April 11, 2025 |
Haymarket, the thoroughfare that connects the tourists and buskers of Trafalgar Square to Piccadilly Circus, may not be the most obvious location for diamond shopping. Then again, Dover Street Market is a rare gem itself. Not quite a department store, not quite a boutique, for 20 years it has been the kaleidoscopic emporium where Londoners can discover what Rei Kawakubo aptly describes as “beautiful chaos”.
If you’re reading this, chances are that DSM needs no introduction. You’ve likely wandered through its constantly evolving installations, reinvented twice a year in what the store calls tachigari (it means ‘beginning’ in Japanese). You’ve probably browsed the rails of Comme des Garçons and Junya Watanabe and enjoyed a slice of Rose Bakery’s famed lemon drizzle cake. Dover Street Market, both for those of us who call London home and those who are only passing through, is somewhat of a landmark, an alternative beacon of fashion: high and low, luxury and streetwear, edible and readable.
It is also a go-to for the world’s most interesting jewellery, DSM’s most profitable category. On a Tuesday morning, the retailer’s director of jewellery, Mimi Hoppen – who is wearing a grey cashmere sweater, pearls by Florian and earrings by Raphaele Canot – is showing me around the glass vitrines, which are perched next to a corrugated iron shack (it’s where the tills are) and a giant cardboard dinosaur statue containing pieces by some of the world’s most esoteric jewellers. There are cushion-cut diamond signet rings from William Welstead, pavé emerald bands from Shay, sculptural bone-like silver and gold clasps from Weinan Pan, Comme des Garçons’ punky safety pins dangling from granny’s Mikimoto pearls, bee-stung Solange Azagury-Partridge Hotlips rings in every colour of the rainbow, Francesca Villa’s gemstone-covered Mexican wrestling mask rings and a one-of-a-kind antique Boucheron brooch from Sandra Cronan, a renowned dealer in Burlington Arcade. A flower blooming in sapphires, emeralds and rubies, it probably clocks in at the price of a house in Zone 3. During my visit, a young jeweller, Sarah Ysabel Narici, a British-Italian designer and founder of New York-based Dyne, is here showcasing her new collection to staff and buyers – each of whom is trained to service all floors, which means they could tell you all about a priceless ring one minute and sell you a pair of trainers the next.
the store’s jewellery buy includes the likes of Solange Azagury-Partridge, Weinan Pan and punk-laced Comme des Garçons x Mikimoto collabs
This is far from the plush velvet salons, dim ambience and whispered reticence seen in the more traditional atmosphere of Bond Street’s jewellery boutiques or Place Vendôme’s hallowed haute joaillerie houses. Here, diamonds are lit by urban lampposts – a signature architectural DSM detail, designed by Kawakubo-san herself – right next to a stand displaying Comme des Garçons’ asphalt- and ganja-flavoured perfumes. There are no names of designers announcing the pieces; the idea is that customers choose what they like and discover more about the piece and who made it afterwards. On the shop floor today is one of Jake and Dinos Chapman’s signature dioramas: it’s an apocalyptic scene of miniature cavemen surrounding three gold dinosaurs by Cotswolds-based jeweller William Welstead. It’s available to buy for a small fortune.
Dover Street Market is beloved by everyone from cult fashion designers to royalty, and stars like A$AP Rocky and Rihanna, who come in after closing to shop, sometimes spend the whole night trying things on and leave as the sun starts to rise. “With a lot of the stores on Bond Street or wherever, there are very heavy doors, even metaphorically speaking,” says Dickon Bowden, vice president of Dover Street Market International, an employee since day one and the man responsible for running the business alongside Adrian Joffe, Kawakubo’s partner in life and work. “I think the fact that we could present [the jewellery] in a more relaxed and informal setting allows customers to discover pieces alongside one another and has a certain democracy to it. A piece from a well-established house might be sitting alongside something that someone made themselves on their kitchen table at home.”
from left: vice president of Dover Street International Dickon Bowden, Hitomi Takahashi, who oversees jewellery, Dickon Bowden, Hitomi Takahashi, who oversees jewellery, and the store’s director of jewellery, Mimi Hoppen; located on the ground floor of Dover Street Market, jewellery is the concept store’s most profitable category
Indeed, DSM has always presented an irreverent blend of high and low, transforming retail much in the same way that its founder, the omnipresent Rei, transformed fashion with her label Comme des Garçons. Back in 2004, she conceived the shop – it opened on Mayfair’s Dover Street before moving to Haymarket in 2016 – as an homage to Kensington Market, which was the thriving home of subcultural British fashion for more than three decades and closed its doors in 2000. The plan was to make an anti-glossy department store that would serve as a hub for her own designs, as well those by the designers that CDG partly owns, such as Junya Watanabe, Sacai, Noir Kei Ninomiya, the Los Angeles-based ERL and the New York-based Vaquera. It also aimed to platform the wares of other designers, from the fashion world’s greatest auteurs, such as Azzedine Alaïa, Nicolas Ghesquière, Phoebe Philo, Thom Browne and Karl Lagerfeld, to DIY items and streetwear made by the likes of Judy Blame, Jawara Alleyne and Palace.
In that sense, it’s a radical riposte to the glossy counters and plush carpets at more traditional department stores and brand flagships, where salespeople go above and beyond to cater to clients’ every need. DSM attracts a low-key clientele that ranges from royalty to students who just want to discover incredible designs. “Beautiful chaos” was the phrase chosen when forming the ethos of the store, and it remains at the beating heart of Dover Street Market. “There was a huge amount of freedom back then and, in all honesty, we were starting on this journey with the sole intent to try to create an amazing store and bring together amazing people with a shared vision or common values,” says Bowden. Over the years, it became a landmark, with its eccentrically dressed employees becoming just as much an attraction as the one-of-a-kind products on the shop floor.
from left: Mimi Hoppen, who started as a womenswear buyer in 2009; Hitomi Takahashi has been an integral member of the Dover Street Market team for 20 years
When Hoppen joined the business in 2009, when it was still small with only a team of 10 in the HQ, she was originally a womenswear buyer, but was swiftly handed the jewellery category and looked to a new generation of designers redefining the craft, such as Delfina Delettrez Fendi, Gaia Repossi and Melanie Georgacopoulos – over time, the brand incubated several of them as a platform for their fledgling businesses. “Sometimes, you would see a coat that had [taken] hundreds of hours [to create using] embroidery, but it would end up in the sale,” she says with a sigh. “I love that jewellery lasts for ever, you invest in it and then you can hand it down to your children or give it as a gift to a loved one on a special occasion, and it then becomes a part of their body.”
Dover Street Market’s jewels never go on sale, but the displays are changed every day to offer a new magpie selection for customers to discover. There are watches, too, but not the kind you’d find anywhere else: there are Audemars Piguet and Cartier timepieces entirely emblazoned with black diamonds and remade with Hebrew numerals by Private Label London Dubai Ltd; Rolexes remade in hammered gold by Thai designer Patcharavipa; classic alligator-strap Cartier Tank watches sourced and restored by Harry Fane. All of these sit alongside Casio styles, which clock in at just under a hundred quid. “We want to cater to everyone, not just in ready-to-wear, but also in the jewellery space,” says Hoppen. “It can be overwhelming when you walk in the store and the first thing you see is a £20,000 ring. So instead, the first thing you’ll see is an Emma Hawkins skeleton or a taxidermy bird.”
Solange Azagury-Partridge’s Hotlips rings come in every colour of the rainbow
The store’s loyal clients shop across all floors, often spending just as much on streetwear as jewellery – and interestingly, 90 per cent of jewellery sales happen in the physical space, according to Hoppen. “With Instagram, everything’s very readily available,” she says. “That’s one of the biggest challenges that we face. When you find something incredible that’s not suddenly going to be at every other retailer in the world, because people can just go on their phones [and buy it online]. That’s something we push quite hard. It’s that feeling that we have things from around the world that have that excitement and amazement, which people haven’t seen anywhere else.”
When Hoppen and Bowden discovered Castro Smith, a London-based goldsmith, for instance, they got in touch with him to see if he would consider making hand-engraved jewellery to be sold at the store. “He came into our office wearing a sweaty vest and carrying a bicycle helmet. He thought it was going to be an actual market – he had no idea what Dover Street Market was,” says Hoppen with a laugh. She adds that he started by making a handful of pieces that they trialled on the shop floor. “He didn’t know what a packing list or an invoice was because he had no retail experience and was just making things one at a time on his bench. He’s grown into such an incredible jewellery designer with a business that is in such high demand.”
Solange Azagury-Partridge’s Hotlips rings come in every colour of the rainbow
This is a fitting analogy for Dover Street Market, which still offers a kaleidoscopic blend of designs from different worlds in wildly varying materials and at diverse price points – a bit like, well, a market. Beautiful, chaotic and always full of discovery.
Taken from 10 Magazine Issue 74 – MUSIC, TALENT, CREATIVE – on newsstands now. Order your copy here.
HIDDEN GEM
Photographer ELLIOTT MORGAN
Text OSMAN AHMED
Grooming SKY CRIPPS-JACKSON at The Wall Group using THE ORDINARY
Production SONYA MAZURYK
Special thanks to DAISY HOPPEN
