Hello, is anyone there?

An introduction of sorts. I've been meaning to start writing things down for a while. And with some encouragement from my bestie Nina, here I am.

Not in a formal way.

I suppose this is a space to keep a record of what I’m making, what I’m drawn to, and everything that seems to gather around it. Jewellery is only part of it. There are conversations, books, places, things (I love things), and the occasional idea that refuses to leave.

I have, at times, wondered if this all feels slightly self-indulgent - mutterings about me, my life, and what I’ve done with it. But perhaps, and more likely, there are useful learnings somewhere in all of it. These lessons haven’t come from a book, but from doing. From mistakes. From continuing anyway. That feels more real.

If one person comes away with something useful, then it’s worth it. Even if it’s something small. Like a very good tinted SPF. (ColourScience, for the record. Recommended to me in a buying meeting by a very cool buyer. She knows.)

This is also, if I’m honest, a slightly terrifying step. Writing things down. Allowing them to be read. Potentially judged. Adding my thoughts to the universe and not knowing what comes back, if anything. What if no one reads it. Or likes it. Or subscribes. (Insert tumbleweed.)

But perhaps that’s not the point. Maybe it simply becomes a quiet record. An online journal of sorts. And that, in itself, would be enough.

Who I am.

My friends have always called me Rocky, and my last name is really First. I was Roxy for a time, but had something of a hard reset when I started my business. It felt more on brand, but more importantly, more like me.

I’ve spent the better part of my adult life building a fine jewellery brand from nothing - one that has grown into a multimillion-pound business since 2018. No handouts, no rent quietly being paid for me. No formal investment, no safety net beyond my own tolerance for uncertainty. Just instinct, persistence, and a willingness to continue long past the point where stopping might have been easier. Decisions made alone, risks carried quietly, and the constant negotiation between conviction and doubt. Everything it is today was built the slow way - through consistency, resilience, and an unwillingness to let go. Sprinkle in a bit of lunacy, too.

I use the word founder because it’s accurate, but I’m aware it only tells part of the story. Before and alongside that role, I’m a person.

It’s a strange thing, naming your business after yourself. It feels both obvious, and the most authentic choice. An eponymous jewellery brand, yet if you go on our socials or website, I’m not really there. You’d recognise my bulldog, Boicey, before me. I don’t talk to camera on ear stacks, even though I’m told I probably should.

But my business was never about me. It was about creating beautiful things for people to wear, to treasure - things that might make them feel something. That’s why our raison d’être is You First, Forever. It’s about our clients, not me.

The brand is an extension of me, but it was never meant to centre me. I create for others.

Perhaps this is the place where I exist more fully. Where I can be myself, and say what I really think, without worrying about how it affects the work. And maybe, after a decade, I have something to contribute after all.

I’ve always wanted to work. I liked earning money, and the independence that came with it. Before my career formally began, my parents ran coffee shops (for a time), and I worked there - running around, watching, absorbing more than I realised at the time. Work was never abstract. It was talked about around the kitchen table. Constant, and necessary. I enjoyed it.

After University, I went on to work in the luxury industry for over a decade before starting my own brand. Before leaving my last job, I asked my boss, who started a very large, very successful business, what he attributed his success to. He wrote down one word in his book and handed it to me. His handwriting was almost illegible, but the word was either persistence or perseverance. Possibly both. It’s still close by.

And here I am. Still going.

Funnily enough, a few years later, a great friend, one of the kindest and smartest people I know - has also been there since RF began. He has seen me through the stress, the overwhelm, and the moments of questioning everything. Always quietly reminding me how well I’ve done, and how proud I should be of myself, even when I couldn’t see it. I’m sure there were times he thought I was crazy, watching the level of risk I was willing to take. Sam was the one who shared the quote below, which now sits framed beside my desk, a constant reminder. The same advice, returning in a different guise.

The industry I work in is, honestly, tough. The people, the pace, the energy of it. There are a few individuals who make it worth it, and I hold onto those relationships closely. But there’s a sharpness to it that I don’t think I fully understood when I started. I began RF because I loved something a lot. I didn’t think too much about success, or scale, or what the future was supposed to look like. I just wanted to make something and see where it might go. It all began, alongside my 9-5, from pure passion.

I’ve been asked if I would do it all again, knowing what I know now. The truth is, I’m really not sure. It’s rough. The highs are very high, but the lows can feel catastrophic. There’s a particular kind of exposure that comes with building something of your own. It asks more of you than you would ever expect. There are no days ‘off’.

I’ve just turned 40, which felt both significant and seismic and there was, briefly, a (not so quiet) meltdown. Not so much about age itself, but about time. Whats been done with it, what hasn’t, and what still might be. I know it is a privilege to grow old.

I don’t have children. This is something that sits quietly at the edge of things, and sometimes not so quietly. After two recent miscarriages, it has become one of those experiences that reshapes you without asking permission. I’m not sure yet what it will come to mean long term. Not everything can be forced into clarity on your own timeline.

There is also something quietly confronting about being a woman and realising that, at some point (in your 40’s), you are expected to make a choice (if you haven’t already or if the choice has been made for you) - whether you want children or not and to live inside the meaning and consequences of that decision either way. I don’t have a crystal ball - I don’t know the right decision for me - will I ever? I have been told all my life that I am maternal and kind - so it makes sense for me to be a mother. It feels unfair that such a huge, life-altering decision, is bound so tightly to time, biology, and circumstance.

I have wonderful godchildren, whom I love. But having one of my own has always felt significant. The uncertainty around that is something I’m still learning to live with. I suspect I need to get out of my head but at the same time, wish I wasn’t on a timer.

Those I love, I love deeply. Those I don’t, I don’t spend much time pretending otherwise. I’m loyal, dry by nature, and deeply self-deprecating. My friends are my world, some of them I’ve known for decades now, long enough that they feel less like friends and more like an extension of home. I’m very aware of how lucky I am to have them.

My parents both live in South Africa now, they moved back about 15 years ago (I think) and my brother is in Dubai. I also have three younger half-brothers, but that’s a little more complicated, as life often is. I was born in South Africa, lived in Canada, and have spent most of my adult life in the UK. I was raised by an Italian mother and a Jewish father, both South African, which has given me a strong sense of identity, but also, at times, a quiet confusion about who exactly I am.

What I have found most difficult, though, is not having my family in the same country. We were always very close, and the distance has felt both disorienting and ungrounding, as though a part of my foundation exists somewhere just out of reach. I miss the small things: Sunday lunches, meeting for a coffee, the ease of being together without planning or time zones - or having to fly for 11 hours. I miss the feeling of being able to ‘go home’ - especially when you just want a break from it all.

The wonderful thing is, I have found family in my friends, and my home in James, my fiancé - though I still call him my boyfriend most of the time. We really should get married, for a huge number of reasons (he’s just the best and a babe), but I also really love the idea of calling him my husband. We live in London with my bulldog, Boicey (a rescue), who is nine this year (who obviously going to live forever) and increasingly certain of his own importance. He’s not wrong. He knows he basically owns me.

I care about clothes more than is strictly necessary. I care about objects, about meaning, about my mother’s pomodoro pasta, tennis (I used to have a mean backhand), striped shirts and animals, I LOVE animals. I care about building something that lasts, even if I’m still figuring out exactly what that looks like.

Most of my days are still spent in my office / our store on Walton Street (a street near Harrods). Work has been tougher recently, as anyone knows (and feels) owning a small business. Lately, I’ve found myself at something of a crossroads. Not in a dramatic sense, but in the quieter way that accumulates over time. Questions about where to go next. What to focus on. What’s worth building further, and what isn’t.

This feels like part of that process.

A place to keep a record. Of the work, and everything around it. Of what changes, and what stays.

Why you might want to be here.

I am hoping this becomes a space for people who understand (or are beginning too) that life isn’t linear, and that no one really knows exactly what they’re doing, regardless of how it may look from the outside. People who care about making things, building things, and occasionally questioning why they started in the first place (and some cool stuff to buy imo). Jewellery is part of it but so are thoughts, doubts, references, distractions and small moments that shape so much more than we realise. I guess, mostly, for those that value honesty, meaning and some kind of perspective - and who realise, that we’re all dealing with some version of the same things. I take work seriously, but not myself. And, occasionally, I can be quite funny.

Even if you stumble across this on your way to work, whilst your boyfriend is watching football (this will be prime writing time for me - I support Leeds now, apparently. Yes, they’re in the Premier League. No, I don’t understand the offside rule), or whilst you’re winding down after a long day, I hope it entertains you. Even just a little.

On writing here.

I’ll write here roughly once a week. Sometimes more, sometimes less, depending on what’s happening at work and everything around it.

Most posts will be free (I’ve yet to work out whether I will do paid posts - one day at a time). I’m hoping someone has read this far, so baby steps here. These will include studio notes, thoughts on building a brand, things I’m reading, places I’ve been, and whatever else feels worth holding onto. Occasionally, I’ll share more detailed process notes and early previews of new pieces too.

There won’t be a strict schedule. I’ve learned that forcing things rarely improves them. But you can expect honesty, consistency over time, and a genuine record of what’s unfolding - not just the polished parts. I plan on keeping things real. It makes things more juicy, doesn’t it.

I also won’t be sharing content for content’s sake - i.e. what I had for breakfast. Off the record, I don’t. Yes, I know it’s terrible for me, but two flat whites do the job. Who needs weetabix when you’re running on anxiety and stress (just kidding -ish.)

I’m trying to not care what people think. Whether I’m cool, smart of funny. I suspect I care less than I used to, but probably more than I’d like to admit.

This feels like a good place to begin.

If you’re here, I’m glad you are.

See you next time (hopefully), I am signing off to go to the cinema with my mate Nina to watch Wuthering Heights. Oh and Happy Valentines.

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