A Bermudian architect living in London is rapidly making a name for herself, not in building skyscrapers or homes, but in jewellery design.De Anna Kiernan originally started training as an apprentice goldsmith at Walker Christopher Limited in Bermuda at 17-years-old. A few years ago she went to London, England, to study special jewellery design, but her interests took a different turn and she obtained a degree in architecture at Central Saint Martins University of the Arts, in London.“After that I decided I still really missed working with my hands and making things directly rather than using computer programmes,” she said. “With architecture you are very detached from the process of making and designing. I went back to jewellery and received a Master's degree in research. This allowed me to draw parallels between my two different backgrounds which led me to jewellery.”Now she talks about what she does with jewellery in terms of “building on the body”. Her sleek necklaces and chunky rings curve to a woman’s contours. She likes to custom designs different pieces so they work well with the individual who is meant to wear them.This year she launched her first collection as an independent jewellery designer and maker. Her collection is divided into smaller collections based on colour, including, colour, gold, white, black and neutral.“It is not about adorning yourself for a display of wealth,” she said. “I start with the body as my canvas. I often take moulds of the body to inform the design of the piece. I am very focused on how the piece fits the woman. I do mostly necklaces, because I feel that is the biggest statement area for jewellery. The neck is one of the most interesting parts of body to build a piece of design around.“I don’t work with stones much, although right now I have started working with black diamonds and citrines. It is not so much about the stone, but how it works with the colour balance of the pieces I am creating at the moment.”Ms Kiernan said she herself does not wear a lot of her own jewellery, because she is more interested in making something special for other people. However, she does have a few pieces that she wears all the time.“I like the sculptural neck pieces that I create,” she said. “I tend to wear quite bold statement chunky rings. Often, I wear the same jewellery every day. It is part of getting dressed.”She has been inspired by other jewellery designers such as David McCaul, based in London. His work is also minimalistic, with clean lines. Like Ms Kiernan, he also makes a direct link between the design and how it fits with the body.“His work has a kind of simplicity and honesty that I find intriguing,” she said.Ms Kiernan said she has thought about coming back to Bermuda, to start her own business, but has hesitated, because she is not sure how normally conservative Bermuda would react to her work.“In London, you have such a mix of people who are open to bold statements and are willing to make bold statements through what they wear in fashion and jewellery,” she said. “I am not sure if Bermuda would have a market that would be open to this sort of thing. If someone locally wanted to purchase something, they can purchase it online.”The Internet and social networking sites have proved to be very important to the business end of her work. She has a Facebook page, and also Tweets about what she is doing, to attract interest.“There is so much opportunity to network and find people,” she said. “That has been a big part of how far I have come to this point.”Two years ago, Ms Kiernan won a design competition organised by a Swiss company called Adler. She has spent this year launching her business. Next year she hopes to enter more design competitions in the United Kingdom and abroad.“While I was doing my Master's degree I was working for a jewellery gallery in London called [AT]Work Gallery,” she said. “I was the jewellery co-ordinator for the gallery. I oversaw the marketing and what designers we were hosting. I also worked for quite a large British brand called Dower and Hall for Liberty. I was the assistant manager there for one of their jewellery concessions.”Working for these two very different entities gave her a good look into both small scale independent jewellery promotion and more commercially focused jewellery operations. She found that they are two completely different worlds.“It helped me to decide where I would like to be placed now and over the next five years,” she said. “I would like to stay independent, but would like it to be highly commercially viable in the near future. It showed me what you can do as an independent and how you can move it forward into a lucrative business, but retain some sense of genuine design and not just follow the path of mass produced goods. I want it to stay more genuine than that, if I can.”Ms Kiernan said she really enjoys interacting with clients, getting to know their personalities, and figuring out how to make something special for them.She described her work as “on the affordable side”. Her main commercial range starts at £78 ($122.40) and goes up to around £215 ($337.38). She also works a lot in silver and gold and that can range up to £10,000 ($15,692).“The commercial line I do is gold plate brass or gold plate silver,” she said. “I do the solid gold by commission as well which puts the price up quite significantly. I actually have two clients from Bermuda right now, that I am working with, and I would love to have more.”For more information about De Anna Kiernan see her on Facebook or see her website at www.deannakiernan.co.uk .