Jewellery has a vocabulary problem. Solid gold, bonded gold, plated gold. Lab-grown diamonds, sterling silver, cubic zirconia. Now there’s waterproof jewellery too, which raises the obvious question of how. Most of us nod at the counter, buy what we like and hope the words meant what we assumed.
Jules Robinson was in the same boat. She says time with the team at Bevilles made her realise how much there is to know about what you’re buying. “We don’t always know what they really mean or what makes one piece different from another,” she says. The result is a collaboration in two parts, and the more interesting one is the education.
Jules’ Jewellery School is a five-part digital series with Robinson behind the jewellery counter, working through the questions people tend to keep to themselves. What separates solid, bonded and plated gold? What makes a lab-grown diamond a diamond? How do sterling silver and cubic zirconia differ? What’s the technology behind waterproof jewellery? The answers come from Bevilles’ buying and merchandise teams, relayed in Robinson’s chatty, unfussy style, and she’ll also share the pieces she loves and how to choose jewellery that works for you. It’s an unusual move for a retailer to explain the difference between its gold types in public. And shoppers will probably benefit from it.
That brings us to the second part, the Jewels by Jules Edit, which Robinson curated from across the Bevilles range. It spans lab-grown diamonds, gold, sterling silver, cubic zirconia and pieces made for everyday wear. She says she picked things she would genuinely wear, and that people will be surprised by some of the finds.
Bevilles has some history behind it. It began in 1934 as a homewares store on Melbourne’s Bourke Street and grew into a national jewellery retailer, with 36 stores across Victoria, New South Wales, South Australia and Queensland, plus an online shop. Today it sells lab-grown and mined diamonds alongside gold, sterling silver and cubic zirconia. And it joined the Michael Hill Group in 2023. It says it wants to be Australia’s leading destination for affordable jewellery, and that’s the context for the series. At that price point, knowing what you’re paying for matters.
Dimity Edwards, Bevilles’ Senior Marketing Manager, says Robinson was chosen because she did the homework: she spent time with the product and the people rather than simply stepping in front of a camera. The brand, she says, has been part of Australian jewellery retail for more than 90 years, and there is plenty about its range that customers don’t know.
Teasers started on Thursday, and the full reveal lands today, Sunday 11 October. The Jewels by Jules Edit is available online at Bevilles and in store, and the Jewellery School episodes will appear across Bevilles’ digital channels. More details here.
