Creative meets the man behind the silver!
My name is Chris Parry and I am a hubby, father and bespoke jeweller. I changed career when I was 30 and have been making bespoke pieces of jewellery for the last 13 years.
When did you begin and why?
I fell into my first job, and kept getting promoted. Ten years later at the age of 30, I was good at what I was doing. Well paid for it, but bored to death and didn’ t want to carry on in that sector. So I resigned, sold my car and used my savings to put myself through a degree in silversmithing and jewellery design. Whilst at university, you start to look at a way to make a living from the craft. The Internet back in 1999 was very fresh and I happened upon a website www. inspirals. co. uk and thought that I needed my own website to sell my jewellery. I couldn’ t afford to employ a website designer, so I bought three books. I read them on the train whilst I commuted to university, and taught myself website design. In 2000, I had my first sale to a guy in Northampton. I started on a homemade jewellers bench in my basement with the spiders. I have since opened two small shops and I just bought my own workshop / shop in the village of South Darenth, Kent.
What is it that you enjoy about your work?
I don’ t work. It doesn’ t feel like work at all. I go to my workshop and make things for people, the day fly’ s by and suddenly it’ s time to go home.
The best way to describe what I do is this:
“ For no other …” www. chris-parry. co. uk
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