Anna Jewsbury’s London-based studio Completedworks offers up a world of colour, charm and inspired objects. These range from sculptural earrings to molten-looking glass jugs and puffy vases cinched with pearl necklaces. In her work, Jewsbury places a premium on the idea as opposed to the medium. Perhaps it’s that restless, searching energy that encouraged her to move the brand, which started with jewellery in 2013 before later taking on homeware and leather handbags, into the world of furniture, too. 

Jewsbury built her first piece of furniture when she was renovating her London home three years ago, using the scrap materials that had been left behind by her builders. Fashioning a tiered shelf out of polystyrene, she found that her design language translated well to a larger scale. “Jewellery is so small and intimate,” she says. “But it’s satisfying to work on something bigger.” 

She is getting ready to present her first furniture collection at Alcova, the emerging designers’ showcase at Salone del Mobile. The five pieces will be on show in the grand Villa Borsani in Varedo, an hour’s drive from Milan. Like all Completedworks designs, each features fluid lines and a dose of humour. “There are elements here of things that we’ve done before, with materials imitating fabric and exploring folds and movement,” says Jewsbury, gesturing to the pieces on the ground floor of her London atelier. “It’s fun to see how my designs manifest in different ways, from an earring – which, in a way, is a tiny sculpture – to homeware, which becomes more functional. And now, furniture.” 

One piece in the collection, a patinated bronze chair, has a spine that’s made to look like tied rope. While it appears too delicate to sit on, a photograph on the studio wall shows a sturdy man “testing” it. The line also features a bench, a side table and a larger coffee table, which all, by contrast, look as though they’re made from heavy metal. Think again: bonded clay and silver nitrate coat lightweight polystyrene. “You don’t quite know whether it will be squishy or hard, light or strong,” says Jewsbury of her designs. She has only created prototypes so far, though she hopes for limited-run collections that will be sold alongside her jewellery and homeware. While moulds permit the bronze pieces to be replicated, the polystyrene-and-silver pieces will each have to be specially made.

At this stage, jewellery still makes up about 80 per cent of Completedworks’ sales. Time will tell how furniture will fit in. “Customers now like to buy across different categories,” says Jewsbury. “They want to come back and discover something new.” For her, experimenting is also just part of the fun. “I just want to create pieces that make you do a double take – the kind of designs that you don’t understand until you slow down and look more closely.”
completedworks.com