, you could... You just can't do that now, which I think is a shame for kids.
Annoushka:
That sounds like quite an unusual route into your next job, which was the FT.
Melanie Grant:
After the Chinese takeaway, I went to work for the FT, and then I worked lots of different newspapers. I worked for the Guardian, the Independent, Independent on Sunday, quite a few different ones.
Annoushka:
But I mean, hold on, going from a little media company above a Chinese, going to the FT, how's that work?
Melanie Grant:
Well, because... I went as a editorial assistant. You had to choose between words and pictures. Again, everyone doing words was kind of like from Eaton. So I thought, "I'm going to choose pictures," because I also have always loved photography. I started doing picture editing. I did that in a lot of different places. I was at the Times as assignments editor, which is a very tough job. I was-
Annoushka:
What does that mean, assignment editor?
Melanie Grant:
We had a photo editor, but I was in charge of all the photographers around the world. On a newspaper-
Annoushka:
Wow.
Melanie Grant:
... you have to get into conference and place your photographers for the day. You have to really assess and predict what the news is going to be, so you can put people in the right places. Then throughout the day you have to just roll with the rolling news. You create the news visually, and it's a high pressure, bonkers job. I was one of only two women on the news desk at that time, the only person of color at that time. I was young, I was late 20s. It was like a baptism by absolute fire. On my first day, the news editor was like an old Scottish guy, he looked at me and just wouldn't speak to me.
Annoushka:
Oh, terrific.
Melanie Grant:
He was just like-
Annoushka:
That was because you were black, and a woman.
Melanie Grant:
I just think it was, I was a woman, I was young, I was black, I was so not what he was comfortable with. I never really found out because he never spoke to me, but I had to try and get his list in order to deal with the news and he just wouldn't give it to me. IT and I would have to break into his computer and try and get his list so I could actually go into conference with an idea of what was happening.
Annoushka:
Why it's absolutely bonkers.
Melanie Grant:
Also, my second day, someone thought I was the cleaner.
Annoushka:
God.
Melanie Grant:
It was a different time.
Annoushka:
How did you feel about that? I mean, obviously it's a very different time to now, but do you remember feeling pissed off about that? Or do you remember just thinking that was just-
Melanie Grant:
It was shocking actually.
Annoushka:
You were shocked?
Melanie Grant:
Yeah. I was shocked. I mean, having a moment, definitely having a black moment in the last couple of years, I remember a time where my boss came in, he said, "Oh, what are you doing?" I said, "I'm making myself some lunch." He said, "What's that?" I said, "It's a Jamaican Patty." He said, "You mean a pastie?" I said, "No, it's a patty." He said, "But you mean a pat..." I said, "No, it's a patty." He said, "What's a Jamaican Patty?" I said, "Well, it's a snack." He said, "But why are you eating that?" I said, "Because I'm half Jamaican." He said, "Are you?" I said, "Where did you think this comes from? [Ma Bayer]?" " Yeah." He were like, "Oh." I think they knew I was different, but I think they just couldn't really comprehend that you could be something else really.
Annoushka:
Didn't want to verbalize it.
Melanie Grant:
Not really. I once went to work with cornrows in my hair in the summer, and I had a lot of people being very uncomfortable. I had some people say to me, "Why have you got that in your hair? What does it mean? It's not professional. You should take it out." I'm like, "I'm just going to do whatever I like, thanks." It was definitely shocking.
Annoushka:
Shocking.
Melanie Grant:
I don't think... There was a couple of people who were malicious about it, but most people were just totally ignorant. They just didn't really understand. I just don't think they knew any black people at all.
Annoushka:
Would you socialize together?
Melanie Grant:
Not really. I mean, to be honest, the job was so crazy. That job toughened me up. I've never had a job since then were I don't feel I could deal with it. Because if you can go through that in hard news on a very... in that kind of environment, you can do anything. After that I just thought-
Annoushka:
Sod it.
Melanie Grant:
Yeah. I can really just do anything I want and I can deal with any of it.
Annoushka:
But it sounds... I mean that you're incredibly able to deal with, and were always able to deal with any of these issues.
Melanie Grant:
But I was having panic attacks, I mean-
Annoushka:
Oh, you were?
Melanie Grant:
Yeah, yeah. I was very, very stressed.
Annoushka:
Because you make it sound like actually it was all-
Melanie Grant:
No. I'd go home, my boyfriend was like, "You just have to stick it out." I knew I was learning a lot, which is the only thing that kept me going, but it was physically demanding, like stress wise I was not in a great place. Then we had the 7/7 bombs, and I had to live at work pretty much for a week, had to interview people whose children had been killed and didn't know where they were. That finished me off. I left the Times after that. The things you have to look at, the images that you would never see in the newspaper, they're too distressing. I just thought, "No, I don't think so. I'm going to have to do something else."
Annoushka:
Okay. Well your fourth charm, this must be the beginning of the real jewelry story, is a little tiara. It's a tiny, perfect tiara with little diamonds on the crown that sits on your head, and moon stones, graduated moon stones biggest in the middle. It's a charm, but it could almost be a ring, couldn't it? Could be just perfect. Tell me about this tiara.
Melanie Grant:
The Economist I was doing lots of photography and styling, and got to know some of the jewelry brands. Someone at Cartier phoned me and said, "We're having this big exhibition at the Grand Palais, would love you to come and cover it." I said, "I'm not a writer. The fashion editors probably would be happy to do that." They said, "No, we want you." I said, "Why?" They said, "Well, because we know you love jewelry and you collect it, and we want somebody who really has an obsession." I went, and again, it changed my life. In that, I got into the auditorium, it was dark, and the power of that jewelry floored me.
Annoushka:
Tell me about how that felt.
Melanie Grant:
It was just sheer... It was like a transcendental experience. It was a spiritual element to it. It was beauty and the history, and the tiara we're talking about here was... I ended up wondering about in the dark, and I was standing next to these women and they were crying. I looked over and I said to one of them, "Why are you crying?" She said to me, "I never thought they would let us in to see something this good." Said, "We're cleaners." They were overwhelmed. I just thought-
Annoushka:
Wow.
Melanie Grant:
I felt the same as them, that I was being let into this world and never thought I'd be able to access. I stumbled out of there and I just felt changed, I felt different. Like something had happened to me. I thought, "I have to get closer to this stuff. I have to write about it." I don't know how, because I'm not a writer, but I'm going to have to find out. I thought, "Right, that's it. That's what I'm going to do next."
Annoushka:
What is it about jewelry that you think affected you so much on that day, and then subsequently? Because you've obviously, obviously always love jewelry.
Melanie Grant:
Yeah. It's power and beauty combined. It's powerful economically, it's powerful historically. We've waged war to own great jewelry. It changes people. I say to people who don't care about jewelry, often men at parties, middle-aged men who say to me, "Oh, jewelry, what? That's nonsense." I say, "If you've seen a fantastic diamond, a famous diamond, you can feel the energy. It's actually an entity. It pulls you in, you can't look away." I can't explain that to someone unless they experience it like I experience it. I think I connected with it, and I felt it at a very, very deep level, and I kind of fell in love.
Annoushka:
How amazing. I've very seldom heard anybody describe their first experience of real high jewelry like that. When you left that exhibition, what happened next?
Melanie Grant:
I got home and I thought, "Oh my God, I'm going to have to actually write something." The Economist is really hard to write for. I remember sitting there thinking, "Do I really want to do this to myself? Do I want to start at 40 in something which is this hard, when I could just have this comfortable life?"
Annoushka:
Do you think writing about jewelry is very different to writing about other things?
Melanie Grant:
No. I think, first of all, we have to figure out if you can write.
Annoushka:
You haven't figured that out yet?
Melanie Grant:
I didn't know. I said to three or four very, very good women writers at the Economist, "Can you read some of the things I'm going to write and tell me if I've got any skill whatsoever, any talent?" They all said to me, "It's raw, but you've got something. Keep going." But if they'd all said to me, "Hmm." I may have just not-
Annoushka:
Stopped.
Melanie Grant:
Because I didn't want to be an average writer, I wanted to be very, very good. Learning at the Economist was a baptism by fire because everyone is such a good writer, and it forces you to really be good, or go big or go home really. You have to... I didn't have any understanding of grammar. No one taught us grammar at school. I remember having a meeting with my then boss, who was saying to me, "Your apostrophes are evil." I said, "I've never been told how to apply an apostrophe." She said, "But what about your school?" I said, "Didn't learn any of that in my school. You marked your own homework."
Annoushka:
Yeah.
Melanie Grant:
Again, everyone who helped me at the Economist was a woman and without them-
Annoushka:
Was that by chance, or did you feel safer going to women to ask them?
Melanie Grant:
I asked lots of people and the women said, "Yes."
Annoushka:
Oh, yeah. That's the generosity of women. That's so [crosstalk].
Melanie Grant:
Without them, I wouldn't be here at all.
Annoushka:
That's so interesting. Can you even pinpoint men, or a man, in the same way that's helped so positively?
Melanie Grant:
Yeah. There was a guy called Ken when I went to the FT who gave me that job, he was black. Again, I'd never seen anyone black in the media so I was stunned in the interview. I just stared at him the whole time. He gave me that first chance to get into serious media. Without him, I probably wouldn't have penetrated that level of journalism. It's really... I was very lucky.
Annoushka:
Well no, but I mean, you make your own luck, clear grit and determination. It's rather amazing at 40 to suddenly become a writer. It's like, wow.
Melanie Grant:
Yeah. But I felt I'd always wanted to do it, but I'd never had the courage to really go for it, because I just thought they were never going to let me do that. But when I finished uni, I went to Phaidon for a job, which I didn't get. I was in the boardroom waiting for them to come in, and there were all these books by famous authors and I thought, "I'm going to be back here one day, and I'm going to be on that shelf." 25 years later, I went back to that boardroom and my book was there.
Annoushka:
That brings it perfectly on to charm five-
Melanie Grant:
Yes.
Annoushka:
... which is a book with the word Coveted written on it. You'd been very specific that the cover of your book Coveted is in purple. I've made it in amethyst, perfectly polished inside, and it's a locket so that you can put maybe some little extracts of your book inside. But can you tell me, how did it come about suddenly to be writing a book?
Melanie Grant:
I was doing a talk for Philips on 21st century master jewelers. After the talk, someone from the publishers approached me and said, "Have you ever done a book before?"
Annoushka:
Phaidon is the publisher?
Melanie Grant:
Oh, Phaidon, yeah. One of the biggest art publishers in the world. Obviously, because I've been there for this interview 25 years beforehand, I was quite nervous. A couple of weeks later she messaged me saying, "We're doing it." I thought, "Oh my God, I've got no idea how to write a book. This is going to be interesting."
Annoushka:
That is extraordinary. They haven't done a book on jewelry since 1949.
Melanie Grant:
No, but they wanted lots of designers in it and they wanted a proper narrative, not just the usual jewelry book, which is, "Here's a nice piece of jewelry." But they wanted an actual purpose to it. That, I think being at the Economist was one of the reasons why they said, yes.
Annoushka:
You more than most people know most jewelers, and you certainly know, if you haven't met them you know of them. Can you just tell me how you managed to select just 75?
Melanie Grant:
It was horrific.
Annoushka:
Just 75.
Melanie Grant:
It was really hard. I mean, I started off with probably 200. They had to be jewelers I felt were changing design. I felt were totally beyond the markets they were operating in, who were giving us something beyond just jewelry, were giving us some other higher level of artistic creativity. It had to be art, and a lot of jewelry as we know is product. It was tough, and it was tough to weave it all together, to piece together 75 designers in a narrative that flowed, that was a challenge.
Annoushka:
What was your biggest fear in embarking on this project?
Melanie Grant:
That the book wouldn't be good enough.
Annoushka:
At any point, were there a seed of doubt?
Melanie Grant:
Yeah. I mean the first chapter I wrote, they just said, "Do what you want." I did what I wanted, they were like, "Not that." I was like, "Oh, gosh." I went home and I remember saying to Mom, "I just don't know if I can do this. It's so hard." She was like, "You love this kind of stuff. Just get on with it. Stop moaning, go back to work."
Annoushka:
Yeah. Get on with it.
Melanie Grant:
But it's not giving up, which is the thing.
Annoushka:
That's a perfect moment to talk about your next charm, brilliant and black. I'd seen this charm being round, but with a static frame, but the inside double-sided, and it spins super fast. On one side is written black, filling up the entire space of the circle. On the other side, is written brilliant, also engraved. Around the frame, I've put black diamonds around one side. On the other side of the frame, little white diamonds on each corner. I mean, I assume that came from the book, I guess, the idea.
Melanie Grant:
Yeah. It was a selling exhibition at Sotheby's New York in September last year, 2021, where I suggested that I'd love to curate something dedicated to black jewelry designers, in the wake of George Floyd. I just wanted to do something and I thought, "What can I do with whatever power I have to change something about access to opportunity?" Lots of black designers have said to me, "We just can't get to this higher level of collector base. The global collector... the art collector base, we just can't access it. It's so hard to have the money to make anything at a high level and then know we're going to sell it. It's almost impossible." The response to it was phenomenal. I mean, everyone just connected as a community, and a lot of them knew each other, but had never really connected. That was quite a bonus. But also, there was so much raw pain. All the things that you couldn't say before George Floyd, all the things that when someone asks you, "Is that a patty or a pastie?" And you can't have a big argument with someone, because you don't have the power to even say, "That's offensive." All of that came to the surface. There was a lot of emotion and a lot of pain. Through the exhibition, we got to talk about it. Not just in the industry, like Cheryl Jones, one of the designers was... We did a little film with her and she was saying some of the things people said to her when she got into the industry like she'd never make it because she was black. She said, "I've never said that to anyone before. I never voiced those things that happened to me," but they kind of sit on your chest. You get on with it, you carry on with your business and your life. But the fact that you have a safe place to talk about that was quite... I think it floored us all. The response to it also shocked us.
Annoushka:
To the exhibition?
Melanie Grant:
Yeah. We had it in New York. When we went to it, when we were setting it up, we had some of the staff at Sotheby's come up to us saying, "We never thought we'd see us in that place." We had people in tears from security saying, "I can't believe this is happening."
Annoushka:
God, it is still incredibly shocking to think that was only a year ago.
Melanie Grant:
Yeah. I mean, on the day we were a mess. Everyone was crying. We were crying. It just represented just the top level of, I suppose, the industry. For us to all get there together was just beyond anything any of us had really hoped for.
Annoushka:
But I never... Because it came here, didn't it?
Melanie Grant:
No, it hasn't been here.
Annoushka:
Is it coming? You heard it here first, or not.
Melanie Grant:
Let's see what happens.
Annoushka:
Let's see what happens. Mel, going forward now, how do you see that as an industry, we can really help to support more and more black designers who still don't have the opportunities perhaps?
Melanie Grant:
I mean, there are lots of initiatives that happened in the last year or two. There's the funds to get people money to start off with, there are mentorship programs. I think the big fear is that we forget it now there's a war.
Annoushka:
That's why I'm asking. Yeah.
Melanie Grant:
The moment passes and we go back to how it was. I don't think we can go back to how it was, but we still have to keep coming up with things to champion the work because it is harder to be a black anything. The thing about the George Floyd and the Black Lives Matter and everything that happened was that there were the biggest protests in American history, and everyone took part in. That I thought I'd never see in my lifetime.
Annoushka:
Everyone took part, but the whole world listened, didn't they?
Melanie Grant:
Yeah. It was painful. Some people didn't want to see the statues thrown into the sea, and some people didn't want to have to deal with the ramifications of the privilege that exists. Obviously, if you're the person who's benefiting from all the privilege, you want it to carry on. But I just think a fairer society benefits everyone long term. When I talk to kids now, they see things so differently now. They have a much more even view of the world, I think, now.
Annoushka:
Do you mentor young women and young people?
Melanie Grant:
Yeah, I mentor quite a lot of different people. If they're motivated and they have determination, and I can see there's something there, and I can figure out a way that I can be useful, I often say, "Yes."
Annoushka:
I would love... I mean, I'm sure you already do, but I'd love you to come and talk to some of the kids at Prince's Trust-
Melanie Grant:
Sure.
Annoushka:
... in Brilliant Breakfast, where we really try to help them. Because one of the things is... The biggest thing is confidence, and that's the most... You can give them the confidence that they need, the rest will come a bit easier.
Melanie Grant:
You've got to get past the fear because it is... You're often told by people, you can't do something. Sometimes your own parents because they want to keep you safe, or sometimes the people around you because they don't want you to do what they can't do. Sometimes-
Annoushka:
Or they don't want you to fail.
Melanie Grant:
Sometimes it's the closest people to you who don't want you to have to go through it. You've got to just do it anyway. Once you get past that hurdle, you've got a chance.
Annoushka:
Your last charm is a Jamaican Blue Mountains.
Melanie Grant:
Oh, yes.
Annoushka:
This was a bit of a challenge actually, I'm not sure if I [crosstalk].
Melanie Grant:
Oh, you've done very well.
Annoushka:
I've done it really as a broken circular medal. It's more 2D than three dimensional, but the mountains are raised and almost like embossed out, I guess, would be a way to describe it. They've got, as you can see, graduated blue sapphires going to gray diamonds-
Melanie Grant:
Oh, nice.
Annoushka:
... until we get to the bottom mountain where it's brushedyellow gold. The two halves, when they're separated, will meet perfectly together when they're put back together. I'm not sure if anyone's going to be able to understand what that looks like.
Melanie Grant:
We know.
Annoushka:
But tell me about these mountains.
Melanie Grant:
When I was 18, my mom took me to Jamaica, and my dad's never been back. My mom has had a love affair with Jamaica her entire life, and lived there at one point.
Annoushka:
Is that where they met?
Melanie Grant:
No, they met here.
Annoushka:
Okay.
Melanie Grant:
She took me there for my 18th birthday and we went with my aunt, Pam, their friend, Barbara, and my friend, [Nickay]. It was just a phenomenal experience. I didn't really know what to expect, and I felt totally at home. It felt like a spiritual kind of home really.
Annoushka:
Did you go and stay with friends or family?
Melanie Grant:
We stayed in a hotel. But again, we met so many characters. It's a different way of seeing life. Here, so much of it's about like what you're wearing, and it just isn't like that there. It's just much more... There's a freedom to it, I think.
Annoushka:
Sort of take me as you find me.
Melanie Grant:
A lot of my life has been about freedom. Yeah. Really liked it. We went into the Blue Mountains, which were obviously, there were mountain people and you'd be walking through the mist and there'd be some kind of Rasta guy just walk past you and say, "Hey." A dog would trail behind him, and then he'd be gone into the mist. It was so peaceful and tranquil up there, and still, and timeless, I just felt really content. It was like a meditative state really up there. Yeah. I just really felt at home.
Annoushka:
Were you surprised by that? Was it something about this dual heritage coming...
Melanie Grant:
Yeah. It felt like a connection. It felt like the two halves of myself came together. As I say, as a mixed face person back in the day, people were always asking you who you were, were you black, were you white? You had to choose. I never felt I had to choose. I always felt I was everything, I was both.
Annoushka:
Why would you have to choose?
Melanie Grant:
A lot of people want you to say you're one or the other. It's easier for people to just put you in a box and say, "Right, you're that," than to have to deal with a combination that is trickier. Again, now it's probably different because there are lots of mixed race people, but then there weren't many of us. From both sides, you get some people not really accepting you. It's definitely... I mean, I know lots of mixed race people who've never really connected to one of their sides and they just grow up in a place, and don't go to the other country. For me, I really liked going there early, and I really felt at home there. I was just part of a bigger whole, which really was quite comforting actually. Ever since going back, I've always liked and talked about and visited the Blue Mountains.
Annoushka:
It's weird that your father's never wanted to go back.
Melanie Grant:
It's complicated, I think. There's always a pressure to go back as the very successful person, and then suddenly all your family is somewhere else, and he's never really managed it. Now he's not very well, so he probably won't be doing any long haul trips.
Annoushka:
Yeah. Yeah.
Melanie Grant:
I would've loved to have taken him back, but...
Annoushka:
You'll continue to go back?
Melanie Grant:
Yeah. I'd love to go back. I miss it actually.
Annoushka:
Well, I've really, really enjoyed hearing about your journey. Thank you so much.
Melanie Grant:
I've loved it.
Annoushka:
Now when somebody comes in a 100 years or so, and finds this, your life in seven charms, these seven charms, what do you want them to remember you for? What do you want your legacy to be?
Melanie Grant:
Freedom.
Annoushka:
That's very simple.
Melanie Grant:
I think everything for me has been about that.
Annoushka:
It so has, hasn't it?
Melanie Grant:
Yeah.
Annoushka:
Yeah, what's next?
Melanie Grant:
I don't know. I mean, this is open doors for me, which I didn't ever conceive could be this good. I'm just going to ride it and see what happens.
Annoushka:
Have you enjoyed the last 8, 10 years more than the ones before?
Melanie Grant:
Well, it's funny, I went to see some kind of clairvoyant person many years ago.
Annoushka:
Oh, God.
Melanie Grant:
She said to me, "You get to 40 and your whole life is going to change, and you'll fulfill your destiny. Don't try too hard now, this isn't what it's going to be." I was like, "All right then. What happens at 40?" I feel like I've become something more. The writing for me has unleashed a creativity that has been breathtaking. I mean, it sets me on fire, in a different way to the other things I do, the curation. I love it all, but the writing is... Yeah. It's something about that. It's opened a part of my brain I didn't really know was there. I hope whatever's next, writing is part of it, because it's kind of something I feel I have to carry on with in some way.
Annoushka:
Well, you've found a complete passion, didn't you?
Melanie Grant:
Yeah. It's just like, it just comes out of me.
Annoushka:
My final question is, so I'm going to make you one of these charms as a thank you. I'd like to know which one it is.
Melanie Grant:
Oh. I'm torn between the spinning brilliant and black, the book cover feels a bit odd to wear your own book, a bit self-serving. Mordy no doubt will steal her charm with the lioness. So I'm going to go for pow, because it's like, the explosion really sums up all of it.
Annoushka:
I think that's really exciting. I'm really looking forward to making that, it's going to be really cool. You'll love it. We'll make it-
Melanie Grant:
Can't wait.
Annoushka:
Yeah. Yeah. It's going to be fantastic. Thank you so much. I really loved talking to you and looking forward to the next chapter.
Melanie Grant:
Me too.
Annoushka: Oh, I like that part. Thank you so much for listening to My Life in Seven Charms with me, Annoushka Ducas. If you would like to see all of the charms and illustrations that I've made for my guests, please go to my website, annoushka.com. If you have enjoyed this podcast, I would be so grateful if you could rate and review and subscribe, and also share with your friends. It would be such a help. Thank you so much to my producer, Robin at Fairly Media. See you soon.
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