Chupi Sweetman: ‘We are the first generation to buy our own diamonds, owning our own future’

“We are in the business of hope, love and everything in between” is the mantra of Chupi Sweetman, who is sitting at a long wooden table in her golden kitchen, where gleaming, unlacquered brass cupboards run the full length of the room. The award-winning Irish jeweller, dressed stylishly in a long champagne dress, has more than one reason to celebrate this year as her eponymous brand marks its 10th anniversary.

Sweetman has recently been in the news for securing a €3.75 million investment to accelerate an ambitious international expansion, to include rebranding, opening a shop in Dublin in September and another flagship store in London in 2024. She is also this paper’s Business Person of the Month.

“We are looking at the next decade while honouring the past, but also looking forward to the next 100 years,” Sweetman says in her bright, cheerful way. The relaunch of the brand next Wednesday will unveil a new logo, new packaging and a concise collection of “one in a trillion” lab grown diamond earrings and rings in pink and white, a diamond necklace, and solitaire studs. A bigger collection will be unveiled for the opening of the Dublin shop.

On a more personal note, the 10th anniversary also coincides with the final touches on the transformation of a Victorian house in Dublin, bought during Covid, into a warm and welcoming family home. “We put money into the business rather than a house [at the beginning] and rented for 17 years,” Sweetman says. “The first house we bought in Harold’s Cross we sold in 2020 during lockdown, and we ended up renting in Cavan for six months. It reminded me why I don’t want to live in the country, because happiness is proximity to the people you love,” she smiles.

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The kitchen, overlooking the garden which is currently being redesigned and replanted, is part of two interconnecting rooms. The other is a playroom/family room filled with toys for her two-year-old daughter Aya, a comfortable pink sofa, and a wall decorated with work by female artists. A magnificent gilt overmantel, originally belonging to the house, was successfully reacquired at auction. Two terriers, Poppy and Rufus, patrol the windows.

As she and husband Brian Durney both work in the business (a computer engineer and web designer, he is the company’s chief technology officer), they have their separate work spaces in the house while her mother, writer and journalist Rosita Sweetman to whom she is very close, has her own apartment downstairs. “It’s intergenerational living, so it is very personal and having Mum gives us amazing support,” Sweetman says.

On Mother’s Day recently she wrote very movingly about motherhood on social media posts. ”I knew I would love my daughter Aya long before she came into the world, but I didn’t expect the fierce burning love that I now recognise as my mum’s...” The birth, originally intended to be at home, ended up in hospital during Covid because of health complications. “We had a terrifying last few days and the gratitude that both she and I were alive was intense. I see now how my mum loves us,” she wrote.

For someone who grew up in Wicklow in a forest on the side of mountain “one thousand feet over sea level”, home schooled with her brother Luke by Rosita, she is quick to acknowledge that her upbringing gave her confidence and self-belief, “and the ability to think that I could do things”.

“Mum praised what we were good at – a bit like training a plant! But she never said you can’t do that,” Sweetman recalls.

“I can’t sing, and played the piano and violin for a short while but gave them up. I struggled with languages, but maths was my favourite subject. I like to do things I do well. Cooking and design are the passions in my life, the same two I had when I was 17.” Her book, What to Eat When You Can’t Eat Anything, which she wrote in 2004 with her brother Luke when they both were suffering from allergies, remains in print.

Sweetman’s entrepreneurial skills emerged early. She began making clothes on a Singer sewing machine when she was five or six years old, and at 21, while still a student of fashion in Sallynoggin College of Education, she was scouted for Topshop, the youngest designer ever taken on in the heady days of Jane Shepherdson’s creative leadership of the London high street store. It was a fiercely competitive work environment. “You had three weeks to hit targets or you were out,” Sweetman says.

“I liked to watch people trying on a dress – that transformative moment. We were solving the Friday night problem – my job was to make sparkly dresses that you could twirl in. I remember the hype and joy of retail at Christmas, but on St Stephen’s Day when you looked at the same stock, it was changing from front facing to being lined up along racks – it was all going to landfill. I left [at 27] because I felt unease at what was going on.”

Brian, whom she met when she was 16 years old, proposed to her during a trip to Montpelier with a grey diamond ring in recycled gold that he bought in New York. “I felt I owned a piece of the future, and that any daughter of mine would own that ring,” Sweetman says. “It was such a profound feeling. I spent one further year in Topshop, but knew in my heart and head that it was not right. So I decided to start making jewellery.”

After two years at Cormac Cuffe’s jewellery school in Monkstown, the first pieces she made and sold were a little wren necklace, a tiny swan feather ring, and an emerald set on a twig ring, typical of her lighthearted and playful approach to design.

The business grew, initially through selling in the Loft Market in Powerscourt (later run by designer Kate Nolan, who remains a business partner). From there she moved to Cow’s Lane. “But I always knew I wanted to be global,” Sweetman explains.

“I went for Going for Growth, the female entrepreneur programme run by Paula Fitzsimons on entrepreneurship and equality – for every one female founder, there were 15 male start-ups. The data today is saying one woman to four and a half men. Endeavour Ireland’s Scale Up Programme for Women Entrepreneurs inspires founders to dream bigger. You learn that you are not alone. I have done eight or nine of these professional development programmes, and am obsessed with education and development.”

The business grew “with an aggressive organic model”, Sweetman says. “We did not take in any investors. You need an organisation chart, a structure for the business that involves marketing, sales, customer experience, design, technology, production, finance – clear departments, and the challenge was always what are the problems you are trying to solve?

“It was the biggest moments in people’s lives – love, hope and everything in between. Engagements, weddings, babies, anniversaries, but there are also moments of loss, grief, empowerment, divorce. And a piece of jewellery is a piece of the future. That was the why.

“I am obsessed with the why and not the what. Is it the day that I say yes? Is it my 10th anniversary being sober? It is why people buy things that has driven the business. Who are we serving, and why are we serving them? We get to hear the most insane stories, and we tell some of them publicly. We hear the private journeys that people go through, their secret stories.”

In 2017, a year to remember, the business turned over €1 million. “Just after the Brexit vote, we were stocked in Maceys in the US, in Fenwicks in London. It was gold plated sterling silver, affordable luxury, but I knew that the business would not survive another recession,” Sweetman says.

“We needed to pivot, and so we turned Chupi into a luxury, fine jewellery brand. It had to change. So we went from selling pieces from €100-€400 to fine jewellery from €400 up to €30,000 – for a very rare pink diamond.” Collections have names like Evil Eye, North Star, Love is All, and You, Me and Magic. The North Star necklace is the best seller.

Along with the many facts and figures at her fingertips, Sweetman points out that 80 per cent of fine jewellery sold in shops is non-branded, made by small independent jewellers. She identified development opportunities for her own brand to grow, opting for a more sustainable and ethical approach using recycled gold, recycled and lab grown diamonds.

“The diamond industry artificially introduces scarcity to keep prices high, and I wanted to disrupt that. We buy carbon neutral diamonds from labs in New York, which are chemically and molecularly identical to natural diamonds,” Sweetman explains. Gemstones like tourmaline, emeralds, sapphire and diamonds are acquired on buying trips, “and we will start designing with them and put emotion into the story. I am really good at storytelling.” She also removed Russian diamonds from her supply chain following the invasion of Ukraine, before some of the biggest international jewellery brands such as Pandora and Tiffany.

In terms of current jewellery trends, two-thirds of customers are women buying for themselves or with their partners. “Over half of couples now come in together, and that means they are making bolder choices. You are seeing that everywhere. We are the first generation to buy our own diamonds, owning our own future, and that has not been recognised before.”

Technology has also played a significant part in her success. Having started as a digital direct-to-customer brand, half of their revenue is now generated from online sales. “We now have a global business – 69 countries are shopping with us,” she says.

Customers anywhere in the world just have to lift up their phone, take a picture of their hand to try any of the rings virtually, and even make one-to-one appointments where cutting edge technology and macro cameras mean they don’t have to visit a physical location for a consultation with a salesperson. “Augmented, mixed and virtual reality play together and are part of our strategy. Retail now is part of a hybrid journey,” Sweetman says. “We have connectivity, community. I can talk to a quarter of a million people in one social media post.”

The company is also embarking on an ambitious blockchain project to register public ownership of Chupi jewellery in perpetuity. “Blockchain is basically writing something in a book except the book is publicly accessible.

“If you buy a ring from us, on the inside it is assayed at Dublin Castle with three marks – the Lady Hibernia (the mark of Dublin Castle), the maker’s mark and the purity of the gold and this registry is kept in the castle.

“For the next generation we will give you an NFT (a non fungible token) which is proof of how it is made where it was made and gives you ownership forever. If ownership changes, we can change that on the blockchain. It is a high value lifetime project, but basically a public registry.”

Sweetman is evidently very comfortable with projections, spreadsheets, management, design, 3D printing, technology and finance and everything that goes with establishing and maintaining an international business; she attributes a love of economics to her father John Pell, a development economist formerly with the World Bank, and her sister who is another executive in the World Bank.

Sweetman now employs 50 on the team, including five in London and 20 in studio, and partners with manufacturers in Ireland. “Jewellery is cast in Dublin, set and finished in Wicklow, Wexford and Kildare. We have five makers in Dublin and indirectly employ 15 elsewhere,” she says. It takes about six weeks to make one piece.

Finding space for both her personal and professional lives that are intrinsically tied together is a constant challenge. “Especially since it is my name on the box. But I love the public part of what I do, and friends and relations are not public,” Sweetman says.

“I have a really private group of friends, many of whom live nearby and we meet regularly. I have had to set boundaries for myself – I don’t work on Sundays and I recognise that people in my life need privacy. Airbnb is my hobby time with those I love – my happiness. I plan two trips a year.

“What keeps me awake at night is ensuring that everything we are delivering is the best. It is a huge privilege to give people the opportunity to honour certain moments. We are in the business of hope because we hope for a better tomorrow. Even in darker days, I am always optimistic. And there is always a Margarita on Friday night.”