About Silverwood
Every piece begins somewhere. This is where.
Claire de Bezenac -Founder & Designer
I was looking for jewellery that was natural but precise. Wood, not plastic. Sterling silver, not plating. Nothing rustic, nothing decorative. At the quality level I had in mind, it didn't exist. So I started drawing.
The French in me has always been the editor. Don't show the effort. Make it look effortless, like it's naturally you. That's an ethos I've never questioned. Alongside it is everything else: years of moving between very different worlds. India, Indonesia, Russia, Northern Europe. That movement gave me an instinct for contrast, and warmth and colour, for texture and material, for the way richness and simplicity can sit alongside each other without either having to compromise.
I knew I wanted to work with wood and sterling silver. Very few people were doing it. The first couple of jewellers I approached sat on the project for months, then told me it couldn't really be done. My heart sank briefly. Then I kept looking. The right person understood immediately: the precision, the luxury, the restraint. We built the first prototypes together. Silverwood was born in those sessions.
Finding the right woodturners took time too. Many of the wooden elements are hand-turned and hand-polished to specifications that don’t exist anywhere else. No one else is combining these materials at this level.
I design every piece I would want to wear myself. Nothing fussy, nothing unneeded. Always pushing just far enough.
Claire de Bezenac, Founder and Designer
By Design
Restraint is not an absence. It is a decision. Every line that isn't there was removed deliberately. Every line that stayed had to earn its place. There is nothing in a Silverwood piece that doesn't need to be there. Getting to that is much harder than it looks.
The forms are sculptural and confident. The detail is stripped to only what serves them. Scale is how I push without complicating. A large smooth sphere of bubinga says more than anything decorated could.
Every design starts by going further than it needs to. The question is always how far, and when to stop.
The piece I'm trying to make is the one you put on and feel like yourself, only slightly more so. Not a transformation. Not a costume. Just a shift: a bit more interesting, a bit more considered, a bit more you.
Wood & Silver
Wood isn't taken seriously as a jewellery material. The perception is that it's rustic, common, not precious enough to sit alongside precious metals. I disagree with that entirely.
Bubinga, walnut, sycamore. These are extraordinary materials. The colour, the grain, the warmth against skin. No metal comes close. Wood is a noble material that has simply been underestimated. There is something quietly fascinating about pairing it with silver, too. One material is shaped by heat. The other is destroyed by it. That
tension is in every piece.
Getting them to work together takes real skill. Wood moves with temperature and humidity. Silver doesn't. Joining them so the piece holds beautifully through years of wear took considerable development. The junction is where the craft lives.
The silver is not decoration. It is structure. It holds the wood in place and gives it an edge it couldn't have alone. What they make together isn't something you'll find anywhere else.
Made This Way
Every piece is handcrafted in small batches by skilled craftsmen in the UK. Keeping production local isn't just about quality. It means I can be involved at every stage.
We work slowly and deliberately. Some pieces are made to order. A piece you'll wear year after year deserves more care than one designed for a season.
Planting Trees
With every piece of Silverwood jewellery sold, we plant a tree through our partnership with One Tree Planted, a non-profit dedicated to global reforestation.
This is not a carbon offset scheme or a marketing gesture. It is a practical acknowledgement that what we take from the natural world should be returned to it. Wood is at the heart of everything Silverwood makes. Planting trees is the most honest response we know.
One Tree Planted works in forests that need it most. When you buy a Silverwood piece, a tree is planted in one of them.
We don't claim to be perfect. But we do what we can, where it matters.
Testimonials
"I love things that are different, that don't follow trends, that I can wear year after year — and this is one of those things."
"The process of ordering, follow up and delivery could not have been more efficient and thoughtful."
"I wore it for a wedding and so many people commented on how unique and beautiful each piece was."
If something here has caught your attention, whether it's a piece, a material, a question about how something is made, write to us. This is a small studio and every message comes to me directly.
— Claire