On a very windy and wet Monday 28th of February 2022 I joined a group of six Thomas Lyte staff as they attended the GC&DC awards at Goldsmith’s Hall.
As part of an initiative for the company’s charitable foundation, our COO David Brewer was in attendance to present the awards for the Precious Jewellery in Gold, Platinum, and Palladium section with many of our attendees having acted as judges for the award.
As the Marketing Manager at Thomas Lyte, I’m very lucky to be invited to attend events, ready to learn from and admire the talent on show. This event was no exception, sensational and mind-blowing.
The Goldsmiths’ Craft and Design Council is a non-profit organisation founded over one hundred years ago in 1908. Today, the central aim of the Craft & Design Council is to promote excellence in silversmithing, goldsmithing, jewellery, and the allied crafts through its prestigious annual awards.
With 33 competition categories, The Council Awards embrace every aspect of craft and design, showcasing it annually as part of a unique national competition to which there is no parallel in the UK.
All submissions entered into the competition are judged by skilled and experienced practitioners drawn from their specialist fields of expertise within the profession. Through this process of peer inspection and scrutiny, work is endorsed by professionals to the highest standards and objectives set by the Council, thus validating the status and quality of these awards. Multiple senior members staff from Thomas Lyte’s silver workshops were called upon to judge in the weeks ahead of the ceremony.
As Royal Warrant Holders, silversmiths, and goldsmiths, Thomas Lyte feel an innate sense of duty to the industry and preserving and promoting the traditional skills that our craftspeople in London use every day.
Our foundation, The Thomas Lyte Foundation, exists to promote creativity, learning, and skill-sharing in both arts and crafts in Britain. Sponsoring the awards through the foundation felt like a wonderful opportunity to further its goals.
After the event, I sat down with my colleagues in attendance that night about the pieces that caught their eye this year. I have displayed our choices below.
There were so many fantastic pieces to choose from this year. Our supremely talented apprentice and member of our craft team, Idris, entered two pieces into the competition this year and won junior awards for both. It was my first time attending the awards, and as a non-craft member of staff, it was a massively eye-opening and wonderful experience to be able to view these pieces and explore how they were made.
With this years awards behind us, the gaze now turns to 2023. I’m sure as with this years competition, we shall see unimaginable innovation and skill, and it will be a highlight of the year for many of us and a chance to celebrate our industry.
Read about our press mentions and awards for the project
We have selected a number of case studies that demonstrate the broad range of our capabilities designing and making in precious metals.
